I need your advice!

[squirrel]

Ok then... I am planning a 2-hour Salsa lesson emphasizing MUSIC!

I want my students to be able to recognise different beats and not to ask me all the time "Is this Salsa?" when a cumbia etc. starts...

So what I would need from you guys is suggestions:

I am familiar with merengue, bachata and cha cha... so I can easily find good songs...

But I also want to give my students a taste of different "Salsa-like" (as they call them) songs... which are not Salsa!

So, I would need some suggestions of good boogaloo, guaguanco, guajira, guaracha, son montuno and son cubano... I need songs which have an obvious beat...

Also, I would like to show them the differences in 3-2 and 2-3 clave in Salsa music... any ideas of good songs, with obvious clave?

What else... yes, I want them to have an idea what a Cuban Salsa, PR Salsa, Colombian Salsa, NY Salsa etc. sounds like... Any song suggestions? I mean, I need some "pure" Salsa of each genre, not the modern mixed stuff... classics...

Name of artist and song should do it (album would be handy too, but not compulsory - I can google!)

I have some ideas... but I would like to hear your opinions too...

For instance, PR Salsa - Frankie Ruiz... Just an idea of mine (my all time fav...)

 

[squirrel]

No ideas?

 

[Sagitta]

4 hours and you are gettiing sad that there are no suggestions!! :shock:

Grupo Niche "Imaginacion" CD has a couple different salsa-like songs, from what I can remember and I have just woken up and have an appointment in 20 minutes. How is that for some help? :wink:

 

[azzey]

Off the top of my head...

**Cuban**

Los Van Van - LA Bomba Soy Yo.

Any discussion of Cuban music has to start with one of the most famous bands of all time. This song has a very clear Clava throughout most of the music and if you listen closely you can hear how it interacts and drives the other instruments of the song. Also like most great Cuban songs it has wonderful phrase changes. So you can use it to illustrate how you should start off dancing slow, without any complicated turns, then gradually as the music changes your dancing changes with it.

Any discussion of Cuban Salsa music should cover timings of Son Clave and Rumba Clave (prevalent in Timba music, of which this track is an example) and demonstrate music with both "New York" and "Clave License" clave changes. This is to illustrate that in general if you follow what the music tells you (i.e. stop, change, go) with it then you will generally be on beat. However its very easy to mistake one Clave timing for another so a lot of people are off beat when dancing to Timba because they're using only one indicator (the clave, which they think is a Son clave) to tell them which beat they're on. If you listen to all the instruments, particularly the piano and the singers and the phrase changes you will hear the music better and be more on time.

Read these articles before you even think of talking about Cuban music:
"The Four Great Clave Debates" http://www.timba.com/fans/clave_debates.asp

"Clave Changes in the Music of Charanga Habanera".
http://www.timba.com/artists/charangahabanera/index.asp?page=CH_Clave_Changes.htm

Bands like Charanga Habanera, NG La Banda, Mamborama and Bamboleo would be my other choices for music to demonstrate the wide variety in sound of Cuban salsa.

The web site above has a large selection of Cuban music tracks which you can play online.
http://www.timba.com/music/songs.asp

Tim Pop Con Birdland by Los Van Van is another excellent track.

Have to go now, more later..

 

[devane]

songs

I can hook you up with some songs.
I presume you want categories like salsa moderna, salsa romantica (frankie ruiz),boogaloo (I have "micaela" which is a huge hit).
give me the weekend to think. I'll post up the song on monday 8)

 

[alvaro]

hi!
the timba.com link that azzey posted is very very good, check it out.
I'm really not sure what you mean by 'pure' stuff, i don't think there is a standard for cuban, pr, colombian, etc. and they usually are very mixed. For example, you can't get more cuban than 'van van' ... and they have lots of pop and rumba in their music.

That said i'd recommend van van for cuban music, for example: somos cubanos, la bomba soy yo, la fruta, soy todo (live), appapas del calabar, ahora quiereme, que cosas tiene la vida, ....
For me van van has a very unique sound, i'm not a great fan of cuban salsa (but i love van van) but other ideas could be:

charanga habanera: somos los cubanos, soy cubano soy popular, el boni, ...
bamboleo: yo no me parezco a nadie, ya no hace falta, recapacita, ...
manolito y su trabuco: locos por mi habana

bamboleo's songs have explicit clave, so that'll help, and at timba.com they say that all charanga habanera's song are in rumba clave, so that'll help too.

for the different Rumbas (like guaguanco), try muñequitos de matanzas. They are great.

For son you always have Buena Vista Social Club, or maybe Estrellas de Areito (los héroes CD). Can't recommend songs -- i like all of them. The CD 'a toda cuba le gusta' by Afro Cuban All stars is beautiful ... and it has a description for every song: 'amor verdadero' is a guajira-son, 'pío mentiroso' a guaracha, and so on.

