Left hand slaps

[Congadelica]

Just dug out this nugget of a very informative and well explained Vid from our friend Derbeno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7fA8abimD0

The exercises are a great way to go HTH

marco

[Roka]

Anyone have a good exercise for working out left hand slaps?

Check this one:

The "Stoned" Hand-drum tutorial

Great exercises.

[OLSONGO]

What developed my left hand slap is the open tone slap slap and alernating from left to right in a 6/8 feel.

It goes

you can sing it R= CU L= CA R= CA
L= CU R= CA L= CA

or R=Open L= Slap R= Slap
L=Open R= Slap L= Slap

Paz OLsongo

[Amber]

Hi Roka,

great exercises indeed! Thank you very much for that link.

:p Amber

[Firebrand]

I actually am right-handed, but I learned how to play congas watching Giovanni Hidalgo, and learned how to play left handed. Don't ask why, but I still have a stronger left handed slap.

I was working on developing my slap for the other hand and I actually made a discovery that helped a lot.

I mentally focused myself into thinking that most of the force of my slap would occur in the middle joint of the middle finger. After going through with the whipping motion, I thought about making sure that the final impact occured mostly at the middle joint of the middle finger (although index and ring fingers also made some impact as well).

I started applying this thought process to both hands and both IMMEDIATELY started to sound like a better slap. I informed my brother (who is a flute player, and is doubling on congas on some gigs) about this idea, and he immediately started to notice a difference in his slap playing.

Using this idea, I started with just the left hand and doing Open Tone, Slap, Open Tone, Slap, and so on. Then I'd do the same for the right hand. FInally, I'd alternate:

Open (right), Open (left), Open Slap (right), Open Slap (left). I do that exercise every day, alongside whatever 9 rudiments I'm working on that week.

That exercise and the mental picture of focusing the impact on the middle joint of the middle finger has helped IMMENSELY.

ANyone else had these results?

[pavloconga]

Here's a very good exercise for developing the left hand slaps as well as the left hand 'heel toe' action.

For a demonstration of this and many others get a hold of the vid 'Evolution of the Tumbadoras' by Changuito.

Pavlo

Attachment: http://mycongaplace.com/forum/eng/uploa ... _slaps.jpg

[JohnnyConga]

another good left hand exercise is doing this with the left as well as the right

5 STROKES T M T S P.. . .TONE. . MUFF. . .TONE. . .SLAP. . .PALM AND WORK FOR SPEED AND CLARITY. . .

ANOTHER I TEACH IS
H Tip H Tip Slap repeat . . . .Johnny Conga. . .