Intros

[deadhead]

So I got this idea from Zwar's post, and I'm sure this has been done before, but I think its time we do it again as I keep seeing more and more names I don't recognize posting. Everyone tell us a little about yourselves, where you're from, musical background, influences, what you play on etc.


My name is Ryan, I'm 23 years old from Austin, TX. I've been playing percussion for about 10 years, close to 5 years on hand drums, but only about a year and 1/2 on congas. I found an excellent teacher about 8 months ago who spends about 4 hours a week with me working on congas, timbales, bata, and we do an african ensemble once a week. I currently am playing on green LP Classics, quinto, conga, and tumba. I use a custom built 16" kick on my right foot, hi-hat and auxillary foot percussion (cowbell, block, or tamb, I switch it out alot) on the left. I'm also in the process of restoring a vintage set of WFL copper timbales, I won't list all my toys. I listen to alot of different music, mostly jazz, funk, psychadelic/experimental stuff. As the name suggests I am infatuated with the Grateful Dead. As far as conga influences, I really don't know too many conga players. As much as I love playing latin music I just don't listen to it. I guess I could say the person that inspired me to start playing congas was Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, the percussionist from Widespread Panic. As I'm sure most everyone on this board is, I am a percussion junkie, I won't stop until I've learned it all or until I die, the later will most likely happen first. Indian and Brazillian percussion are my next focus, but at the time being I'm really diggin the congas.

[yoni]

Hi All!

Yes, this has been done before, but why not repeat/update once in a while?

My name is Yonatan Bar Rashi, been playing about 4 decades, started on congas and bongos, later also on drum set, darbouka and other instruments.

Some current projects are with an amazing violin and oud player, Amin, and with a younger brother of mine, percussion virtuoso Rashi Bar Rashi. I have 2 daughters, Ilana and Leah. The older one, Ilana, is also a drummer, and at age 15 has already passed my ability on drum set.
Kids these days, wow!

More can be read/heard/seen about me at:

http://www.congaplace.com/musician/yoni/index.php

and at:

http://www.myspace.com/yonatanbarrashi

Feel free to contact me.



Edited By yoni on 1173480319

[CongaTick]

Been an amateur percussionist since the mid 70's when I started with an original pair of gon bops. Unimportant stuff like divorces marriages and kids interrupted my obsession from time to time. Pay the rent as a writer/director in a video production company my wife and I have run for the past 19 years. Lived worked and played in the Far East for many years and currently live just outside of Philly where as a percussion prostitute I play for pay. Currently hooked up with an indie rock, over-the-edge 5 piece, an accoustic duo playing originals, another accoustic duo playing covers, jam at a brewery with an accoustic association and try to schedule weekly jams with a basement band we formed over 6 years ago. Have big collection Latin, world, Brazilian, Afro... and love it all. I'll be 65 this year. My goal? Doubles like Yoni and another conga to round out my 3 drum setup.

[bongoron]

I am Ron. Last night I played an acoustic set at a local coffee house using the wooden handrail on the stage, the back of a guitar, and a black plastic camcorder cary case. There were two acoustic guitars and me. I have only played congas for three years, but I love it, and am in two christian bands. One is contemporary rock, the other is praise team at church. I also play an acoustic set every wednesday singing with one conga, and a guy on acoustic guitar. I have played guitar and bongos for over 25 years, trumpet since grade school, and have always tapped on every available surface for potential jamming quality..you just never know when you'll need to jam.

God bless!

-Ron

[yoni]

Hi CongaTick, Ryan and Ron!

CongaTick, you honor me yet again! Man I'm gonna turn red as a beet!

Keep letting those doubles fall LOOSE AS A GOOSE, hard, soft, slow, fast, on the edges of the drum as well as at the center, all over it... and the left hand will really link up to the right, and prove that one hand is just as capable as the other, as in a pair of well-made anythings....

All the best,

Yoni

[congamyk]

Great Idea for a thread! Congaplace has been a great source of learning and inspiration.

I'm Mike. I started playing sax professionally 15 years ago and wanted to play something after my sax solo was done. I was just standing there while the rest of the band played. 10 years ago I decided to buy a set of congas and a Bobby Sanabria video. After a year I was incorporating a few basic rhythms into the R&B and jazz bands I was playing with. Afro_Cuban and Brazilian drumming has come to the forefront in my music and I'm thankful for it.

Currently I am the lead male singer and percussionist with one of KC's leading R&B/Funk bands; Funk Syndicate.
www.kcfunk.com

I also play with an acoustic trio that feature samba, bossa nova and jazz standards; Trio JuJu.
www.myspace.com/triojuju

I also play with a local Mexican/Tejano band; Ellegancia!

Best wishes to all congueros and bringers of funk.

