Soca Calypso Drum Beat Lesson

Learn the Caribbean Soca Calypso Drum Beat

Here we’re breaking down a Soca calypso drum beat. This is a style of music from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean and in fact Soca is separate from Calypso although the two are very closely linked. In fact Soca has been described (by a Soca pioneer Lord Shorty – what a name!) as the SOul of CAlypso so you can see that Soca was born out of Calypso music.

The rhythmic originas of a Soca Calypso drum beat are found in Africa, like much of the music in the Caribbean and across South America. Within Calypso music there are sub genres and although it’s routes are in the dark times of slavery, the music evolved into carnival music and therefore has an infectious celebratory party feel.

Soca emerged later in the 1970s and took the vibe of Calypso but gave it a modern twist to keep the style alive. Since then it has seeped into modern rap, hiphop and other styles of music because it has such a dance style in the rhythm.

The standard Soca Calypso drum beat that we are looking at today is built around a four on the floor bass drum pattern; which is what makes it so useable as a dance style. Over the top of that is a hi-hat pattern on the first three sixteenth notes of each beat, opening on the fourth. We then add a very syncopated snare pattern and we get this amazing and unique sound.

But enough talk, watch the video below to get a feel for the rhythm and if you want to watch the video breakdown lesson with sheet music, scroll down and hit the button.

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