Like I said: a lotta 6/8. That feel has always been one of the stronger elements of my playing, but I thought I’d see what happens if I do a whole lot of more work […]
Category: salsa
Snare studies for developing some Afro-Cuban bell patterns
There is so much heavy coordination involved in learning the Afro-Cuban styles that it’s easy to neglect simply getting the bell patterns right— which is a lot like playing jazz without spending any time working […]
Page of Guaguancó
Lately I’ve been whittling away at my ignorance of Afro-Cuban/Salsa drumming, and here we’ll look at Guaguancó (say wah-wahn-CO), or Rumba Guaguancó, a very distinctive and popular style I first became acquainted with via a […]
Page of Mozambique — UPDATED
I’ve been working with our earlier page of Mozambique quite a bit (yes, I do in fact practice the non-transcription stuff I post here), and thought it could use a bit of refining, so here […]
DBMITW: Manny Oquendo y Libre
Timbalero Manny Oquendo (1931-2009, seen here in red, playing bongos) playing a little gig with his group Libre:
Page of Mozambique
So here’s what we were setting up with that last thing— a page of Mozambique for the drum set: Work up each pattern individually until it feels good, and then combine parts as you see […]
Conga to Mozambique
Let me say up front that I’m always a little paranoid about venturing into Afro-Cuban music on the blog— I don’t have a lot of field experience playing it with knowledgeable people, and have had […]
Groove o’ the day: Chico Hamilton — Conquistadores
Here’s a little 60’s funky LA cha cha (or guajira? Or something— it’s not a standard style) from the relatively unsung drummer/bandleader Chico Hamilton. This is Conquistadores, from his 1965 album El Chico: The right hand […]
Podcast — Episode 6: Todd’s playalong tracks
Hey, we haven’t done a podcast in some time, have we? I’ve been doing most of my drumset practicing along with recordings recently— book exercises and everything— and I thought I’d share some of the […]
Page o’ coordination: Songo — 02
This is the companion to the recent Songo page, which I thought you might want to work on concurrently— it’s the same set of exercises, with the clave rhythm in the left foot: Reread the […]