BAD/STUPID Conga videos - not for the faint

[zwar]

hey pavlo,

long time no see and no hear of the accra/ labadi/ nungua people. easy to have fun there. i've been a bit jealeous sometimes, thinking of them beachboys while i was sitting in the nigerian bush. your foto sequence and the music put me some twenty years back.

i hope mustapha and the family are all well

greetings

zwar

[pavloconga]

hey pavlo,

long time no see and no hear of the accra/ labadi/ nungua people. easy to have fun there. i've been a bit jealeous sometimes, thinking of them beachboys while i was sitting in the nigerian bush. your foto sequence and the music put me some twenty years back.

i hope mustapha and the family are all well

greetings

zwar

Hey zwar,
great to hear you've visited there, and yes they certainly do know how to have fun!
Sounds like the vid struck a chord , or a drum skin with you. When did you visit?
Do you know a Mustapha in Nungua? Or do you refer to the musician Mustapha Tetty Addy in Kokrobiti?
Ghana is an amazing country with incredible people, music and drumming.
cheers
Pavlo

p.s. A few years back while visiting a girlfriend in Germany I passed by your town of Kassell while on that very fast train (the one that does about 250km/h!).

[umannyt]

.

Yes, there might have been some masters of the drums playing those early hollowed-out log congas. But, is it possible that the so-called "Go-Go" style (or part of it) could resemble, by coincidence, the technique of these masters?
.

I would say impossible for early Cuban drumming to resemble Go-Go. First it appears GO-GO players all use stands and multiple drums.
Cuban and the inherited African tradition is primarily one drum per person.
This Go Go stuff is one player playing along with musicians playing other modern and amplified instruments.
The music of the early conga drum was percussive.
The cuban tradition is evolved from inherited African traditions; Iyesa, Bembe, Aabakua, etc. Each with their own style of drums and technique.
Many of these styles use a stick in one hand. Before congas, rumba was played on cajons.

Thanks for your input. I agree with you.

But, my statement wasn't trying to compare "Go-Go" style with early Cuban drumming but early African drumming, preceding even the African traditions that you enumerated. And as I've mentioned before, personally, my answer would have been purely speculative.

[pavloconga]

Hi umannyt,
Did you click on the YouTube link on the previous page where I posted a live recording I made in Africa?
cheers
Pavlo

[TAMTAM2205]

I don't know about you guys. But for me the sound on congas (not congos, cause piano is piano, not piono ) on Go Go music i weird and maybe funny. Like watching a little kid make impresion on you playing. I mean if you play any kind of instrument you have to give everything to it and take everething from your instrument. This guys are using only 10% of what conga can do. Imagine a good conguero playing that kind of music whith all the tones and with great thechnic. I think it would be cool. Instead of incorporating conga into their music, they are just beating the shit out of the instrument. Pardon my french. It's like take a whole drum set and allways play only on toms. Maybe it would be with groove, but it just don't have any sense. It means that you can play toms but you dont know how to play on other parts of your instrument. So you have to study. And thats exactly what those guys have to do. Study... maybe then their open tones sound will be better
And those "teachers" at the begining of this topic. No comment. Especialy the guy with paper.

Un saludo a todos.