congaplace.com

I was viewing some bembe stuff on congamasterclass.com, and Michael Spiro had an example of bembe w/ sticks
he said was makawa. First off , it's really cool , but after watching some youtube videos of makawa I noticed the caja part was different than the one Mike taught, and the caja player used two drums.

The caja part Mike taught was your standard bembe caja part played with sticks , and the caja parts on the videos I viewed were off the hook. In fact, a little kid was playing in one of them just riffing his ass off, occasionaly going back to "one".

Anyone know if there is a basic makawa caja ride?

Btw, Conga masterclass is great , I've learned so much!!!

I think I know this bembe with sticks, I was taught it by a student of Micheal's who
used to teach in Japantown.
It uses 2 sticks for the cachimbo, one for the mula and one for the caja.
The caja open is on the one.

We just called it bembe with sticks though....

Check these kids out playing Makawa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oHDsAMZMtE

Yeah, those videos rock, I've seen them before, so that's makawa?
That's pretty much the way I learned to play bembe with sticks,
except the guy in the white drops an open note, that I learned to play,
I also think he's left handed because his sticking is opposite, that's
a fun way to play caja.

The way I learned to play this caja basic part in the Japantown class goes like this..

O-DBS-B-DBS-
r -rlr - l - rlr

all the right hand moves are with a stick, D stands for hitting the side of the drum
or rim or hardware, whatever. The S for slap is done with the stick hitting the head of the
drum while the left hand maintains pressure after the bass stroke.