There is so much heavy coordination involved in learning the Afro-Cuban styles that it’s easy to neglect simply getting the bell patterns right— which is a lot like playing jazz without spending any time working […]
Category: Afro-Cuban
Page of Guaguancó
Lately I’ve been whittling away at my ignorance of Afro-Cuban/Salsa drumming, and here we’ll look at Guaguancó (say wah-wahn-CO), or Rumba Guaguancó, a very distinctive and popular style I first became acquainted with via a […]
Page o’ coordination: 6/8 clave in the right hand
Hey, we haven’t had a page o’ coordination in awhile. I’ve been spending a lot of time with the Afro-Cuban stuff lately, via our page of Mozambique, the 6/8 page from last year, and with […]
Page of Mozambique — UPDATED
I’ve been working with our earlier page of Mozambique quite a bit (yes, I do in fact practice the non-transcription stuff I post here), and thought it could use a bit of refining, so here […]
Groove o’ the day: Ndugu Leon Chancler afro 12/8
Here’s a very fun tune, with Ndugu Leon Chancler playing an unusual form of an Afro 12/8, on the late, great, George Duke’s 1977 album Reach For It. The track is called Omi. There’s lots […]
DBMITW: Manny Oquendo y Libre
Timbalero Manny Oquendo (1931-2009, seen here in red, playing bongos) playing a little gig with his group Libre:
Page of Mozambique
So here’s what we were setting up with that last thing— a page of Mozambique for the drum set: Work up each pattern individually until it feels good, and then combine parts as you see […]
Conga to Mozambique
Let me say up front that I’m always a little paranoid about venturing into Afro-Cuban music on the blog— I don’t have a lot of field experience playing it with knowledgeable people, and have had […]
Groove o’ the day: Freddie Waits — African Village
Here’s another afro 6 alternative— we haven’t had any new ones lately. Played by Freddie Waits, on the tune African Village on McCoy Tyner’s Time For Tyner, released in 1968: I’ve written this in a […]
Podcast — Episode 6: Todd’s playalong tracks
Hey, we haven’t done a podcast in some time, have we? I’ve been doing most of my drumset practicing along with recordings recently— book exercises and everything— and I thought I’d share some of the […]
Page o’ coordination: Songo — 02
This is the companion to the recent Songo page, which I thought you might want to work on concurrently— it’s the same set of exercises, with the clave rhythm in the left foot: Reread the […]