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One of my projects for the holidays is to write a piece for percussion ensemble. It will entail marimba, bass marimba, vibraphone, drum kit, congas, timbales (and possibly bongos or small percussion and another marimba part). What I have written of the melody so far sounds sort of calypso-like. (There is a big drum solo to begin with which doesn't sound calypso like at all)

However, I am unsure of what sort of pattern I want the timbales to play. Is there something equivalent to tumbao on congas that you can't go wrong with? I don't want to delve too deeply into proper timbale technique because if it gets played at all it will be by classical percussionists.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Fish

Fish wrote:One of my projects for the holidays is to write a piece for percussion ensemble. It will entail marimba, bass marimba, vibraphone, drum kit, congas, timbales (and possibly bongos or small percussion and another marimba part). What I have written of the melody so far sounds sort of calypso-like. (There is a big drum solo to begin with which doesn't sound calypso like at all)

However, I am unsure of what sort of pattern I want the timbales to play. Is there something equivalent to tumbao on congas that you can't go wrong with? I don't want to delve too deeply into proper timbale technique because if it gets played at all it will be by classical percussionists.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Fish

Hi Fish, hope all is well! Timbales are not part of the traditional "engine room" on Calypso bands. "Engine room" is what they call to the percussion section. However, you can have timbales on your piece, and it will sound good! What the timbal player would do on a Calypso, is to double on his cowbells the pattern commonly played on the "brake drums".
Something like this:

1 e & a 2 e & a
L L H H L L H H

Low= is played on the timbal mambo bell(near the neck).
High= is played on the chacha bell.

Check out recent recordings from Andy Narell, where he features Luis Conte on percussion. Luis has come out with a "fusion" of very cool patterns, where he fusion rhythms found in Puertorrican Bomba, Iyesá, etc., and blend very nice on the Calypso stuff.

Hope this helps!

Saludos, Jorge Ginorio

http://www.rhythmweb.com/jorge

Hi Jorge,

Thanks for the tips.

The story behind the timbales is that I wanted to do a fairly standard Latin piece (there probably is too much of that for percussion ensemble already but it's what I feel most confident with) and the only melody I could come up with sounded calypso-ish but I didn't really want to change the format and timbales are cool!

As it happens, I have an Andy Narell CD (Long Time Band) so I'll have to check it out.

Thanks again,

Fish