Need help with tejano/cumbia music

[EricOnTheBass]

I recently joined a classic rock cover band that includes a lot of tejano and rock en español in their setlist. I'm a midwesterner that moved to Texas about 20 years ago, so I did not grow up listening to that style of music. One of the songs I need to learn is "Como la Flor" by Selena. I am having a very hard time getting a grasp of it. With rock-based music, I find it fairly easy to predict where changes belong and where the riffs will be going. But this genre defies my previous musical experience, and it feels like I have to learn the song note-for-note like a bass solo.


Are there any tips on how I can approach learning and playing this song, so that I don't have to rely so much on raw memorization? There are another handful of songs like this one that I need to learn as well. I was thinking of starting by just following the root of the chords, then triads, and then adding in the "seasoning" as I get more comfortable, but I'm open to suggestions from those of you that play this music regularly.

 

[Killing Floor]

It’s not entirely different from reggae if you want to see it in terms of stuff you’ve heard. I’d suggest listening to it on a loop and learn her lyrics if you can. The bass isn’t difficult, it’s just not a straight rock groove, that’s how Tejano can throw you off. You can do it.
Learn the song before you work out the bass line. Then the groove will come to you.

 

[thehindteet]

Memorizing the original bass line note for note is exactly the right way to get the sound of an unfamiliar style of music into your head. You are essentially learning a new language, which means that you have to assemble a collection of phrases that you can use in common situations. The best way to do that is through transcription- basically just listening to lines over and over while attempting to repeat it until you can actually do it.

The way I would approach this is to figure out who played bass on this recording, then find that persons 8 or 10 most popular recordings, and transcribe all of them. Try to avoid looking for tablature or notation that will show you what to play- instead use a looper and a slow-down thing if necessary and work on figuring the line out in chunks of 1-4 bars at a time until you can play the whole tune.

Once you have learned a handful of songs in a style like this, you'll find that you start to develop an intuition about the changes and the pulse, because these songs are all drawing from a common source, and that source doesn't follow a formula that you can use in your head to figure out what to play, the source just winds up in your head from years of listening to a style.

Tackling a new style is one of the best things you can do to grow as a musician, so I wish you the best of luck. If you run into trouble with transcription let me know, I have a guide that I wrote for students who are learning jazz via transcription but you could easily adapt it for learning any style.

 

[Pacman]

First things first, you've got to get that music in your head. When I first started to play Salsa, I asked the bandleader to just make me a mixtape (yeah, I'm that old) of the genre, not necessarily the tunes we were playing. 4 hours of representative style. And I *lived* in that tape, until I started to understand the heartbeat of the music better. You *have* to feel it - especially this kind of music, because you're playing someone else's culture.

Also, getting an understanding of how latin rhythm sections work - everyone has a part that rhythmically locks in with the other parts. Like gears, they all have to mesh.

That said, I'm not a fan of this guy's cover - it's pretty stiff sounding to my ears.

 

[EricOnTheBass]

I suppose there are no shortcuts to learning it fast, I have to learn and know the song first, and then learn how to play the bass part. I guess that learning rock tunes seems so much easier to me because I already know the vocabulary and have heard most of the songs many times. Thanks for the solid advice

 

[StyleOverShow]

I did a Santana tribute band a couple years ago. Was surprised at the ‘complexity’ of the bass lines, the slight variations from ‘regular riffs’ and the multiryhtyms of the outtros. I listened to live recordings for days and wrote out charts so I could remember when things changed. It’s the little things that make this music authentic. Good luck!

 

[franklindayala]

First things first, you've got to get that music in your head. When I first started to play Salsa, I asked the bandleader to just make me a mixtape (yeah, I'm that old) of the genre, not necessarily the tunes we were playing. 4 hours of representative style. And I *lived* in that tape, until I started to understand the heartbeat of the music better. You *have* to feel it - especially this kind of music, because you're playing someone else's culture.

Also, getting an understanding of how latin rhythm sections work - everyone has a part that rhythmically locks in with the other parts. Like gears, they all have to mesh.

That said, I'm not a fan of this guy's cover - it's pretty stiff sounding to my ears.

This is the way to go. And I would include dancing with salsa and latín music (I'm serious).

Here is an example of great music from Perú.

 

[Pacman]

Following up, this guy doesn't play note for note, but his time feel is really good. Worth a listen

 

[fdeck]

Where you're at, you should be able to get it 24/7 on the radio.