congaplace.com

Humm, I agreed a 100% with SalseroBerlinense and Firebrand. I will add that there is no flavor,swing,afinque,ect without the Bongó playing in a Salsa Band. You may have the best Conguero in the band but, what can he do other than play the marcha during the first parts of the song ? he has to play straight tumbao, now the Bongó is playing in and out of martillo,improvising his syncopa to add flavor to the singer,then during the montuno he let go of his bongo and play the Campana. As a friend (piano Player ) said to me , during the montuno the Bongocero campaneo is my guide. The Bongó was first use in the Cuban conjuntos,not the conga.

Hey, Johnny Conga, where we can get that bongo book by Robertito Melendez?

www.cdbaby.com/robertito chek it out..."JC" Johnny Conga

You can find Robertito's and my DVDs here at the bottom of the page.

http://www.volcanopercussion.com/Accessories.php

I'm thinking of sticking my toe into the bongo waters. From Amazon I just ordered "Kalani's Ultimate Hand Percussion: Ultimate Bongo Jam" a DVD only instruction. It had only 2 customer reviews. One was awful from a guy who wrote that he gave one star because he thought he was buying bongos from amazon. The other person wrote: "Suitable for beginners to intermediate level. It covers Martillo basics and variation/improvisations (2), Guiro 6/8, Songo, Funk, Calypso, Reggae, Samba & Motown. The pattern is shown in tiempo, than at 80 beats per minute (for approx. 2 mins) and play along in tiempo (for approx. 2 mins.) Professional, clear and precise with adequate time to get good practice in . Excellent. It also covers warm-up exercises, tuning, care and maintenance. Bongo Tuning (A-La/G-Sol or F-Fa) with an octave difference Macho to Hembra (lower)."

Anyway my plan is to borrow or to buy a modest set of bongos in the next month or 2 to give it a whirl. I'll let you guys know how it goes!

Also consider Trevor Salloum's "The Bongo Book". Mines old and just has a CD - there might be a DVD now - has a billion Martillo variations (almost TOO many!). Also teaches the traditional manoteo (thumb/fingers) and what I was once told was the more modern heel/toe (more like a conga player) ... I'm a heel/toe man myself.

Indeed, Trevor Salloum now has a bongo instructional DVD. It's entitled "The Art of Bongo Drumming". I've got one. It's 1 or 2 of the first bongo instructional videos I have. Highly recommended.

The big question. How do I get David Romeros bongo DVD? I tried the mail I found on the net. Error message. Seems this mail-adress is not valid. I tried some of the dealers. Nothing. David Romero does his thing the way I like it, so I would appreciate very much if someone could tell me how to get this DVD.
casaet

casaet,

David Romero's email address and website that I have are bongoslap@embarqmail.com and http://www.david-romero.com, respectively.

I've emailed him twice before (the last one being last year) re: his bongo DVD and he wrote back to tell me to send $25 to:

David Romero
2445 Desert Glen Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89134

I, too, am interested in getting his bongo DVD. I just haven't gotten to do it yet.

I'm a fan of David 'cause I'm mainly a pop percussionist and some of the songs that my bands cover are from Earth, Wind & Fire with whom he both recorded and toured for some good amount of time.

Good luck,

Just mailed him. This time it worked. While waiting for the DVD, there is a lot to learn from his Youtube video, and from the Dandy Rodriguez video. Why go for anything but the best?

JohnnyConga wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ae3SoccK8

I want my 2 minutes back.

That has got to be amongst some of the worst playing Ive ever seen...

Just goes to show ya ..even if u have drums and being latino doesnt mean you know how to play...."JC" Johnny Conga