Rhythms › Latin American rhythms
Partido alto 1 (e) & (a 2) e (&) a | (1) e (& a) 2 (e) & (a)
Learn first Lesson 6: Eighth and sixteenth combinations Lesson 7: Syncopation and ties
Partido alto is a style of samba from Rio de Janeiro, with roots in jongo, an Afro-Brazilian music of rural communities, and present in samba since its early days. Partido alto songs alternate a refrain sung by everyone with improvised verses, often traded between competing singers. Musicians, especially in jazz, also use the name for the rhythm on this page, which the instruments accent together in a partido alto groove.
The rhythm spans two bars of 2/4, sixteen sixteenth notes, with seven strokes: four in the first bar, starting on beat 1, and three in the second. Toussaint lists the same seven-stroke cycle as a typical samba rhythm, and transcriptions show it on the agogô (a double bell) and on the drum kit, where Todd Bishop traces it to a part for the cuíca, a friction drum with a squeaking voice. It is written here in 2/4 as in Brazil, with the click on the two main beats; many North American drum books write it in cut time with eighth notes.
| Pattern | Count |
|---|---|
| Partido alto | 1 (e) & (a 2) e (&) a | (1) e (& a) 2 (e) & (a) |
| Reversed order | (1) e (& a) 2 (e) & (a) | 1 (e) & (a 2) e (&) a |
| Same rhythm in cut-time eighths | 1 (&) 2 (& 3) & (4) & | (1) & (2 &) 3 (&) 4 (&) |
Sources disagree on the starting point. Todd Bishop's drum-kit grooves and a widely copied agogô transcription start with the bar that begins on beat 1, as in the main exercise; other examples, including a common teaching illustration on Wikimedia Commons, start with the other bar, which begins on the 'e' of 1. Bishop suggests practising both. Some writers label the pattern 2-3 by analogy with Cuban clave, but that terminology is not part of traditional Brazilian practice.
Samba is felt in two beats per bar, marked by the surdo, and the partido alto rhythm sits mostly between them. In the usual order only beat 1 of the first bar and beat 2 of the second bar are struck; every other stroke falls on an off-beat sixteenth. Let the click play the surdo and keep your hand or foot moving on the beats so the off-beats have something to push against. Names are not always consistent: Rhythm Notes, for example, calls the bossa nova rim pattern a partido alto rhythm.
The last stroke of the first bar (the 'a' of 2) and the first stroke of the second bar (the 'e' of 1) sit only an eighth note apart across the bar line, and learners tend to merge them or lose their place. Count all the sixteenths, '1 e & a 2 e & a', until the shape settles. Another slip is landing the second-bar strokes on the beat instead of just after it, which flattens the rhythm into something much plainer.