[pavloconga]

Hey guys,
My name is Pavlo Soteriou, I live in South Australia. I've been studying and playing congas and percussion for around 14 years, plus I played drum kit as a kid for about 4 years. In music, there is always something new to learn and always room to improve. I've had a lot of teachers over the years but my biggest leaps in my development have been by actually going to the source of the rhythms, i.e. going to Africa and Cuba to study.
Not necessarily to play those traditional rhythms (though that happens too) but to use those experiences to develop my own style and apply that knowledge to my own musical situations.

Some current projects include a gig at WOMAD (today, in about 3 hours!) with a group of percussionists including about 35 high school music students. We're playing a Pacific Islands rhythm, plus doing a workshop and parade.
http://www.womadelaide.com.au/line_up/index.html

Other projects:
Percussionist for vocalist from Martinique (Isabelle da Sylveira).

Playing samba with dancers Brazilian Dance Academy
http://www.brazildanceacademy.com/index.html

Playing with a 3 piece pop/contemporary group (guitar, bass, vocals, perc)

All the best to everybody on the forum!
cheers
Pavlo

p.s. Saw Billy Cobham play a solo show at Womad last night, I was spellbound for an hour... - simply awesome!

[windhorse]

Currently I am the lead male singer and percussionist with one of KC's leading R&B/Funk bands; Funk Syndicate.
www.kcfunk.com

Mike, are you singing while playing the percussion at the same time?

Just curious, as that's my big focus these days.

Good to see what you guys are doing with your music! Great posts!

Dave

[jorge]

Hi all,
Yeah, a periodic round of intros every once in a while sounds like a good idea. My name is George Friedman-Jimenez, me dicen Jorge, naci en Nueva York una mezcla de judio y cubano, pero vivo ahora en New Jersey. Next month will make 35 years I have been playing congas. I play congas, bongos, clave, and guagua. I learned to play mostly at the rumba (pre- and post-Mariel) in Central Park, although my first year playing I did take some classes with Johnny Dill and Sabu Caldwell. I have always loved playing for dance classes, starting in 1972 with Syvilla Fort's Dunham-style classes on 44th St in NYC. Although I have played in local salsa, jazz, and fusion groups over the years, my main interest is AfroCuban rumba. On the side, I am a medical doctor and epidemiologist, which pays the rent, but I started out as a drummer first y "la rumba sera mi muerte, tambien mi felicidad". Before the most recent US crackdowns on US / Cuba travel visas, when Afrocuba de Matanzas and Los Muñequitos came to NYC several times on tour, I had the privelege of taking a few classes with some of the drummers. Other than that, I am self-taught and learn from playing with the best rumberos I can find and listening to recordings of great drummers. For the past 3 years, I have been playing with an African American / Afrocuban folkloric group in NJ, with some guys I used to play with over 30 years ago. My current project is helping to keep the weekly rumba in NYC/NJ going over the winter, until it is warm enough for Central Park and Orchard Beach.
Jorge



Edited By jorge on 1173637510

[congamyk]

Currently I am the lead male singer and percussionist with one of KC's leading R&B/Funk bands; Funk Syndicate.
www.kcfunk.com

Mike, are you singing while playing the percussion at the same time?
Just curious, as that's my big focus these days.
Good to see what you guys are doing with your music! Great posts!
Dave

Hi Dave, yes I sing and play percussion at the same time. While I do take solos, I mostly play very basic stuff while singing lead and harmony. Besides congas, I play timbales, tamborine, bongo and bell patterns.

Playing basic rhythms over time allowed me to "internalize" the patterns where I don't even have to think to play them so I can sing over them.



Edited By congamyk on 1173642687

[yoni]

Hey Guys,

I like to sing while playing, too, been doing it decades and can by now easily push, drag and otherwise fool with the time with my vocals, while keeping my drums and/or percussion steady.

BTW, could someone please answer my question in the "myspace' thread? I have accepted "myspace friends" and want to know how to request to be a "myspace friend" of other "myspace" users.

Thanks in advance,

Yoni

http://www.myspace.com/yonatanbarrashi

[zwar]

