Songo Conguero (Part One) - Locating The Rumba Clave Orientation Marker

I've been playing the tumbadoras for years now, and like most of the musicians I know, there have been niggles with my playing that I've borne for a very long time; niggles that I'd learned to live with in the mental interim until there was enough time to address them properly. We never seem to make the time... because that pesky Spectre of Something-Else-More-Urgent always seems to steal the moments set aside away. "Not this time you ain't", I resolved. "It's Christmas and you're not getting any!"

My greatest regret on these hand-drums has been that I'd never become a songo conguero. I can play a range of songo patterns but that's different; it's only descriptive (and as far removed from being the real thing as a move technician is from being a dancer). Over time, I'd come to understand theoretically how songo came about, what it was designed to achieve and some of the forms in which it manifested itself.

• It broke the old rule of low drum on (clave) 3-side, with it being used to voice the double-open tones at the end of each bar (beats 4 & 4+) if you're European-trained. They'd mark the beginning of the cycle if you're and African drummer. This was the cyclic structure of the rhythm.
  
• Congueros should fill the space in between the double-opens on the tumba more freely, melodically even. Moving fluidly between variations and creating their own.
• The congas retained only part of their traditional role, taking on aspects from other percussion instruments, and redefining themselves to create rhythmic space for the integration of a trap-set.
  
• There's an optional clave-orientation marker - the first upbeat (beat 1+) on the clave 3-side, which is significant in rumba drumming.
  

It was the Practice of songo that had me stumped. I found it always a struggle simply changing between variations - like swimming against a current, let alone progress through it all as a seamless whole; and my phrasing didn't sound at all on the money. It was clear that my playing needed a revamp.

On Christmas day I decided to tackle my phrasing, specifically the clave-orientation marker. I had programmed myself to believe that its rhythmic location was similar to that of the note in a typical piano montuno (on the same beat) - an easy enough assumption to make, given my history as a pianist and my limited exposure to live drumming in a rumba context. It wasn't until I'd put on some of Los Van Van's live tracks and changed mental gears over to 'African mode' that it became clear how mistaken I'd been.

Trying the extremes of placement, it felt that if attacked too early, the note sounded like an echo of the first clave beat; too late and it was a lethargic introduction to beat two of the bar. Either way it was weak, failing to convey the sense of power that I knew had to exist in rumba. Unlike with piano notes, a conga's open tone swells after its initiation with resonance before it decays; and compensating for this proved to be the key. I timed the placement of the open tone such that the transition from crescendo to decrescendo formed a bridge linking beats one and two of the 3-side. The orientation marker thus emerged as a potent response to the call of beat one; acting as a complement to the clave, in contrast to the son forms where the orientation markers are generally in agreement.

It proved to be a significant revelation, not least in helping me keep track of clave orientation, but more so in opening the way to the fluid playing that songo requires of its interpreters.

I was to experience one more valuable gift on the day of December 25th.

On to Part Two.

Loo Yeo