Hand-to-hand vs heel-tip technique for quinto

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Hand-to-hand vs heel-tip technique for quinto

Postby studio7conga » Tue Jul 08, 2014 8:41 pm

I've been working hard through Penalosa's "Rumba Quinto" over the past couple of weeks. I have a good hang of many of the quinto lock patterns and have been using alternating hand-to-hand technique. It has helped me be accurate with the rhythms as certain beats will always land on a certain hand with touch strokes in between. I can see that heel-tip technique could also be used to help with timing, but I haven't explored this much. What are your thoughts on playing quinto patterns and variations with hand-to-hand touch techniques vs. heel-tip technique?
Thanks,
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Re: Hand-to-hand vs heel-tip technique for quinto

Postby davidpenalosa » Wed Jul 09, 2014 5:29 pm

Studio7conga,
Thank you for purchasing my book Rumba Quinto. Unlike the two supportive drum parts—salidor and segundo, the quinto doesn't have a ride per sé. The tone-slap phrase is the "ride." However, I found it impossible at first, not to use extra inaudible touches ("ghost-notes") marking the main beats, in order to properly place my quinto strokes on offbeats.

I too began by using hand-to-hand technique. That put the main beats and the "and" offbeats on my left hand, and the "ee" and "ah" offbeats on my right. Using the hand-to-hand technique insured that mechanically, I was placing my strokes on the correct pulses (subdivisions). At that time, a friend of mine had learned the same basic lock, but without the "fillers" that come with playing hand-to-hand. Without a technique to mark the main beats, this poor guy could not help but place the quinto strokes on the beat. Unless one has had extensive training in rhythm, North Americans can't but help hear accent as meter. The quinto language is of course, counter-metric; it sounds crossbeats and offbeats.

The problem with playing quinto hand-to-hand is that the pitter-patter of touching the drum head on all of the pulses can make for a cluttered sound. Once you feel comfortable with the placement of the quinto strokes (and that may take awhile), I recommend a sparser method. Have you checked out the heel-tip rides on pages 3 and 4?

triple-pulse quinto lock.jpg
Basic triple-pulse quinto lock using heel-tip technique.


duple-pulse quinto lock.jpg
Basic duple-pulse quinto lock using heel-tip technique.


Like hand-to-hand, heel-tip technique will mechanically set you up to play the strokes on the proper pulses. Also like hand-to-hand though, it too tends to sound cluttered. The advantage of heel-tip in playing quinto, is that you can gradually drop some of the heel-tip strokes. Eventually, you may find that you only need to occasionally mark a main beat with your heel. Many drummers, Cuban and non-Cuban, play in this fashion.

From teaching quinto for over 30 years, I feel strongly that it is more important to place the strokes accurately, than it is to abandon filler strokes. The problem is that playing the quinto strokes on the wrong pulses also sounds pretty interesting, and if one doesn't know exactly how the drum melody should sound, bad habits can be formed. Once you hear without question, where those quinto strokes should occur, dropping fillers won't be a problem.
-David

rumba quinto.jpg
Rumba Quinto, Lessons in a musical art form. ISBN: 145371313I.
rumba quinto.jpg (70.21 KiB) Viewed 9220 times
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Re: Hand-to-hand vs heel-tip technique for quinto

Postby studio7conga » Wed Jul 09, 2014 6:13 pm

Thank you thank you thank you. That was exactly what I hoped to hear.
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Re: Hand-to-hand vs heel-tip technique for quinto

Postby davidpenalosa » Thu Jul 10, 2014 4:18 am

Very happy to have been helpful. Please don't hesitate to post any other questions, or contact me privately concerning the material in Rumba Quinto.
-David
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Re: Hand-to-hand vs heel-tip technique for quinto

Postby Marcus » Thu Jul 10, 2014 2:39 pm

To learn and feel comfortable with 3-2 and 2-3 Rumba and Son Clave', I have been placing a Heel-Toe, Heel-Touch-Toe & Heal or Touch to fillin between the Clave' tones. Seems really fundamental and at high tempos it is a bit awkward, however at slower tempos one can reallty distinguish how the Clave' leads. Also you can find recorded non-latin music to play along with. I have found some 3-2 Clave' patterns in Grover Washington's music and even the Beach Boys.

With two people you can mix the Conga/Tumba & Quinto parts with the appropraite Clave' and a partial rhythm is formed were each part may play off the Clave' individually.

Got the idea from David's books. Thanks David! Been working well with my drum buddy.

thx, Marcus
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Re: Hand-to-hand vs heel-tip technique for quinto

Postby davidpenalosa » Tue Jul 15, 2014 4:09 pm

Notice how this quintero periodically touches the drum head with his "heel," to mark a main beat. This is a very common practice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc3a3AkB1J0
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