just copy my post into the right thread

ho folks,

Zwar is my artist-name, full name is bertram “zwar” witte. I now live in germany 45km from Kassel (in the center of germany) on the very countryside. My village counting 33 souls (if everybody here has got one…)
I started with music I think 1967, six years old, learning classic guitar. Later I began playing flute, then piano. With 14 I got in contact with some Bongos. Nobody to teach me how to do it, I just tried on my own. Years after that I met nana feo. He gave first lessons in african rythms. He introduced me to the okonfo kawawa then, who trained me for about 6 years first in Germany, then in nigeria. I found myself deeply involved in westafrican tradition, mostly busy in spiritual music, like tigari, agbaja, achan, kpele, aladura, aweyo, and to relax playing kpanlogo, gigbu…something like that. So my roots of drumming are in africa. Nevertheless, one day I tried congas, in the late 80s, went out on the latin music, started not only to play traditional african stuff, but percussion and conga in different bands, sometimes for longer periods, often “percussion on request”. A few years I was able to live just from the money I earned by making music, gigs and teaching. Then my twins were born. I retired from stageperformance, from time to time giving lessons and one or two gigs the year. Since about two years, children grown up now, I am on the scene again. I am suffering of a lack of musicians in my area, all the percussion music here stucks at beginners or intermediate level.
Makes me somehow sad to see, I am the only maniac, willing to play as long as necessary to get things done, ready for stage or recording.
Playing as percussionist in “normal” bands is not that big a challenge.
The real thing I mainly have to do on my own.

Anyway, didn’t want to bother you, maybe I just had too much wine.

Blessings

zwar

[tfunk]

Hey y'all
My name is Theo, I'm 46 years old from Cape Cod, MA. now living in NYC for 8 years. I been in love with percussion since childhood, did some snare drum in grade school & high school. I then stop playing, although I was, and still am an avid live music freak! After a really bad break-up in 1996, I went out and bought an old CP conga, and just tried to play to all of my favorite songs. I took workshop type lessons with Joe Platz (a great drummer & drum maker).

I come to congas through funk/soul music, being brought up on Motown & 70's funk. I've gone on to discover the essence of conga drumming...afro-cuban music. I guess I'm a semi-pro. I play in 2 bands here in NYC with a fairly regular gig line up. Urban Sun is an 8 piece funk/rock group, with a recently acquired horn section. Hokcumfactory is a funk band highly influenced by P-Funk. I'm also in an 20 piece jazz/new music big band called David Sanford & the Pittsburgh Collective. We gig about 4 or 5 times a year.

I just want eveyone here to know how much I appreciate all of the knowledge, wisdom, and encouragement that is spread here. It is a real oasis in a troubled world.

Peace people!

[GuruPimpi]

Hello guys!

I'm reading your posts and getting totally new pictures of all of you. Very good.
My turn i guess:
My name is Primoz and I'm from Slovenija ( former Yugoslav republic and today joined member of European community) and i'm 30 years old. I started to give my share to music when i was 16 years old as a singer in a sort of grunge band and later, after seen Don Famodou Moye's group in Cefalu, Sicily and Jungle Funk on a jazz festival in Ljubljana, Slovenija, i got totally overwhelmed (around 1998) and started to play hand drums with one of the most popular percussionists and teachers in Slovenija, Nino Mureskic, mainly african rhythms. Later I learned some basics of latin with Blaz Celarec, very good percussionists and visited some percussion workshops.
Till the graduation as a social worker i played and recorded with a lot of bands, mostly pop, rock, hip hop, jazz stuff and with dj-s (house event) and payed my bills with musical incomes.
Later I tried Darbuka, but last three years I'm crazy about tumbadoras.
I always tried to incorporate my knowledge of a youth worker and playing hand drums pass it and share the positive experiences of creativity and quality spending of free time to youngsters from different surroundings. It's very creative, fun-a-lot and positive. I had really good times and success with that, that's why I'm trying to visit some drumcircle facilitation seminar or programme abroad. Sometimes it would be propably much easier if I would be born in PR, Cuba, Africa, Brazil or USA to live and learn all that percussion music, but hey, hand drums are getting very popular here, Yiha!

Today I'm am very humble as a musician, I'm playing a lot at home, I have only one band now (Od Franclna mozgani) and I don't find myself as a proffesional musician anymore, I rather find myself as a proffesional amateur.
I'm truly happy to have music beside and in me.
This forum gave me a lot and if you guys that received our CD check the thank yous section, you'll see it
Thank you all again to make that fire burning on and on!

Primoz Malensek

[Charangaman]

Greetings brothers,

Great to read about everyone...

YONI - To add people you must be on their page and logged in, on the left usually will be their "add me" box..

I am Damien, 30.. Learning and playing almost everyday for the last 4/5 years.. Since I witnessed a Rumba in callejon Hamil, Havana..

Beforehand was a proffessional DJ for 10 years, so always had the beats in me.. My family is from Jamaica and I love to travel, especially in the Carribean..

Right now I play with a Reggae outfit which as yet has no name and in a trio of guitar, sax and percussion which plays in bars every week.. Also I'm following my dream of starting a Charanga of which I already have flute and keys....

Even though I'm only 5 years playing I figure the best way to learn is get out there and do it!

I play Congas/Bongo/Cajon/Udu/Berimbau plus all the usual bits and bobs ... And I love it very much and this website has been fantastic in the advice available..

Best regards,

D



Edited By Charangaman on 1173725091