Bossa nova drum patterns.

10 bossa nova patterns at 120 BPM. Play one, change any step, take it to your DAW as MIDI.

Bossa nova is samba slowed down and played on a rim. The kick keeps the two-feel underneath, the hats or shaker tick in eighths, and the rim plays the bossa clave, a five-hit pattern that leans one way for a bar and the other way for the next. It is quiet music, and the pattern is quiet too: nothing on the snare head, nothing loud, everything in the placement.

Basic. Kick on one, the and of two, three and the and of four; rim on the bossa clave; hats in eighths.

Hat
Rim
Kick

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Two-bar clave. The rim clave across two bars, 3 then 2, the way it's usually played.

Hat
Rim
Kick

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Clave reversed. The 2 side first, then the 3: the same pattern turned around.

Hat
Rim
Kick

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With shaker. Shaker sixteenths over the basic pattern for the brushed feel.

Hat
Shaker
Rim
Kick

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Slow bossa. At 100, with the ride instead of hats and the kick kept to one and three.

Ride
Rim
Kick

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Toward samba. Faster, the shaker accented on the offbeats and a low tom doubling beat two and four.

Shaker
Tom low
Rim
Kick

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Rim only. The clave on the rim with nothing underneath, which is how a bossa often starts.

Rim

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With the ride. The ride on the eighths instead of the hat and a hat foot on two and four.

Ride
Hat
Rim
Kick

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Two bars with a tom answer. Bar two ends with the mid and low toms on the last beat, back to the clave.

Hat
Tom
Tom low
Rim
Kick

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Fast bossa at 150. At 150 the pattern is almost samba; the shaker takes over from the hat.

Shaker
Rim
Kick

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How a bossa nova beat is built

The kick

The rim

Hats in eighths

Then a variation: Clave reversed

Kick on steps 1, 7, 9 and 15: one, the and of two, three, the and of four, the two-beat samba pulse. Hats on the eighths. The rim plays the bossa clave: steps 1, 4, 7, 11 and 14. Say it as 3-3-4-3-3 sixteenths and it falls under your fingers. The two-bar version plays the clave properly: the 3 side in bar one (steps 1, 4, 7), then the 2 side in bar two (bar-two steps 3 and 6, or 19 and 22 on the grid), and the reversed version starts with the 2 side, which some songs prefer. The shaker version replaces hats with sixteenths for the brushed feel. The slow bossa at 100 keeps the kick on one and three only. Toward samba adds a low tom on two and four and speeds up to 140; one step further and it is the samba page.

More drum patterns

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Questions.

What tempo is bossa nova?

110 to 140 BPM counted in four, or half that in two, which is how it's written; the grid opens at 120. Slower and it becomes a ballad; faster and the pattern is samba.

Is the bossa clave the same as the son clave?

Nearly. The son clave's last hit is on step 13; the bossa clave moves it to step 14, one sixteenth later, which gives it the lean. Both are on the Latin page as well.

Should I use a snare?

Not on the head. The bossa rim is a cross-stick sound, the stick laid across the rim, which is why the grid uses the rim row. The snare head stays silent unless the song opens up into samba.

More free tools

All free tools →

Drum sequencer

Program a beat on a 16-step grid.

Drum pad

16 pads on your keyboard, your own sounds too.

Metronome

A steady click, and a click track to download.