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Hi, I just mounted 2 blocks near my congas.
Can anyone provide some usefull/nice patterns to practice/use ?

I like to go through various clave patterns with my left while keeping tumbao on my right hand. Tresillo, son clave, rumba clave.
-tresillo x..x..x.x..x..x.
-son clave x..x..x..x.x...
-rumba clave x..x...x..x.x...
-one hand tumbao ..x...oo..x...oo

I also sometimes do bembe bell with the same configuration, and also keeping the tumbao in 6/8.
-Bembe bell x.x.xx.x.x.x
-1 hand 6/8 tumbao ..x.oo..x.oo (you can also do it like ..O.oo..x.oo the capital O is a tumba tone, all others conga. It corresponds with the second note of the bell pattern, a.k.a the bomba.)

Another fun spot is playing bembe clave with the abakua low drum part. (which is still kind of tumbao) I usually do this with a stick on the side of the drum. Have fun trying to keep the stick part sounding like the down beat. It is really easy to flip this one in your head.
-Clave x.x..x.x.x..
-Tumba .m..o..m..o.

Good luck

It is also useful to be able to keep the high drum pattern for bembe
with one hand and the bembe bell with the other, especially when you want to
do bembe and you don't have a lot of players.

OS-OS-OS-OS-
x-x-xx-x-x-x

in the anga'mania video you can get some nice ideas from the maestro himself (r.i.p.)

Then there is always this guy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1xmZkwxzTI

Here's part of a 12/8 rhythm I learned from a group I studied with in a village called Nungua in Ghana West Africa. One player doesn't usually play 2 parts in Africa, but I worked out these 2 parts out of neccessity for a gig:

The left hand plays the drum with closed slaps and open tones, while the right plays the 12/8 bell pattern.
The drum pattern is common to quite a few other 12/8 west african rhythms.

Pavlo

Daniel Sadownick has really good technique and independence with a stick and hand.
Check out these videos: http://www.danielsadownick.com/video.html

youtube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ueeaaap8hzk

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cRn0s6h33zg

that's some nice music, congamyk
and i think it's my man gene lake on the drums, right?
tuff!

Daniel Sadownick - WOW!

Never heard of him before now - I have GOT to get out more.

I have found that "Bongo Drumming/Beyond the Basics", a book by Trevor Salloum has few pages of some really nice
conga/bongo/bell "rhythmic pictures" for 1 player.