Church group percussion? - about to get congas?

[Bataboom]

I play the djembe in church now, we have a gospel whorship, w/ choir type church. We play black gospel, contemorary christian, and some older slow stuff. My pastor is about to buy a set of congas to throw in my mix.
My question is with the type of music I described that we play what would you recommend for such a setting as far as size, type, and number of drums.

Thanks!

[TigerBongo]

Hi Bataboom,

Being someone who has been involved in Church music throughout many years (played Violin, then Drumset, then percussion - even orchestral perc! Timpani etc!) I've had to look at what you guys are now looking into.

I'd say get at least two drums (you'll probably find that 2 is fine for the time being) - and quite possibly look at getting a Quinto (11") & Conga (11&3/4") for a start - for the sort of music you're doing (non-cubano) you'll probably be tuning your drums up reasonably high for that contempoary sound and to really cut through. Also seriously look at getting a good set of bongos at the same time, this will give you a large palette of sounds for the potentially large range of christian musical genres you are likely to encounter.

Apart from congas - look at adding shakers, tambourines, marktree, woodblocks, and whatever else sounds cool. Remember that as a percussionist you have the very unique position to be abe to either play rhythm/time or ambient....be aware of where the Spirit is going and don't be afraid of moving with it!!

One thing to be aware when purchasing instruments - I consider church instruments to potentially be in the same category as school instruments....meaning - that both these places have a tendancy to skimp on spending 'real' money on quality instruments and also both of them tend to have problems with gear getting trashed by people.

So - try to see if you can make sure that the Church trustees (or whoever) are prepared to pay good money to get something that will go the distance (if in doubt stick to the main brands - LP, Meinl, Toca) and if at all possible get help from an expert picking out suitable gear. Other than that - try to manage the use of the gear as carefully as possible - if at all possible - see if you can get a lockup for it that others don't have access to. People do have a tendancy to treat Perc instruments like drumkits - and they just want to jump on and jam....this is unacceptable - let people know that!

Hope that helps - sorry to go on....let me know if you would like info on specific brands/models - I'm sure I can answer some questions - and theres plenty of others here that can!

Craig

[Bataboom]

Thanks Craig,
The Pastor will be doing the purchasing himself and he is the bass player so he knows the value of good gear, and I trust that he will make the right choices along with the advice of the music stores. I will pass on to him as much useful info I gather here as I can to help him make the right choices.

as far as people playin on the gear, thats pretty much already layed out, only the musicians are allowed on the plateform to mess with any gear and out of us we all pretty much use our purposed instruments so thats not a factor really. So with the exception of a few of the male musicians testing the sound of the congas being a new instrument in our group I wont really have to worry about them being tampered with.

On tuning... how would I go about tuning, Im a noob when it comes to tuning a drum. What would be a exceptible high tuning for them and how do you know whats too high.

Thanks for the help !

[TigerBongo]

Hi,

No point me reiterating as there are heaps of posts here about tuning - do a quick search and you should be able to find some gold! Just make sure that you crank the heads down when you're finished using them each time - this will help extend the life of the heads as long as poss.

Hope you have fun getting some gear! Let me know how you go!

All the best dude!
Craig

[Bataboom]

Crank the heads down as in loosen? This could get rather timely I go to church and would be playing them Sunday morning, sunday nights, and wednsday nights. Unless tuning them is like super easy and fast this sounds like it could get really involved LOL.

[TigerBongo]

Yeah Yeah dude - sorry loosen! (Crank down in pitch - just my rich-thick region dialect)....should only take a minute or so per drum to tune.....

[Bataboom]

ok on tuning, I did some looking up and mostly all I see is, tune to your personal taste depending on your music genre.

I can understand that, and I gathered that as long as yu tune them an octive apart bassiclly yur good to go.

So my pastor just emails me earlier and told me he got the congas, they are at church waitning for me to try them on for size ... So I hop in the car and drive over they are really nice set of Blue sunburst Meinl Headliner congas!

Sound is great as far as I can tell. Granted this is my first ride on the conga trian. The seemed to be tuned well as an octive apart, match with key board the bigger conga was in key of A.

So we played a few songs slow and fast, sounded ok but I will say I was used to the thin skinned 15 inch djembe which outa one drum seemed easier to atain various sounds out of. So looks like I will have to get the feel of playing these think skinned congas, its a different animal in a way.

It was a wierd experience I will say that, this music isnt latin, jazz, salsa, cuban. It was gospel and I played according to rythm time not really ambiently, in other words I played them like a bass and snare drum with a few rolls and hits in between, is this cool do to playing congas?



Edited By Bataboom on 1104475290

[TigerBongo]

ok on tuning, I did some looking up and mostly all I see is, tune to your personal taste depending on your music genre.

I can understand that, and I gathered that as long as yu tune them an octive apart bassiclly yur good to go.

So my pastor just emails me earlier and told me he got the congas, they are at church waitning for me to try them on for size ... So I hop in the car and drive over they are really nice set of Blue sunburst Meinl Headliner congas!

Sound is great as far as I can tell. Granted this is my first ride on the conga trian. The seemed to be tuned well as an octive apart, match with key board the bigger conga was in key of A.

So we played a few songs slow and fast, sounded ok but I will say I was used to the thin skinned 15 inch djembe which outa one drum seemed easier to atain various sounds out of. So looks like I will have to get the feel of playing these think skinned congas, its a different animal in a way.

It was a wierd experience I will say that, this music isnt latin, jazz, salsa, cuban. It was gospel and I played according to rythm time not really ambiently, in other words I played them like a bass and snare drum with a few rolls and hits in between, is this cool do to playing congas?

Hi Bataboom,

Great to hear you've got some cognas - the Meinl Headliners are good drums - not a pro drum, more of an entry level/intermediate drum - but good stuff dude,

In terms of tuning - I'm not sure were you found the info about tuning an octave apart - but that sounds kinda wrong to me.....try tuning a 5th or a 4th apart....that's the best way I find to tune them....give that a go try tuning to G-C or A-D...

Playing them as a bass & snare pattern is okay - try to get some good material on conga rhythms - the http://www.congaplace.com conga book link has some good examples - there are some rock/funk example here....try these for starters - and then play around with whatever coems to mind. just remember that more is less...don't over do it!....see how you go man.

Craig[/quote]

[Bataboom]

cool beans!!
I'll see if I can get with the keyboard player and try and pinpoint D key thats for the small quinto right? and A for the conga. It might be in D alreay and I just assumed it was an octive difference.
Thanks!