Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

A place where discuss about secrets, tips and suggestions for practicing on congas and to improve your skill and technique ...

Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby Anonimo » Fri Feb 18, 2011 5:02 pm

POST REMOVED BY THE AUTHOR
Anonimo
 

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby pavloconga » Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:04 pm

The fact is, music is always evolving and changing everywhere. Nothing ever stays the same. A long time ago, some incredibly creative people in Cuba created the guaguanco, mambo, columbia etc – all built on the foundations of their ancestors' rhythms from Africa. New traditions are being created as we speak - and they will continue to be as long as people are playing drums.

As an example, I saw with a number of visits over about 7 years to the same village in West Africa, was how the new up and coming players would take the rhythms (for example 'fumé fumé' or 'kpanlogo' rhythm) of their fathers and their peer groups and change them and innovate the rhythm to create something new. Adding new instruments or new moves and phrases for the dancers. The same thing is happening in Cuba.
I remember the drummers in Africa saying, 'that's old style, this is our new style'. Yet they still retained the essence, richness and creativity of rhythm. Imagine how much change and new rhythmic traditions will be created in the next 100 years with new groups of incredible young drummers all over the world.
User avatar
pavloconga
 
Posts: 546
Joined: Mon Dec 26, 2005 12:41 am
Location: Australia

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby Anonimo » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:59 pm

POST REMOVED BY THE AUTHOR
Anonimo
 

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby Dicemanb » Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:25 pm

Music has to evolve as long as we have ears and the knowledge.
IMHO we need to believe that anything that is strong will survive and anything that is weak will not be popular and will die off, Darwin style.
Long live the experimenters :lol: :lol:

Dice
Dicemanb
 
Posts: 178
Joined: Sun Jun 20, 2010 9:28 am

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby JohnnyConga » Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:10 pm

Cuban music is in constant evolution, and documented. I don't see anything wrong with 'inventing/creating" new possible dimensions in rhythm and percussion..Look what Puente did with Top Percussion and Puente in Percussion....that was inventive and creative and had never been done before in America...And to today nobody ,except for the Konga Kings, recordings have brought other percussionist together to do what had been done before...Mongo called them all, they all came, and they all recorded with him and for him..ex..Yambu-1957...I dont see any percussionist doing that today with each other...What i teach my students first and for most is that, what I teach, and give to them, I expect them to do the same with others thast may come to them to learn from,and to respect the knowledge and the cultures that also define the drum..Puente,Mongo, and many others have fused rhythms as I have even done on my last cd...also Rumba,Son,Guaracha and other 'dance' rhythms are being played today all over the world...in Europe alone there are 187 Latin bands, working all over and playing these rhythms to new generations that have fallen in love with the music and it's rhythms.
Japan has at least 35 latin bands at last count possibly more...and we cant leave out the other countries in South America that still dance to Son, Cha cha cha and mambo...the music is very much alive and well on the planet and it's UP TO US!...to do right by it and maintain it with Integrity.
User avatar
JohnnyConga
 
Posts: 3825
Joined: Mon Oct 29, 2001 7:58 pm
Location: Ft. Lauderdale,Fl/Miami

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby jorge » Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:25 pm

Leedy, I agree with you that, not well played, guarapachangueo can be a lot of noise. I would take it a step further and say that new rhythms can sound like noise even when they are well played. A lot depends on the ability of the listener/dancer/audience to know what they are listening to. If a person does not know what classic rumba is and listens to records without participating in rumbas, at first even the original Papines and Guaguanco Matancero classic recordings like Los Muñequitos, Los Beodos, and Los Rosales can sound like noise to someone who doesn't know what they are listening to. Once someone starts going to rumbas, learns clave, and learns to play and sing in clave, the music starts to make sense, and most of us would consider these old guaguancos to be the epitome of afinque, harmony and rhythm.

But those songs were mixtures of musical cultures and styles too, they were created and have not been there forever. The African rhythms from Abakua, Palo, Bembe and Yoruba Bata, plus other African music, are all there in the classic guaguanco. That mixture is also mixed with the decima, flamenco, and spanish lyrics from Spain. So fusion of rhythms and fusion of cultures in music is nothing new. In fact I would argue that rumba is fundamentally multicultural and NOT pure African or pure Spanish.

There is always resistance to mixing of cultures and creation of new forms, but once the new form is created and popularized, we fall into the illusion that the new form is correct, the only way to do it, and has always been that way. Danzon may be about as pure Cuban as any music, but it came from a fusion of contradanza and other European music with African rhythms and harmonies. And son came in part from danzon, a fusion of fusions. Now we think of it as old school, pure, and what we should be emulating. So the history of Cuban music, and probably all music, includes fusion as one of its main characteristics. Sometimes the fusion works and produces a new musical form that people love and that is successful, like danzon, son, guaguanco, mambo, cha cha cha, guaracha, salsa, songo, timba, and I would add, guarapachangueo. Sometimes the fusion doesn't work and produces a new musical form that people don't love, and that is not successful. It is all music, some is great, some is good, some is bad, and some is horrible.

