Uploaded February 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The Palito is not a style of music, rather, it is an Afro-Cuban rhythm that was the inspiration for the Cascara pattern. The Palito pattern originated on percussion instruments only to later find its way to the drumset. It's presented using the clock or rhythm wheel method in order to facilitate the understanding of what is played by each limb. This is also very useful to understand what differents
grooves have in common or not.
I designed the Groove series to be a complementary approach to the traditional musical notation. It present some advantages to understand the structure of repetitive rhythms. The geometric shape of the rhythm is immediately visible and the properties are then easily recognized.
My goal with this series was to create a learning tool where the musician can spend more time practicing the rhythm and less time trying to figure out what to play.
To build this video series, i'm using After Effects for all the animations and Ableton Live to record, sequence and process the drum sounds.
Drum Grooves Collection :
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5wYPwL6FJKfdA00Ct2YP0TNxa8fXxjXW
If you want to learn more about the usefulness of that representation, there's a great book by Godfried T. Toussaint
called "The Geometry of Musical Rhythm".
The Palito is not a style of music, rather, it is an Afro-Cuban rhythm that was the inspiration for the Cascara pattern. The Palito pattern originated on percussion instruments only to later find its way to the drumset. It's presented using the clock or rhythm wheel method in order to facilitate the understanding of what is played by each limb. This is also very useful to understand what differents
grooves have in common or not.
I designed the Groove series to be a complementary approach to the traditional musical notation. It present some advantages to understand the structure of repetitive rhythms. The geometric shape of the rhythm is immediately visible and the properties are then easily recognized.
My goal with this series was to create a learning tool where the musician can spend more time practicing the rhythm and less time trying to figure out what to play.
To build this video series, i'm using After Effects for all the animations and Ableton Live to record, sequence and process the drum sounds.
Drum Grooves Collection :
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5wYPwL6FJKfdA00Ct2YP0TNxa8fXxjXW
If you want to learn more about the usefulness of that representation, there's a great book by Godfried T. Toussaint
called "The Geometry of Musical Rhythm".
