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Salsa

S

Salted

Feb 18, 2008
6
0
#1
Hi guys,

I'm looking to venture into Latin music, specifically salsa.

My background: I can't read music but have been playing and dabbling with the bass for a good few years. I'm a trained sound engineer, meaning I'm unemployed in the field. About last year in feb I started dancing cuban salsa (I tried LA, not my cup of tea), out of a total fluke, but have been dancing between 2 & 5 times a week since then, hooked.

Now my brain has finally caught up and made the connection "why NOT learn how to play this music?" :D

I'm at a total loss where to start though. I can't read music fluently(working on it! :), I know about the tumbao (to listen for it re dancing), son and rumba clave, and how to play to a few songs.

Can anyone point to a good source for selfstudy? I only work part-time so could dedicate quite a bit of time for this during the week.

Thx a lot! :D

S
 
#5
I studied all kinds of Latin music, including salsa, with Oscar Stagnaro (bassist for Paquito D'Riviera). You ABSOLUTELY MUST get Oscar's book "The Latin Bass Book." It's basically the Bible for latin bass playing. It's just an amazingly deep and thorough resource, and is totally indispensable.
 
#7
Transcribe! The Latin Bass Book is fine but the music is of course pretty boring after a while. You should do the work for yourself. Go to the source. Learn some percussion. Reading is important when it comes to salsa.
 
#8
I played for 5 years in a salsa outfit, heres my best tips:

The bass tumbao in cuban music revolves around two specific beats in the measure:
namely, the upbeat "and" of 2 (called the bombo) and the downbeat of the four (the ponche)
Typically the bass plays the root of chord on the bombo, followed by the the fifth on the ponche.
This syncs up perfectly with the last 2 beats of the 3-side of the clave rhythm.

-practice clapping the clave and singing the bass tumbao rhythm. great because you can do it anywhere, while walking your pace can be the metronome.

-Learn the conga tumbao. Even better: learn the rest of the rhythm section patterns. Piano montuno, the cascara on the Timbales, etc...they all interlock, and can guide you correctly when a simple Clave beat is absent.

-the Latin bass Book and True Cuban Bass as mentioned in other threads

-In addition to the suggested listening, Check out Cachao's "Master Sessions Vol I & II" or "Cuba Linda" for some tumbao mastery.

-You mentioned you can't read. Latin music is a great place to really start reading rhythm: Its very syncopated with dots, ties and rests, yet the notes are usually roots and fifths, and the subdivisions rarely gets smaller than 8th notes. I learned to read form this stuff.
 
#9
Of course, there are many things to learn about this kind of music. But if you can play this pattern comfortably, you can have for sure that you've gained a good foundation for the style:

Salsapattern-1.jpg
 
#10
Alvaro Martín Gómez A.;10713375 said:
Of course, there are many things to learn about this kind of music. But if you can play this pattern comfortably, you can have for sure that you've gained a good foundation for the style:

Salsapattern-1.jpg
Click to expand...

Play that pattern and stump the clave pattern with your feet.

One thing is to be able to play a nice tumbao or two..the tricky part with salsa is to understand the music. You can easily feel pretty lost on the bandstand if you dont understand the direction of the music...or understand ques etc. And salseros can be ... quite direct.
 
#13
Heh, I don't know much about these styles, but I've been enjoying reading all this. The most Latin I've done is a bossa nova for dinner music, and a couple of Estefan tunes (sp.?). When I've ever heard much Latin music, I find it a bit confusing. I would have to read note for note or really study a lot. I do like th sound of some of it. I especially like all the percussion in it.
 
#14
If you feel like its a bit confusing, I repeat my advice to learn the other rhythm parts. Get a cheap conga and start practicing.
I came to Latin music with a attitude that it sounded simple and should be easy to fake. I faked it for about 2 years.
Then we had a few percussionists come through who actually studied in Cuba and lived and breathed the stuff.
I learned the rhythms of all the other percussion parts and the basic piano montuno .
after a month or two of that, something really clicked, and I "got it" in my bass playing.
I think I just came to understand, once I learned all the parts, how the Bass tumbao really fit in.
 
#15
+ 1 to learning some percussion parts. You could also contact Oscar Stagnaro and see if he still offers online lessons. He's a very down-to-earth fellow who is an absolute authority on "Latin" bass.
 

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