Of course we all have different preferences. Some people can even listen to bachatas and Julio Iglesias all day without becoming physically ill. Some of us are incapable of that, but could listen to, and play, guaguanco all day every day. And some of us even have learned to appreciate guarapachangueo. I am told that Markito (one of the creators of the guarapachangueo tumbador) got tremendous resistance and criticism in Cuba when he first started playing his new style. In 1995 when I first heard Rapsodia Rumbera I couldn't feel it, there was no tumbador as I knew it. The harmonies were nice and tres dos and quinto were right there, but where was the tumbador? That recording, along with several others by Yoruba Andabo and Clave y Guaguanco, and the highly creative musicians that made those recordings, changed the face of rumba in Cuba and in the world. I now consider Markito's style of tumbador to be one of the most beautiful and creative styles of all time in rumba, but I actually had to learn how to listen to it to appreciate it. He took the tumbador even beyond that of the late Gregorio Diaz el Goyo of Los Muñequitos, who was probably the main creator of what we now consider the traditional Matanzas tumbador style.

By the way, guarapachangueo has nothing to do with the rhythms guaracha or pachanga, or even the song La Guarapachanga. It is not a fusion of those rhythms. It is actually, in Pancho Quinto's words, orthodox rumba, although the classical parts are broken up differently and spread out on different drums and cajones so they sound different. Part of the beauty lies in the much more intense communication among the drummers (and singers and dancers) that forms a musical conversation in which each contributes to creating one constantly changing drum melody and no one plays on top of someone else. This is much more difficult than in the traditional "gun GUN GUN gun" guaguanco where tumbador and tres dos each hold one part and only occasionally do small variations while the quinto does most of the talking. We are in the middle of the creation of a new form of a traditional rhythm, and there will always be critics.

So Leedy and others, feel free to criticize guarapachangueo, you are not the first and you are in good company. Just please focus your criticism on bad guarapachangueo, not all guarapachangueo. But before you criticize further, please go listen to Rapsodia Rumbera, Yoruba Andabo, Rumberos de Cuba, and some of the new young rumberos in Cuba today, like the group led by Adonis Panter Calderon with Michael Herrera and Barbarito Crespo. This is modern rumba as played in Cuba today, sometimes called guarapachangueo, mambochambo or just rumba.
http://www.youtube.com/user/atticchris#p/u/4/hWyCGU6UoBE

Leedy, listen and watch that clip and if you can convince me that is noise, I will cook and eat my claves, bien sancochadas con mojo de ajo y aguacate por el lado. Call it fusion or what you will, I would argue that should be the new updated definition of afinque. These guys are light years ahead of us and we should be honest and admit it.
jorge
 
Posts: 1128
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 3:47 am
Location: Teaneck, NJ

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby Anonimo » Sun Feb 20, 2011 12:02 am

POST REMOVED BY THE AUTHOR
Anonimo
 

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby jorge » Sun Feb 20, 2011 2:50 am

Leedy, you are right, there is more bad guarapachangueo out there than good. When it is bad, it does sound like noise, especially to those who know what it is supposed to sound like. But when it is good it is amazingly good, and Adonis Panter Calderon provides an example in the link I posted above. Too many people try to jump straight into guarapachangueo before they master all the basic parts of guaguanco. Also, it is not clearly defined and different people call different things guarapachangueo, confusing the issue.

Are you saying that guarapachangueo is somehow a fusion of guaracha, pachanga and some third rhythm? I can't hear any similarity between guaracha, pachanga and guarapachangueo. If you do, can you please find an example of a recording that illustrates your point, or somehow explain to us how they are related?
jorge
 
Posts: 1128
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 3:47 am
Location: Teaneck, NJ

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby Anonimo » Sun Feb 20, 2011 4:14 pm

POST REMOVED BY THE AUTHOR
Anonimo
 

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby bongosnotbombs » Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:52 pm

"If people don't like my music now, they will."~Albert Ayler.
User avatar
bongosnotbombs
 
Posts: 2865
Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2007 4:17 am
Location: San Francisco, Ca

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby Anonimo » Sun Feb 20, 2011 7:07 pm

POST REMOVED BY THE AUTHOR
Anonimo
 

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby ABAKUA » Mon Feb 21, 2011 1:26 am

Myself having just returned from Cuba, I need to advise that the Guarapachangueo forms have no link to Guaracha, Pachanga etc despite what you may think/perceive, despite any similarities you may have observed, .
They are not derived from those patterns, they are not derived from nor a fusion of those patterns either.


As far as El Difunto Pacho Quinto goes, 'out to get accreditation' ??? Seriously.... Do I really need to go there? Surely not...
User avatar
ABAKUA
Site Admin
 
Posts: 3189
Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 11:59 pm
Location: Earth

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby Anonimo » Mon Feb 21, 2011 1:37 am

POST REMOVED BY THE AUTHOR
Anonimo
 

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby niallgregory » Mon Feb 21, 2011 1:19 pm

Guarapachangueo is an approach / style to playing and not actually a rhythm . Rumberos de cuba differ greatly to Clave guaguanco etc . I studied some great Guarapachangueo grooves while in cuba and we talked about the style and what its about with some rumberos , and as has been stated already here some of it is amazing and some of it dosent work and gets real crazy in my opinion .
niall gregory
niallgregory
 
Posts: 610
Joined: Thu May 24, 2001 2:09 am
Location: ireland

Re: Todays Lesson Fusion of rhythms

Postby Anonimo » Mon Feb 21, 2011 4:25 pm

POST REMOVED BY THE AUTHOR
Anonimo
 

Next

Return to Congas Technique, Rhythms and Exercises

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests