Trying out for a Salsa band.

[bongosnotbombs]

I'm going to be trying out for a Salsa band tonight.

I haven't really played this kind of music before, so I'm a little nervous.
My experience is mostly jazz on bongos and folkloric on congas. My rumba clave is good,
son clave might be a little rusty.

Of course I know martillo and tumbao, but I don't really know what else to expect.

I'll be jamming with the piano player tonight.These guys are more like serious hobbyists than
a professional group, but I think they are at a high level of musicianship.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[windhorse]

Get the Son Clave down cold..
And know where your drum parts fit in with the Clave,, like when things are played in 2-3 where your ponche or bombo notes hit in clave.
I'm sure they'll have breaks that you'll have to learn as well..
And kill 'em with your good attitude..

[bongosnotbombs]

The session went pretty well considering I didn't know what songs we were playing.

It was just me and the bandleader, the pianist, so it was really challenging
to time the breaks with him. If I didn't know how to read music I would have been totally lost.

Just tumbao all the way through, and then bolero. at least now I have a song list.

I was only trying out for an alternate position, seems like their regular percussionists are pretty
busy.

[windhorse]

Do you know yet if you "made it?"
Like, did he say, "You're definitely on my call list now", or "We've got a gig tomorrow, can you play with us?"

[bongosnotbombs]

He said he was interested in playing with me, but I've got to
learn the songs on the list.
I think I'm a ways from actually performing with them with these songs.
I'm kind of hoping they'll just invite me to their practices when they are short drummers.
When I get the songs down better and get used to playing with these guys, I'm open to
performing later down the road.

[Tonio]

BNB,
If the band leaders is willing, you may want to ask to play achlinary stuff like clave, maracas while you learn the tunes.
What better source can you get to learn them, then practicing with them in a support role? Good way to learn the breaks if you don't know the tunes. PLus they might play it "their style".

T

[yambu321]

Great Advice From Tonio. Way To Go!!!

Charlie

[bongosnotbombs]

Yeah, seems like a good idea. I got the feeling the piano player might have expected me
to take a look at the charts and and bam be on top of it all.
I'm sure there are players like that, but I'm not one of. Basically we would run through the
break sections till I had it hooked up with him then take it through the whole song. Took a couple
of try's, mostly I don't know how the piano player progresses to feel when the changes were coming,
and thats all there was,congas and piano.
I reckon I'll study the songs this week and try and make it to the next practice and fill in where there's
a spot, bongos, conga, claves, maracas it's all good. Keep me away from the timbales though!

[JohnnyConga]

I would recommend you "taping" the rehearsals to help u learn the tunes unless there "cover tunes" and they can give u a Cd to go home and practice to....that would be my recommendation...Johnny Conga...PS I have about over 200 cassettes of rehearsals I had with bands over the years....

[akdom]

Basically, you "only" need to learn the structure of the songs.

I write the main parts like intros, breaks and stuff and I read them when I play a song that I do not fully know yet. Ising too, so paper halps. It actually helps independance too since you should be able to play and read what's next at the same time.

But you might be mostly comfronted with tumbaos. My advice to you, if I may is to catch the spirit of each songs and to adapt your tumbao to them.......


B