Hi Anthony, can you do a lesson on how to dance pachanga? I’ve been watching the videos of Eddie Torres giving his lessons on youtube, and I’ve been trying to practice his exercise where he bends his knees back and forth, but I can’t seem to get the feel for how to do it right. Or do you happen to know some good pachanga lessons on some salsa dvds I can buy?
lonbluster 1:41 pm on February 6, 2010Permalink |
Hi ColdSalsero
I went through this, and can explain something…I’ll think to make a video with my camera…indeed there ain’t many good around. Torres is very short at giving detailed explanations, though he is a very good example.
So… on Pachanga you have you’re knees bent on the downbeats(DB), which mean 1-3-5-7, while you are on maximun standing up on the upbeats(UB) 2-4-6-8. This means that when the DB occurs you’re legs muscles thighten for stopping the bent downwards to start going upwards, while when you are on UB you have reached the full lenght of your body extension and start to release the muscles to go downwards.
So actually you can notice (which is something I couldn’t get at the beginning) that the movement for the 1, or 3 or 5 or 7, has to start a bit earlier, so that you can react with your muscles precisely on 1 3 5 7 when you are down.
You can notice that this explanation is very precise, like if you don’t have time to think for all these movements, which at a certain level will occur automatically on your body, but they must be regulated with the careful listening to the music.
So what you have to do is to find cross references in the music being played, otherwise you will lose very easily the timing, which is foundamental in pachanga.
Cross references means you have to listen to different patterns in the music, so the most obvious is listen for the DBs. It is not easy, maybe impossible(for the attention) to listen both for the DB and UB, so just start with the DBs.
Then you start to follow the Clave which spans for 2 measures, from 2 to 8: 2-3-5-6½-8. Here you can see that in 3 and 5 you will match the DBs that you were following at the beginning.
And you can see that if you keep listening to the clave you also have the 2 and 8 UBs.
In turn these UBs correspond to the conga or the cowbell, and this will help your styling. You don’t really have to focus on those UBs, but just use them to refine your style.
in summary you have to switch your attention starting with the DBs, then focus on the clave, and lastly on the conga (or the UB instruments).
Eventually on a per song basis, you will find other patterns other than the clave which will make your pachanga really interesting.
I hope that was not too long. Anyway Pachanga requires a lot of energy, not much for the muscles(yes, at the beginning be careful!!), but more for the attention you have to apply, which will make you fully inside the music. Cool, ain’t it??
Don’t get stuck on the same basic exercizes, start with simple shines as well, as Torres shows.
Another advice: just do it with high quality portorican-jazz salsa, where all instruments are well marked, like with Ray Barretto’s Salsa, for instance. Also Ismael Rivera is great for Pachanga.
cold.salsero 6:23 pm on February 6, 2010Permalink |
Cool, thanks for the tips Ion, I’ll try them out!