Tag Archive for 'practice'

Find the Salsa Dance Beat Exercise Soundtrack

I am very happy to have found out that interest in learning to dance on2 (NY/PR) timing has started becoming very popular on addicted2salsa.com. To help everyone become more familiar with the clave and the VERY important conga slap, I have edited the original salsa clave track I created in Garageband for Episode 25 : Finding the Salsa Beat and modified it for an easier learning experience. This should help everyone make it part of their daily schedule to play the track at least 3 times a day while they do some other task. Doing this will allow your brain to sink-in that conga beat and rhythm subconsciously - so that it starts becoming easily recognizable by your ears.

At first, I recommend forgetting about the clave when listening to the soundtrack. Focus on the ‘tu-ku (small pause) PA!’ (conga) sound first. The ‘tu-ku’ sound happens on the 8-AND and 4-AND counts. That ‘PA’ sound are your 2′s and 6′s when dancing on2.

I have loaded the waveform of the track and added some cue markers for you to understand what is happening in the beat. You can do the same with any audio editing program, for example, the free Audacity. Please remember that this is not a perfect graph of the waveform, but it is very accurate if you focus your attention on the peak points. (No noise reduction or normalizing was done).

The exercise video (recommended) is posted here : Salsa Beat and Rhythm Exercise.

Salsa Clave and Conga Audio Waveform

Published 2 years, 11 months ago in podcast and salsa tip. 17 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Why procrastination is the death of a good dancer!

Practice, Practice, Practice – at home and at the club!

I am here to help you get good at salsa, so you can enjoy it as much as I do. But like they say, I can only show you the door – you must walk through it. The road to salsa heaven, is not an overnight process — neither is investing for retirement. But the sooner you start, the sooner you can start reaping the rewards.

So there is no class this Friday. That doesn’t mean you should not practice. Go to the web, find more salsa videos — find your favorite style. And again, practice, practice, practice!. If you can, go to a salsa event to practice. If not, Dorothy and Toto from Kansas suggest that “There is no place like home.”

I can’t tell you how important this is. I have been teaching salsa for over 5 years now, and I can tell you, what will makes a person good at salsa really fast and keeps you mediocre is the amount of dedication you put into salsa. If you practice (even if its just the basic step, you should still do it). I know that just doing the basic step is boring — so try some new stuff out, try changing your footwork. Try going forward with the right, and back with the left. Try doing a basic step, followed by double taps. There are an infinite things you can do with your feet, and the more you do it on beat, the much MUCH better and faster you’ll get good at it.

Trust me, I still dedicate every day to listening to at least one song and playing around with my basic step. I can be folding clothes, reading a magazine, or almost anything else. (Of course, salsa at your own risk; don’t salsa while sharpening knives). Trying to come up with new footwork patterns. This means, that if I still do it, so should you! ;-) Just as one of my favorite instructors “Juan C.” (San Diego, MajestyInMotion) told me: “If you tell yourself you’ll practice later, you’ll only get good later…”

Published 6 years, 2 months ago in articles. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .