Product Description

This book will teach any musician, step by step, how to play the conga drum using authentic Afro-Cuban rhythms: calypso, bomba, conga, rumba and bembe. The clear text, life-like illustrations and simple charts make learning to play these beats easy, even for non-musicians. The player can hear all 175 rhythms in the book on the included CD.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #212472 in Books
• Published on: 1994
• Released on: 1996-07-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 159 pages

Customer Reviews

Doesn't use standard notation
Great Conga book. Was recommended to me by others. The only thing that I don't like about this books is that it doesn't use standard notation.

Excellent introductory book
I found this book invaluable for learning the basics of conga drumming without a teacher. I used it for several months before hitting my first conga class, and was really glad I had worked with the book. I was able to pick up right away with the rest of the class on several of the rhythms. However, I will warn anyone using the book that this drumming world is steeped with "variations". That is, you'll frequently find that your teacher is using a slightly different variation than the one taught in the book. This is fine, however, since it's usually easy to alter what you're doing slightly.

One of the more impressive aspects of the methods in this book is the holistic approach, for example, teaching how to feel the clave underneath the rhythms you're playing. The book also does about as good a job as any book can at teaching the hand technique, although I highly recommend complementing this with good videos of accomplished conga players. Youtube, for example, is a great resource. Here again, though, you will find different philosophies of technique, and again your teacher may have his own emphasis.

Almost everything you'd ever need to play conga
This book is extremely readable and it teaches you terrific grooves right from the get-go. I'm a pianist who has decided to learn some percussion and I am having a blast learning to play the conga. Even my non-musician girlfriend has learned some of this stuff!