Reading Slaps - Which slap is which

[RayBoogie]

Simon, I use the Cuban Slap for accents mostly.

As far as Closed Slaps is concerned, I started with the Cup Position slap at first. As I advanced in my conga playing, the Cup Position slap turned into Flat Postion slap all by itself.
Has this happened to anybody in the forum????

[Tonio]

Ray yes I stated that my slaps now don't have as much cupping as previous. I think its a thing that after a while the cupping isn't need, since the stroke and hand/figers follow thru to make the note.
Though my left hand(weaker)needs to be cupped on occasion e.g. slower tunes etc.
Look at Poncho, you can't even tell with all the tape.

T

[druminator]

I'm a right handed player but my left handed slap is always100% perfect when I strike the drum,while with my right hand I have to sort of concentrate to make sure it sounds as good as my left.Sometimes I miss my mark.Has any body had this odd (weaker right problem) even though you are right handed?Thanks, Jon

P.S.The left feels effortless(maybe it's because of playing the backbeat on drumkit for 25 years.....I guess)Any thoughts???

[mco]

Druminator, my experience when playing the congas is the same as yours. Although I'm a righty, my left hand hand slaps are nearly 100% "on", sounding neat and crisp (for me). I really have to think about my hand placement and shape with my right hand slaps. Sometimes I get a good slap with my right hand, sometimes I don't. It bugs me!
Any theories out there? There are also certain patterns (son montuno, guaracha, for example) with which I can achieve better rh slaps than with other paterns, perhaps because the pattern allows the right hand some time to "wind up" for the slap. Like Druminator, I also played the drum kit before taking up the congas (although I took a 25 year break between the two).

[druminator]

Thanks for responding MCO.I figured somebody out there was having this experience too.I'm mainly a drumkit player but I find congas facinating and I love to play my old LP Classics(all 3).They sound incredible.I thought about selling and getting different congas but the more I play them, I feel this would be a huge mistake.I need new heads( i think) .They're 14 years old.Just don't know whether to go synthetic for that brightness or rawhide for the warmth.God Bless,Jon

[Simon B]

My first 'teacher' (I soon discovered that he was a classic example of the charlatan percussionist, trying to pass himself off as a hot player on the basis of his Latin American origins alone) showed me the cupped slap in the tumbou, but my second teacher and now good friend advised me to try and develop the flat hand slap. This made total sense at the time, particularly as I came from a kit drumming background and was schooled in the ideas of speed and efficiency. To my knowledge I never really cup a slap any more.

Simon B

[Simon B]

It seems to me that the cupped hand slap is a bit like starting riding a bike with stabilisers - it is useful in the early stages but should be discarded later. What I can see it do is isolate and support the strike of the finger tips by stabilising these with the base of the palm landing on the skin at the same time, which most players agree is the source of the wholesome slap sound.

Simon

[congastu]

This is quite a personal slant, and Im not sure how well I can transpose it to terms of technique, but here goes...
When playing slaps, I try to not only work with the movement of the rhythm and dynamics of the music, but also think about the feeling I am trying to convey. Slaps can produce powerful tones and accents, but in different ways. Sometimes I feel like Im pushing that energy outwards, letting the tone resonate on top of the music [thus using the "flat" slap] ; other times I might take that energy towards me, gather it together so that the tone is more muted but quicker or sharper [ perhaps with closed slaps, or perhaps with what I can only think to describe as a "snatch"- not quite a cup as the heel doesnt rest on the drums, but with a backwards movement of the fingers, like grasping wind]. In a sense, I relate this to the feeling of forward and reverse you get with the cuban clave, or the technique of drag and push that you see in really good sambistas. It can also relate to the pattern of your breathing.
I think when I said "cupping" before, I really meant this idea of pulling rather than pushing your slaps, as like Simon I dont really go with that idea of keeping the heel on the drum [ although that idea of pulling it can be useful when coming out of the heel position]. At the end of the day though, its a matter of degrees rather than this versus that- I wonder to what extent you can change the sound by just how you feel yourself and whats around you.
Apologies for these ruminations
love and peace Stu

[Johnny Conga]

The "cupping' of the hand to achieve a slap is a very common approach. My first teacher had me approach a slap from a different perspective. Insted of raising the hand to slap he would "attack" it straight into the drum,kinda like "pushing" the hand, without raising his hands and slap one inch from the skin. Now this approach is not common at all, but that is the way he showed me to slap. Of course I raise my hands when I slap now, but his technique enabled me to get a slap anyway I want, without much difficulty. The other thing he taught me was to grip the skin with the hand and just bending into the skin the fingertips without bending the whole finger, just the tips(the first joint in the fingers). It was just his way of showing me how to get a slap. Hope this helps...At your Service...JC JOHNNY CONGA...

[congastu]

Ive seen a few of the older guys use that technique, and it made me buzz.. hardly any movement to get a completely different sound! Another teacher of mine used to get slaps by striking just like an open tone but spreading his fingers slightly- again, hardly any upwards movement. You almost got the impression that playing the slap was like a mindset- ie, he was imagining he was hitting the bottom of the drum rather than just the surface: a bit like kung fu or something. Anyway, it worked a treat.
Peace and love Stu

[gilbert]

Ive seen a few of the older guys use that technique, and it made me buzz.. hardly any movement to get a completely different sound! Another teacher of mine used to get slaps by striking just like an open tone but spreading his fingers slightly- again, hardly any upwards movement. You almost got the impression that playing the slap was like a mindset- ie, he was imagining he was hitting the bottom of the drum rather than just the surface: a bit like kung fu or something. Anyway, it worked a treat.
Peace and love Stu

that's the slap i use it took me a whole year to control it
it got a very sharp and loud sound

[vaconguero]

hey folks - have a pretty simple theory on strong versus weak hand slaps. Mine started of crisper and way more consistent on my weak hand, and the strong hand took a while. I think it was precisely because my right hand was stronger and had more fine motor control that I was messing the slaps up. I still think I "over-play" strong hand slaps as far as preparation/recovery time and unneccesary force goes, and my "weak" hand plays more fluidly, naturally, and quickly. Maybe instead of trying to improve our weak hand speed and volume we should work on "weaking" the strong hand (reducing force and concious effort. Thoughts?

Lee

(Always new this was here, never REALLY read it until today - nice formums, guys: I'm definitely registering soon)

[conga dread]

:D hello there my name is jose from P.R. and i found out from a good friend of mine from ponce that the slap is normally in the center not towards the edge.

[CongaCaja]

Based on everything that I have learned, seen or read, the most common standard slap has the base of the hand slightly below the edge of the drum. Not in the center

However, there are other kinds of slaps techniques that can have a different placement of the hand. For example, a teacher in Havana taught me some slap techniques that were different that the common technique, but it is hard for me to explain those slaps with only words (photos are helpful to show hand positions).

Although your friend is correct that some slaps are not at the edge, those slaps do not seem to be the most common techniques that I have seen here in the U.S.

Perhaps, what is normal or common is different there in P.R. where your friend lives. Perhaps tamboricua (aka Jorge) would like to comment?

cjk



Edited By CongaCaja on 1086894089

[Tonio]

I think you guys are confusing the issue of the hand in general.
The palm of the hand is at the edge, and the finger tips are near the middle of the conga. Though in Cuban muted slaps, they tend to have the finger tips closer to the edge than other styles.

But it depends on the size of your hands too!:;):

T