How to Find the Beat in Salsa Music (part 1)

http://addicted2salsa.com/videos

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 forget about the clave when listening to the soundtrack. Focus on the tu-ku (small pause) PA! (conga) sound first. That PA sound are your 2s and 6s when dancing on2.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• how to find the salsa beat
• finding the beat
• salsa
• music
• salsa music
• find the beat
• salsa beat

[watching656]

The best way to understand this is by saying, "Tucu 1, 2, 3, tucu, 5, 6, 7, tucu, 1..."

[hegameister]

You upload a lot of really helpful and informative clips. Thanks for the effort, much appreciated.

[maltanetworkresource]

what's a clave?

[mezmero69]

It seems the "PA" of the conga is the 2 and the first sound of the clave (when it makes 123 56) is the one? Because I hear the clave beat before the conga, so the conga isn't the one?

[TiqueO6]

@Industrialdisease

the clip fades in but if you listen carefully you'll hear the first "Pa" (or "slap" tone) preceeding the "tucu" by 3 muted notes.

The Pa sound is on beat "2" which is one quarternote after the "1" and in this example one quarter note after the "5".

You need to train your ear to hear the Pa as on beat "2" and the "tucu as on beat "4"

(you don't really need to extend it to 8 quarter notes as that's never written that way -the poster did it for some unknown reason)

[TiqueO6]

especially for musicians you can also learn to say it in "cut-time" like:

"1 pa 2 tucu 1 pa 2 tucu" because that's where the strong beat falls on the bell and the guiro.

For dancers, the 8 count version in the comments is also good because they place their steps on every beat.

Musicians don't necessarily beat each beat with the feet but more often every other one : "1 pa 2 tucu" or "1pa 2 tucu 3 pa 4 tucu"

[azfar794]

fuck



[BigBalance233]

The "phrase" is the entire sequence that loops over and over again. The phrase is made up two measures. Each measure is made up of 8 beats called eight notes (1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &). In the first measure, the clave (slap sound) hits on 3 of the 8 eight notes (the first, fourth, and seventh). In the second measure the clave hits on 2 of the 8 eight notes (third and fifth). Since the clave hits 3 times in the first measure and 2 times in the second measure this is where the 3/2 notation comes from.

[SoySalserito]

@elemay79

Unfortunately we can't always hear the clave covered by other instrument such as piano or trumpet. Fortunately these instruments plays "phrases" starting on 1. These phrases are much easier to catch.

You cana also try the youtube video of SalsaBeatMachine. They are good teaching.

[SoySalserito]

@elemay79

The Tumbao or conga indicates clearly 1 or 5. ( tucu 1... tucu 5 ...) but it does not tell which one is 1. To recognize the "one", you need to hear other instruments. Here the clave is 2-3 . It means that the first half measure has 2 hit clave and the second half measure has 3 hit clave.