 

[azzey]

** Cuban **

Oh! How could I forget Maraca! He's one of the all time best Cuban musicians (flutest).

The Timba track "Se te acabo la Rumba" by Maraca. It has a clave throughout, lots of melody and some nice changes.

Here for MP3 clip http://maraca.calabashmusic.com/
See here for background info: http://www.maraca.cult.cu/eng/index.html


OK, other kinds of Cuban music...

http://www.boogalu.com/generic37.html

This page has MP3 samples of all kinds of Cuban music in their native form. Timba, Son, Guaracha, Guajira, Changui, Bolero Son, Afro Son, Bolero, Rumba and Cumbia.

http://www.boogalu.com/generic121.html
This page has MP3 samples of different kinds of Rumba. In their native form these sounds are NOT salsa like, however when played by Salsa bands either in distinct seperate musical phrases at the beginning/middle/end of Salsa tracks or as an influence in the salsa music they completely change the sound of the Salsa being played. This is also true of other music cuban musical forms which are used in both old and modern Cuban salsa music. The short answer is everything is a mix.

http://www.timba.com/artists/nglabanda/index.asp
For each Cuban band there is a history which also talks about their musical influences, i.e. what kinds of music are mixed into their Salsa to make it the sound that it is. See the home page http://www.timba.com then click on the band you want on the left.

There is a history tree on there of all the best bands for the last 40 or more years.

Example of Son music within Cuban Salsa. The first part of this song is Son and goes on for quite some time.
Adalberto Alvarez - Deja La Mala Noche http://www.timba.com/music/songs.asp


** Puerto Rican **

I agree, Frankie Ruiz is a good choice.
Also:

Mi Primera Rumba - La India
http://www.mp3.com/tracks/541247/dl_streams.html
This track by the Eddie Palmieri and Puerto Rican singer La India has a Clave throughout the whole track with some really nice changes in the music. See info on La India here http://www.delafont.com/music_acts/india.htm

See here for more ideas. This site includes bios of the Puerto Rican artists.
http://www.musicofpuertorico.com/en/audio_salsa.html


**Boogalu**

You get Boogalu influenced tracks in Columbian, Venezuelan and Cuban music. Some are obvious some are not and are slight infuences if you listen hard.

La Misma Gente - Fiebre Boogaloo
Probably the most obvious boogaloo salsa track.


** Columbian **

Barranquila Es - Alfredo De La Fe.
Los Nemus Feat Alex Murillo - Castigala
They can be found on Salsa Moderna Vol. 2 here http://www2.hmv.co.uk/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=12;-1;-1;-1&sku=152678

These are two examples of Columbian tracks which have the definitive Columbian sound. I'm a big Columbian fan and although I like Sonora Carruseles a lot it does tend to get played to death.


** Mix of Venezuelan/Columbian/NY/Cuban**

Anything by Oscar D'Leon. Difficult to pin him down to a country depending on where he's recording and who with. See here for his varied influences http://www.delafont.com/music_acts/oscar-dleon.htm

I particularly love the track Jibarito Enamorado, which sounds Columbian to me.

 

[azzey]

Another excellent Salsa mix:

Africando

They represent a cross-cultural collaboration between top-ranked, New York-based, Latin musicians and African vocalists. While lyrics are sung in Yoruba, Wolof, Mandigo and French, the group's sizzling-hot dance rhythms blend classic mambo, Cuban son and mandigo traditions.

** NY **

Well, heres when it gets tricky. Since in NY you have Latin musicians from Cuba, Columbia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela all collaborating together to make a particular groups sound. Some more influenced by Jazz, some by other musical forms.

I can tell by ear whether a group is from NY/Cuba/Puerto Rico/Columbia but it's gunna be hard to explain.

I can give you an idea of what NY dancers might think are good songs.
See half way down this page http://www.salsanewyork.com/guide/song_list.htm#SONGS

Perhaps just sticking to Mambo will help for now.

Anything by Tito Puente is an obvious one.
http://www.musicofpuertorico.com/en/tito_puente.html
http://www.mp3.com/tito-puente/artists/2848/discography.html&flag=box

More later..

 

[azzey]

Ok then... I am planning a 2-hour Salsa lesson emphasizing MUSIC!

I want my students to be able to recognise different beats and not to ask me all the time "Is this Salsa?" when a cumbia etc. starts...

So what I would need from you guys is suggestions...

What I recommend is this:

- Educate them on the different instruments used within all kinds of Salsa music. Use a timing CD that plays each instrument on their own and then with the clave on top. e.g. http://www.mambofello.com/merchandi...htm#Salsa Music, Rhythm, Phrasing & Timing CD

Play a piece of music and get them to demonstrate where they think the first beat is by dancing a mambo basic to it. Not as easy as it sounds on some of the Cuban music examples I gave you.

