Variations on a songo rhythm, hands only. The usual groove is kind of a set thing, that can be a hard thing to break away from, so this page forces the issue, opening it up […]
Category: songo
Songodiddles
A very small item, adapting a paradiddle inversion (RLLR LRRL) to fit with a songo groove— they fit together quite nicely if you alter one note of the paradiddle. Which doesn’t leave us with a […]
Tresillo unit
For a couple of weeks I’ve been working with an area of stuff covering several different styles— grooves with a tresillo rhythm, or part of it, in the bass drum. I’ve been polishing it for […]
Songo brushup
I have some dates coming up where I need to use a Songo-type groove (the chart says “samba”, but it’s really not)— which I don’t have to play that often, so I’m brushing up on […]
Reed interpretations: special voicing – 01
This came out of the groove part of my recent Country Rock thing. It’s a kind of subtractive method for voicing the snare drum and bass drum. Not unlike my John Riley-inspired “that with interruptions” […]
Transcription: Joey Baron – Resistor
Here is Joey Baron playing on Don Byron’s solo on Resistor, from the Bill Frisell album This Land— Baron’s playing on this record is one of the major blowing performances of the 90s. The tune […]
Groove o’ the day: Evolution of Songo – 03
Here’s the promised transcription from the previous entry in this Evolution of Songo series— the breakdown from Pero a Mi Manera by Los Van Van, with Changuito playing the drums. For most of the tune […]
Groove o’ the day: Evolution of Songo – 02
Here is the second groove from the Changuito history of Songo video; Changuito is the drummer for Los Van Van, and is a major innovator in Cuban drumming. The last entry covered a groove created […]
Groove o’ the day: evolution of Songo – 01
First of a mini-series of Afro-Cuban grooves o’ the day, transcribed from the history of Songo video below. Grooves are by Changuito, the percussionist who created the Songo drumming style playing with the Cuban band […]
Snare studies for developing some Afro-Cuban bell patterns
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 […]
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 […]
Page o’ coordination: Songo — 01
Here we’ll develop some bass drum variations for playing Songo, a popular Afro-Cuban/salsa drumset style, in case you’ve never heard of it. The first exercise is the ostinato, played with the hands only— the parts […]