Hi friends

This is from Richard Taylor http://www.drummingnet.com

It's a very interesting piece about how to make a "slap" sound on congas.

Here's something interesting to think about.

By closing the drum off to get a dry sound most people tense their hand -

they do this by typically cupping the hand (to various degrees) and grabbing

at the head. (this has improved imensely around this area, many people have

the flat handed technique now, thanks to a lot of good teachers coming

through the Bay Area - typically they've been avid students of Giovanni,

Changuito, etc.).

When we look at the conga masters - Giovanni's a great example. He's got a

rebound with his slap. He can play a slap, and by letting go of the hand

and hitting the drum with a very flat hand that's completely let go of, and

their can be no sense of "grabbing" in a hand that's let go, he gets the

same dry sound - in fact a better sound then most of us. He then proceeds

to take advantage of rebound and can get upwards of 4 slaps (I'm not sure of

a number here, I'm comfy with 2 - as I haven't played rudiments to death).

This is a rather difficult slap to get for some while, you have to literally

"let go" to get it. However, after a period of years it becomes the easiest

of all the sounds to play as it requires the least tension in the hand. If

the student is thinking of "grabbing" the drum though they'll never let go

of the hand and it will be very doubtful they'll play rudiments, double

strokes, etc. at any sort of a fast pace.

If you try to play a cupped slap on a Cajon, you'll typically hurt your

hand. With the flat relaxed slap, the hand does just fine. My teacher used

a metaphor, "try to imagine that the conga head is a solid piece of granite

with a thin layer of water on it. How would you get a slap off the surface

of the water, without hitting the drum". He went on further to say that

with a really good slap you'd go beyond the typical cupped hands fingertips

hitting. As you moved up in proficiency you'd begin to get it with the

fingertips plus the first set of finger joints, and eventually, with a lot

of persistence you would play a slap with the fingertips all the way through

the first and second joints (the first and second from the tip of the

finger).

The idea behind this was that their should be as little physical

movement/differentiation, as possible, in the hands to get the different

sounds. It really comes down to slight articulations in the hand at this

point, nothing more.

One more hint about the slap... If you play a bass for a while with a flat

and relaxed hand with the fingers and thumb all pulled in together

(fingers/thumb slightly spread so it's natural) that simply falls to the

drum for and sticks for a moment (opening the palm up in this process, the

hand's relaxed, remember), that's the same relaxed that the slap comes out

of. The tone and muffled tone both require intention in the hand, the slap

and bass don't. This is more or less true of the bass, the bass is deepened

if you use the slightest little intention so the (entire) palm hits more

then the fingers, this facilitates the heel/toe material as well - although

I call it bass/finger as the metaphor heel/toe tends to bring people too

much in to the heel area of the hand, thus striking very valuable tendons

that we want to last a long time (so we can play for our whole life).

Take a look at this tendon diagram.. the "Transverse carpal ligament" is the

one I've been trying to avoid people hitting for life. Another interesting

thought. A fellow drummer who's played upwards of 40 years is now have

major Ulnar nerve problems, to the point that he'll have to have surgery on

both arms pretty soon (he has to be medicated to sleep at night, due to the

fact it's a nerve problem the whole entire nervous system vibrates at a very

high and very perceptible physical hum that keeps him awake all night

otherwise - he has no choice but to sleep on his back now as well). The

other likely cause of this problem was carrying the drum with an arm that

didn't keep a bend in the elbow (ie. relaxing the arm and letting the drum

hang) - this usually happens when you're carrying two drums - praise the

"light drum" manufacturers out there and curse those really heavy LP's (what

are they thinking???). Notice the Ulnar Nerve he's having problems with

runs right through the heel part of the hand as well... The median nerve

runs through this area at the heel of the hand too.

http://www.proliteinfo.com/anatofwrist.asp

So, let's think about this, study our anatomy diagrams, and do what we can

to avoid hitting the heel of the hand on the drum, especially the wooden

edge. Maybe it's time to utilize all the science we have here and come up

with an extension of what the masters have, rather then emulating them

entirely and potentially hurting ourselves.. It's always best to be critical

and question everything we're shown, rather then following blindly.

Anyone else that spent time studying with Giovanni, Changuito, etc. have

other contributions?

Best Wishes,

Richard Taylor

http://www.drummingnet.com

A little disclaimer, if you watch videos of Giovanni you'll see an

alternation between a cupped slap and a flat slap. The flat is used when

it's very fast and the cupped is used at a slower pace. The cup does have

it's strength but I've always thought one should learn the more difficult of

the two slaps first. The cup's identical in the hand letting go - it

typically uses the edge of the drum as a lever, that propels the fingertips

to the drum, thus the appearance of a cupped hand. I've tried to avoid

students hitting the edge (where their is wood underneath) as much as

possible in order to facilitate their not ending up with a lot of pain in

the hands later on in life. I absolutely cringe when I see someone teaching

a slap that uses this edge as the lever, some people really, really grossly

exaggerate the lever and hit the edge quite hard with the 3rd set of joints

to then propel that fingers to the drum - and even worse yet they teach that

to their students... OUCHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! We have Clave' police where are the

"technique police"...?

I've met too many old school drummers who didn't learn proper technique to

start that had to take periods of "years" off after hand surgeries to fix

what bad technique did. That's when John Santos said he learned how to play

sticks (timbales) - during a two year break after hand surgery, one of the

most painful things he ever went through in his life. After that he

straightened out his technique...