Get them to think outside of "this is the 1st beat because I've been told about this one way of finding it." They need to be listening to all the beats of the music to both identify whether its salsa and also which beat to start dancing on. After a year or two later this will enable them to do specific things to musical instruments, which is part of what dancing to the music is all about.

- Tell them to listen to music day and night for 6 months. Listen to your favourite tracks and then as much varied kinds of salsa music as possible.
Listen to an individual instrument, say the piano (Montuno) in the salsa track, listen to it repeat every 8 beats. Eventually they will be able to time themselves just using this one instrument (when it's available in the music).

- For the obvious questions of "I lose the beat when X, how do I get back on beat?". It's combination of being able to predict whats coming next in the music (even if you've never heard the track before) because you've listened to so much Salsa, following the changes, i.e. stop when the music stops, start when it starts etc, and recognising different musical phrases and types of music within that phrase and knowing how to dance to it. e.g. Rumba or Cha cha in the middle of a salsa track.

Then and only then can you begin to talk about dancing to the music fully. Like adding styling, hand throw aways, Rumba moves etc on different beats of the music. In my opinion there's no point teaching someone these things if they can't here the music yet.

 

[alvaro]

azzey, nice links and ideas!
just a few more thoughts:

Colombian salsa: i like Grupo Niche, especially the older stuff. Songs like 'Mi pueblo natal' (also check the lyrics, beautiful), 'Como podre disimular', 'Sin sentimientos', 'un alto en el camino', 'a golpe de folklore' ... i'm getting carried away.

From Puerto Rico: i wouldn't know where to draw the line NY//PR. I mean, most of the NY salsa was done by Puerto Ricans ... El Gran Combo sounds PR to me. Frankie Ruiz i've only heard the romantic stuff.

I think there is a (careful) place to teach styling and throws (i'm thinking hand throws - 'pendulums') and so on to beginners ... as an aid to start listening differently to the music. Say you teach something and then stress that it won't fit everywhere and show it done with the music and help them find places and ways to do it themselves ...

 

[azzey]

azzey, nice links and ideas!

Thanks, we have similar tastes.

From Puerto Rico: i wouldn't know where to draw the line NY//PR. I mean, most of the NY salsa was done by Puerto Ricans ... El Gran Combo sounds PR to me. Frankie Ruiz i've only heard the romantic stuff.

Yes I agree this is gunna be a problem. So perhaps she should start by introducing NY and PR music together as they're both designed to be danced on 2 and share a common heritage. Note, being an on 1 dancer myself they *can* be danced on 1 and expressed musically, it's just that a lot of the accents in NY and PR music are where you would expect to spin a girl and in this they are often on the beats 1,2,3. Whereas in Colombian/Cuban music the accents are often on 5,6,7. This is a generalisation so don't beat me with it later. :lol: What you need to do is listen to Colombian/Cuban music then PR/NY music and compare and contrast. e.g. like trying to dance something simple to the music and trying to accentuate the accents. then doing the same to the other music and seeing how if you stay dancing On 1 you have to modify your approach.

This is one very simplified view that might work as an introduction.

I think there is a (careful) place to teach styling and throws (i'm thinking hand throws - 'pendulums') and so on to beginners ... as an aid to start listening differently to the music. Say you teach something and then stress that it won't fit everywhere and show it done with the music and help them find places and ways to do it themselves ...

OK, yes perhaps I was being a bit over the top. What I meant was that if you start with a bit of educatation and then lead on to many simple demonstration examples like hand tosses on cimbals, spin the girl on accents or drums, shaking shoulders/rumba movements on 4,5.

Oh and breaking back when the music breaks. This is one of the most fundamental aspects that you see a lot of dancers missing and they look totally out of sync with the music when they miss the breaks.

 

[azzey]

Yes I agree this is gunna be a problem. So perhaps she should start by introducing NY and PR music together as they're both designed to be danced on 2

<Removes foot from mouth>
Except where the NY music is by Cuban or Columbian musicians or where they just wanted to make music that on 1 dancers could dance to.
</foot removed>

 

[azzey]

Perhaps Boriken should field the question of NY music.
Yes, this is my get out clause...

<runs away laughing manically>

 

[azzey]

<Pops back in with a puff of smoke>

Here's my Tito Puente fav's:

Ran Kan Kan
Timbalito
Ban Ban Quere
Babarabatiri
Pa'lante
Que Bueno Baila Usted
Salsa Y Sabor

They can be found on the album "Tito Puente: The undisputed king of Mambo".

<Azzey implodes due to too much exposure to New York music>

 

[squirrel]

Thank you guys! Very helpful indeed!

I am going to put together a compilation and let you know how it worked!

Thanks again!

BTW, this doesn't mean the thread is no longer interesting to me! If anybody has other ideas, please feel free to post!