Talk:Conga

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I was under the impression that "macho" and "hembra" were the names for the two drums in a set of bongos. I'm pretty sure that the different types of congas are requinto, quinto, conga and tumba. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

In Cuba people call the tumbadoras macho, hembra and tercera. A quinto is a special kind of tumbadora. ROGNNTUDJUU! 11:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re-disambiguation re; drum/dance

Don't know why the new first para.(re: dance vs. drum) is back in here, since it re-ambiguates. I'm taking it back out.--Silverlake Bodhisattva 19:33, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

In that case, the article needs a link to a disambig page at the top. --Perimosocordiae 02:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Playing the Congas

"Muffled tone: like the open tone, is made by striking the drum with the four fingers, but holding the fingers against the head to muffle the tone (which combined with the first is called the tumbao - played in most salsa and rumbas today)."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the tumbao is principally composed of slap and bass notes, not open and muffled notes. James barton 10:08, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I suppose there are many ways to play it; the one I learned first went heel, toe, slap, toe, heel, toe, open, open (Dworsky 1995). It could be written more broadly, that is certain. Bruce H. McCosar

We need some disambiguation here: the sequence desacribed immediately above is clearly the son tumbao, and is described correctly, but differs substantially from the low drum (tumbador) part in rumba, which of course is played with rumba clave and as I learned it, (and in any version I've ever heard played) has no slaps, and consists of basses, opens, and "timekeeping" notes, (heel/toes or touches played, in some cases, as ghost-notes)and occasional muffs as ornamentation.--Silverlake Bodhisattva 18:24, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The statement is a bit misleading. It is correct when applied only to the open (and muff) tones in the tumbao, but the tumbao as you both note consists of more than just that. A tumbao in English would be called the groove and often in bands is defined not only by the conga parts but the bass part (as in bass guitar) as well. Bass guitar parts are often closely derived from clave. So the tumbao is a driving groove that has considerable variability (as do all grooves) though there are standard tumbao conga patterns commonly used in salsa, cha cha cha, rumba etc. The problem is that the above statement makes it sound like a tumbao consists only of opens and muffs, whereas typically that is not the case. It is a rhythmic pattern where the opens and muffs in it are the tones that carry over the band and are thus lending character to the music, but the entire tumbao as noted above is a whole rhythmic thing with bass, heel-toe, rhythmic notes, ghost notes, and others that serve to keep the music going.

One other thing: I made the statement in a recent addition that Dezi Arnaz played an Ashiko drum. This is easily seen in films of him playing babalu on I love Lucy or on a .jpg of one of his old album covers. (Ashikos are cone shaped with straight sides. They are not convex like conga drums) A reference has been suggested as needed for this statement. But the album cover .jpg is obviously copyrighted and not suitable for Wikipedia. How would one reference this?

-- My apologies if you took this the wrong way; I am new to Wikipedia and am editing by feel, more or less. The statement, to me, seemed to demand some sort of proof. If I could not, myself, find the proof, I turned the problem over to someone much more knowledgeable. And, in your widely read and experienced reply above, you have proven my estimate correct. You know more about this than I; you should find a source to cite. If not a book, if not a picture, how about a webpage that shows the picture, or compares the drums, or discusses the problem? Again, I apologize if I inadvertently gave offense, because it is clear you are much more qualified than I to discuss this point. Bruce H. McCosar

I'm not offended. I'm pretty new to the wikipedia scene myself, so I'm not very experienced with how some of this is done. So I asked. Yeah, the webpage answer is a great idea. I'll look around for one. Thanks for the reply, Bruce. By the way I love the way the conga article is coming along. Not too long ago it seemed pretty sparce.

I'm not certain how much of the "tumbao" discussion needs to be here specifically, rather than in, and linked from, discussions of the musical genres involved. My understanding,(more from teachers than specific text sources) is that in modern popular forms (salsa, songo, timba) the "tumbao" is often extremely loose in its structure, shifting among the instrumentation (congas, bass, trap drum player, left hand of the pianist, etc.) chaging in its "density", and "pushing" against the clave if a clave is still even being explicitly stated.

On the other hand, in "folkloric" rumba, (particularly in stricter "Havana-style" as contrasted with a more improvisational "Matanzas-style") the other players tend to want the tumbao player to keep flawless time, (to maintain the clave/tumbao/conga "lock" clearly) but to not engage in substantial improvisation or ornamentation.Silverlake Bodhisattva 17:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] on the conga

Conga's are so cool and my aim sn is spritemanstrauss@aim.com Music is so retarded thanx

[edit] Famous conga players

If we need to have this list at all, it should be limited to those persons who are famous for their conga playing. It should thus exclude Stevie Wonder and Richard Feynman. (Anyway, I read that Feynman played the bongos, not the conga.) TheScotch 09:05, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revision

Somebody has to revise the version before it was shortened. The editor on November 21 deleted a lot of information pertaining to the conga drum without any logical reason. Can somebody please fix this mistake? Cancionista78 (talk) 02:48, 22 November 2007 (UTC)Cancionista78

There was a photo as well as lots of information that was deleted, someone should fix it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.239.190.106 (talk) 23:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)