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Good morning, afternoon or evening, fellow Salsa dancers. This is Dany Joshua with another mini-editorial.
Salsa dancers are very picky when it comes to attending events. This statement is especially true in New York City. Having said that, Salsa dancers are the most loyal people once they have become in love with an event. Just ask Jimmy Anton.
So the questions is: How do you keep and please Salsa dancers? La Vieja Guardia seems to have found the secret. Bring some good dancers and play good music for them. That’s it. The following video of Joel Dominguez dancing with Kim Torrence while DJ Antonio LaConga plays his best Salsa (from vinyl records) captures the spirit of La Vieja Guardia Social, which has become very quickly one of the most soulful socials in New York City. And THAT is saying something.
Saying that DJ Antonio LaConga plays good music is an understatement. And he plays Salsa from vinyl records!!! La Vieja Guardia Social takes place on a Sunday, usually once a month. The next social will be on Sunday December 28th. FYI, the LVG social and yours truly (moi) were featured in a New York Times article last August).
Actually, it takes more than good music to please Salsa dancers, but great Salsa music is absolutely necessary to host a great Salsa social. If you are looking to promote Salsa dancing in your local area or in your city, stay tuned because soon I will write an article about how to organize a successful and banging Salsa social.
In the meanwhile, I want to invite all the readers to leave a comment with thoughts on what makes a good Salsa social.
I have mentioned some of my favorite places for listening and finding new salsa music (ex. Pandora). A new online music store has just propped up called Lala.com. While I tend to buy my music on the iTunes Store or Amazon, this new website improves the immersion of being able to listen to full length songs and playlists of your choosing (unlimited times*) while you browse for others. One of the more interesting things about Lala is the fact that there is a distinction between a Web-Song (a song that lives on lala.com/internet for $0.10) and the actual downloadable MP3 (for $0.89). While I always prefer to download my music for my iPod, the price for a web song is great for experimenting or going through musical salsa phases.
While they are lacking a few general salsa albums that I’d like to see, they tend to have a better selection of salsa, Latin, cha-cha and bachata music than other stores. I even found out about a new genre called ‘Bachata-Rap‘!!??! If you are picky about choosing what music to buy, especially when you are doubtful of the artist, this store is a great place to listen to the full track before adding it permanently to your latin music playlist.
Musical tastes and personality are closely linked, according to a recent study by the Heriot-Watt University in Scotland.
We have always known the fact that what you wear, eat and listen is linked to your personality (whether for good or bad). Finally, there has been some research done by the Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University. In a study of more than 36,000 people from six countries, they provide some type of detail on what types of personalities are tied to people’s taste in music. Here is a snippet from the article:
You are what you listen to
Jazz fans tend to be creative and outgoing, with high self-esteem, in keeping with the innovative and sociable nature of the music.
Country western fans were found to be hard-working, but introverted, fitting with the blue-collar image of country music.
The research concluded soul music lovers are a well-rounded bunch — creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease with themselves and with high self-esteem.
Rap fans are outgoing and far from gentle, while indie music lovers lack both self-esteem and the work ethic.
While Latin music (or specifically Salsa/Cha-Cha/Bachata) weren’t included in the article, I’m trying to see if it was included in the published research (trying to find the publication). I’m sure salseros(as) would at a minimum fall under ’sociable’ and ‘outgoing’. But I’d like to hear your opinion. What do you think Latin music expresses about our personality? (your comments below).
You can read and see the entire music genres studied using the links below.
Have you ever woken up with that obnoxious ringing in your ears after a long night of dancing at the club? Is that EVERY weekend for you? If so, you may want to look into options to protect yourself from Noise induced hearing loss. The way it develops is this: you go to a noisy club- noisy to the point that the next morning your ears are still ringing. This is a temporary threshold shift, a (mostly unnoticeable) hearing loss. In about 24 hours, your hearing is completely back to normal. However, after doing this week after week for several years, the “temporary” threshold shift becomes more permanent as the damaged inner ear structures can no longer repair themselves.
Salsa clubs vary in how loud the music is, so some people may be more at risk than others. The more frequently you go out, the more damage you are potentially causing. If you think this is a problem for you, you may want to try using earplugs. I made a recent earplug discovery when I noticed a salsero friend wearing these- musician’s earplugs: they soften the loudness without muffling the sound.
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.
We had posted this video on youtube a long time ago - however, it was recently that I discovered that someone took the time to post all the songs associated with the video. Incase you have been looking for a specific song in the video os Salsa Congress Masters of SF 2006, here it is:
Last, but not least - the third version of the ’salsa track’ that I made with Garageband is with a Flute Solo. Using a flute as the main part of the melody is common, but it is usually not heard of enough.
If you missed the first two salsa track solos, you can find the trumpet one here and the violin one here.
I’m sure there are many of you musicians out there that can do a much better job than I can - and we’d like to hear from you. If you can create an instrumental latin tracks, whether it be salsa, cha-cha or bachata, and would like to share that with the community - send it our way and we’ll post it up with a link to your site/profile. Who knows, it could start your record career.
This is the second version of the simple salsa track that I posted earlier. This time, I chose to go with a more ‘Salsa Celtica‘ kind of sound with a Violin salsa solo. I also used the Cajon as the background drum beat (instead of the regular Cowbell and Congas).
Your feedback is always welcomed! Feel free to download . PS. I love Garageband!
After you get a Mac, a lot of fun things happen. I decided to put my compusic (computer+music) skills to some more good use an make a few interesting Salsa tracks with a program called GarageBand. While I was at it, I made three different versions of this salsa dance soundtrack. Here is the first one: an interesting salsa trumpet solo with some mixed in jazzy piano, cowbell and congas. Let me know what you think and of course - enjoy!
I welcome your comments and feel free to download, distribute and use the file freely - I provide it as part of a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Now, this might not really be considered a salsa song, but I was impressed to find a Victor Manuelle as the Free Single of the Week on the (US) iTunes Music store. You can download it for free - Lechón, Lechón, Lechón - Single of the wee
For those looking for the more salsa version of Christmas (Navidad) songs, I would highly recommend you check out some of the most classic salsa songs during the holidays by Willie Colon and Hector Lavoe. Here are a few albums to check out:
Here are Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the famous ‘Asalto Navideño’ by Hector Lavoe and Willie Colon.
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