From Poco de Caldas to Los Angeles: A Deep Dive in Brazilian Percussion w/ Ana Barreiro

Anna Barriero is a world renowned musician from Poco de Caldas, Brazil and has teamed up with Splice to create a brand new sample pack for Splice's Signal Path label. Ana leverages her experiences as a teacher at institutions such as the Musician's Institute in Hollywood, Stanford Jazz Camp, and Jazz Camp West in California as well as her experiences growing up in Brazil to deliver a variety of percussion loops and one-shots. Splice had the opportunity to sit down with Anna and talk about the creative process and inspirations behind her Brazilian percussion sample pack.

I'm from a small town in the southeast of Brazil called Poco De Caldas, and I grew up playing (music) in church. My dad was a huge fan of the Beegees and the Carpenters, so I grew up listening to that. Later on I went to school here in America and focused a lot on jazz and there's a different touch that jazz drummers have, so I think my sound is kind of a mix of all those things.

In my journey with music, I've always had teachers. When I started piano, I had teacher, and then later when I went to drums, I had a teacher as well. When I decided to be a professional drummer, I went to college for drums, and once I was done with my masters, I went to teach. I was teaching at Musician's Institute for some time. I learned a ton, not only from teachers, but also from the students. Just when you're teaching, you have to understand what you're doing and a lot of times we do things without understanding what we're doing. But if you have to explain to somebody, you get even deeper and more insight of why you do what you do and how you're doing it. And I felt like that really helped me on my formation also as a musician.

In this pack you're going to hear loops, grooves, and one shots. We have pandiero, which is a frame drum that you play with your hands. We have tambourine, we have agogo bell, if you're familiar with that. If not, get the pack and you're going to hear it. We got a lot of shakers and a lot of things that we lay down together when recording the sounds. We''re going to get a really nice mic set up on the drum kit so we can get really authentic sounds, all the dynamics and everything. What you're going to be hearing is as is if you're in the room with me and you're just tracking drums without processing, without much going on into it.

My inspiration for this pack are different rhythms from my country. I separated a couple of groups and a couple of rhythms that I think represent different parts of the country. I wanted to play grooves, that that there's a danceability to it because it comes from a country where people are just excited, and happy and ready to dance.

Be sure to check out Anna's pack and explore the different sounds from Brazil!