Hello Salsa friends! This is Dany Joshua from ScarletMambo.com. Anthony wrote an excellent post about playing the “son montuno” on the piano. The ability to hear (and play) the “son montuno” is helpful for hearing the 1st beat of the 8-beat Salsa measure, which many beginners find very difficult to hear or differentiate from the 5th beat.
Another useful skill is hearing and playing the “tumbao” on the congas, especially for On2 dancers. After you hear this rhythmic pattern, you will see why it is called the tumbao. Actually, it should be called the “tumtumbao”.
Nate Torres, a young musician from Bronx, NY, filmed a 7-part series of instructional videos that teaches basic conga techniques. Notice his New York accent.
Video 4 explains how to play the basic tumbao rhythm.
If you have taken taking Eddie Torres’ class, he sometimes quotes Tito Puente saying that the On2 Salsa step is very natural because it compliments the tumbao slap on the 2nd and 6th beats.
Videos 1-3 explain how to play basic sounds on the congas. Videos 5-7 explains more intricate percussion patterns.
I have received a lot of email about our Addicted2Salsa Dance Podcast - I’ve heard it has become popular (who would have thought?). Well, to make it easy for many people in the world to be able to view the podcast and most of the latest videos, I have updated the salsapodcast.org website with a video player and multiple links to the different formats of the video feeds. You can watch our Youtube Channel, subscribe to our iTunes Salsa feed, or just read most of the video articles straight from our website!
Also, trying out something new: With the help of Google, I have made a custom search engine that ONLY searches specific salsa websites such as Addicted2Salsa, Salsa Power, Salsa Web, Just Salsa and many others. This should make it easy for everyone to find what they are looking for in the salsa community.
One of my favorite things about salsa dancing is the diversity of all the various kinds of dance that can be incorporated into the basic framework provided by salsa. In this series, I am going to share several videos that showcase the fusion of salsa with other styles of dance.
The first video in this series comes from Masacote Dance Company from Boston, MA. For those of you who have not heard of Masacote, their leader, Joel Massicot, is both a musician and a dancer. He has a latin/salsa band called Ritmo Masacote. The goal of Masacote Dance Company is to bridge the gap between music and dance; Joel teaches his famous musicality workshop throughout the world.
This performance is entitled “Afterlife”, and was performed at Flava Invasion 3 on Feb 23rd, 2008. The routine is a mix of salsa with modern and contemporary dance elements. Enjoy!
Our friend Alan from Nuevotec Productions has made an awesome documentary about the ESPN Salsa World Championships - which is being called a ‘Salsamentary’. It is an amazing work to get to know how the entire World Championships started, learn about the people, the dancers and everything that goes on behind the scenes. Here is a brief description:
Salsamentary takes a look at the journey of six dancers as they step on salsa’s largest stage through its highest level of competitive dancing. Each dancer has their own reason for competing. Some enjoy the challenge of competing against the world’s best dancers. Others want to build their salsa dance resume and credentials quickly through the event, which is televised on several ESPN national and international stations, as well as DVDs sold globally. The rewards cannot be expressed just in terms of the prize money awarded to the first, second, and third places.
So I have a question for you: What is the best way to learn to salsa? I have been dancing salsa for several months now, and mostly I’ve just been going to different clubs, and picking up moves from various salsa lessons. I feel like I’ve learned the basics, and I know a few combos now, but I still feel pretty nervous about stepping onto the dance floor.
So what is the best way to take my salsa to the next level? Private lessons seem pretty pricey, but is that the best bet? Should I invest in salsa videos? Or is the best way to just keeping going out to the clubs?
Salsaholic
Thanks for writing Addicted2Salsa! I am Julie, the co-host, and had some ideas to share about the salsa learning process.
I’m a big believer in moderation. Classes will provide your technique, knowledge of footwork and combos, and maybe correct errors you’ve developed (if the instructor gives personalized attention). Social dancing trains your ear to the music, enables you to adapt to different followers/leaders, and expands your social network (so you can improve by dancing with better dancers). If you put in the effort, you can improve quite a bit social dancing…but it cannot be a passive process. You have to really listen to the beats of the music, and carefully observe dancers who are better than you to watch their combinations, footwork, technique, and style. If you do all of this, AND take group classes, you will improve. As with everything, frequency will improve you at a much faster rate, so going out four nights per week is better than two, and classes with different instructors helps to see different methods of teaching……
