congaplace.com

Greetings everyone.....I saw Poncho Sanchez at a local college last night. Great performance. He combined traditional mambos, salsas, etc...along with some great jazz standards like "Straight, No Chaser". A real nice blend.
He gave a pre-performance lecture and someone asked him what kind of congas he plays and why. He plays fiberglass remos with synthetic heads (it's his own signature series ....I think he called it The "Ruff-n-Tuff" series). He basically said that he liked the small bottom holes so the sound would "shoot" out , and the rim placement. (they did sound nice) And, "to be completely honest" he said, "they make me alot of money." I aked him about micing in the studio....no suprise....sm57's just above the heads. Just thought I'd share.....Dave

My boss mentioned that Poncho played at his sister's wedding a little while back, before I even knew he was a conguero. I asked him about it recently, and as it turns out, my boss's dad was Poncho's high school music teacher in California when Poncho latched onto his first conga. I guess they're still close friends. Cool story, and the closest thing I have to a Brush with Fame

On the issue of conga choice and endorsements, I think good, experienced players (not even great ones) can take just about any conga on the market today from any drummaker and get great sound out of it.

There may be a difference between the congas they play in public and the set they prefer to use when no one's watching. But I'll bet that preference is only partly due to sound. Just a thought.

there are a few exercises for congas by Poncho Sanchez in chuck silverma's web page,( just informing people).

I found http://www.chucksilverman.com, but that's one nasty site. After about 5 min I gave up trying to find anything. Pretty much un-navigable, even if you follow the links that seem to be the right ones. Yeeeeech.



Edited By Bongo Boy on Feb. 15 2002 at 07:44

its at:

http://www.chucksilverman.com/cookbook.html

i dont think its that hard, just not clear