Bongolicious Booty

After an Odyssean saga which involved:

• a Trickster (Royal Mail postie),
• a Scylla (Royal Mail's Website of ultimate deflection),
• a Charybdis (Royal Mail's Telephone System of spiraling circuitousness),
• drachmae (my trusty credit card), and
• a lovely Cassandra (Royal Mail customer service lass with mucho Gaelic charm),

the great Hero (Me!) bested the intractable Poseidon (Royal Mail) to claim his prize: a priceless set of bongó books and DVD by Trevor Salloum. Cue the Orgy and the dancing girls.

The next day, still drunk from success, I made plans to enjoy my deserved spoils over the weekend. Followers of this beloved blog might just be wondering whether I've finally turned in a couple of sandwiches short of a full picnic. As if guitar, vocals, congas and two bands plus the dance-floor menacings aren't enough, Loo's going for bongó as well? ¿Qué?

It's hard to rationalise it from an instrument perspective, so I'll not go there; rather, it's the skills that playing bongó can develop that I'm after.

Since 'The Great Songo Breakthrough of 2009' (see previous posts), my conga-playing's been blessed with fertile new pastures of rhythmic space and plenty of cognitive overhead with which to do the seeding. As a result I'd already started to cultivate little fills and accents, tasteful ones might I add, to give my music that bit more sabor. But I found that ferreting around for little snatches of examples in songs, whilst educative to some extent, lacked an overall coherence. And I'm a big fan of coherence.

That's when I thought, "what about the bongó; that oft-overlooked virtuoso instrument born precisely to lead, fill and solo?"

It ticked ALL the right boxes straight away:

1. one of its basic rhythmic interpretations the martillo, is similar to a caballo on the conga, both of which I needed more practice of and their near-infinite variations;
2. Conjunto Laloma would have more musical avenues to explore if there was a bongosero in da house;
3. friends have been wanting me to guide them around those skins for a long time;
4. it would expand my ear-training workshop to address música de guitarra forms like son, bolero and bachata;
5. it would support another of my workshops on dance movement improvisations;
   
6. and most important of all, it's an instrument I've been ashamed I wasn't better on.

For the two days past, Mr. Salloum's voice has wafted forth from the telly; patiently teaching me the arcane bongo-arts even as his fingers seemed cheekily to mock mine. I'd possessed his manuals before and in part of my hard-won booty were replacements for things lent and ne'er returned. Saturday and Sunday were graced with a comforting sense of déjà vu as my eyes, hands and ears remade their acquaintances with the drum.

I don't yet know how my return to Ithaca (bongoland) will be received, but no doubt the jeers of frustration will have to be silenced by the wine of success for there to be a happily ever after. I'm a bigger fan of happy.

Loo Yen Yeo

P.S. A review of Trevor Salloum's work will follow later.