"The pitch of Pozo's drum was always low, adding to the timbre established by the bass and the bass drum"
leedy2 wrote:with all do respect when playing with 3, 4 congas (no hay Afinque)
leedy2 wrote:jorge wrote:leedy2 wrote:with all do respect when playing with 3, 4 congas (no hay Afinque)
Leedy2, I agree with you that lots of players who play 3 or more drums lack cadencia y afinque. But that is a characteristic of the players, not the number of drums. There is a tendency for some inexperienced players to jump to 3 or 4 drums before they have mastered playing with swing and cadencia on one or 2 drums, and they just keep on playing raggedy like that or get worse, substituting the novelty of multiple different tones for accurate timing and swing. Even so, there are definitely players who play 3 or more drums well who play con mucho afinque. Examples are Juan Bravo of Orquesta Ritmo Oriental, Daniel Ponce in his early recordings with Puntilla (before he tried playing "salsa"), Joel Driggs with early Rumbavana and Van Van. Even Giovanni Hidalgo and Anga, who are (were) all over 5 drums with tremendous chops, could play afinque on 3 -5 drums when they chose to. But all these guys mastered the basics on congas and/or bata before they went to 3 or more congas. Regarding Mongo's tuning, I don't think he tuned his conga particularly high, just high enough to get that killer seco.
Examples are Juan Bravo of Orquesta Ritmo Oriental, Daniel Ponce in his early recordings with Puntilla (before he tried playing "salsa"), Joel Driggs with early Rumbavana and Van Van. Even Giovanni Hidalgo and Anga, who are (were) all over 5 drums with tremendous chops, could play afinque on 3 -5 drums
jorge
All of these guys that you mention are what is called free spirit musicians or as know (Latin Jazz)and they are very good at what they do.They play more effect's, so as the they play the carry a note to an other drum like mathematic's that you carry a number. When you put them to play salsa or any music related to this they are lost and let me explain lost. Not that they play wrong they can not play with 2 drum to be tight with rest of band's percussion section or better to say they are playing stress.Here I posted a video with Giovanni you can see that he is lost with out 3rd drum he was forced to play here with 2 drum.Note as you hear this video note he miss or changes beat around that's is his confusion look for 3rd drum it not timing. And this happens to all that want to play with a 3rd drum when face to play salsa aplomada or to say tight, afincado .On video you see Johnny tell gio stay there and he is also stressed playing bell note.Mongo had a very unusual way of playing and tuned his drum a bit high and that was more due to way that he played ,his hands were small and fat so when he hit drums the bounce of drum and that was why you hear loud slap and drum sound low .
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