The armcrossing-stick-lick - How to?

[Christian Velasquez]

I have offen seen timbaleplayers use of a certain lick when soloing.
It looks like they sometime hit the large timbale whith the right hand and the small timbale with the left arm. This means playing with your arms crossed. Then they return to normal position, hit a few beats and then they cross their arms agian. This time the arm that before went on top of the other now goes under the other arm. It looks very cool and sounds good too. I think it is some kind of paradidle combined with the armcrossing movement.

If any recognize what I am talking about here and now how to play it I would be very interested in somekind of notation of it.

[JohnnyConga]

Hi ...basically it is just a "hand over hand" technique that anybody can do with a certain amount of practice.Something's just don't get notated and you have to work it out. Don't get to used to the paper,try on your own ,use your own approach and imagination to try different licks and approaches...Hope this helps...At your Service... JC JOHNNY CONGA.....

[qualitydag]

Cross sticking patterns are really trap set techniques, they are quite comon amoung trap set drummers. I'm sure that you can find a book on cross stick technique. If you use these techniques try and place rhythmically so that they sound very funky or else they kind of muddy up tastefulness and just look good.
Just a thought

Clifford

[Raymond]

The "arm crossing" in the drums of the timbale is actually "double eight notes" but it takes practice to start alternating hands/drums and start making it look "complicated". The best is to start with the basic which is to do one double eight note with one hand in one drum and then alternate. (The problem here is to get use to moving your hands around the drums with speed and accuracy. This is a problem with natural congueros and bongoceros when they try the timbales because the timbales have their drums, macho/hembra, contrary to the conga and bongo).

TATA TATA TATA TATA (This is one bar)
R L R L
M H M H

R-right hand, L-left hand, M-macho, H-Hembra

Once you master the simple movements you could start alternating the hands/drums and one half of the quarter note with one hand or drum, etc. I have seen people who do this by alternating some of the beats by hitting the timbale from the bottom (inside the paila) or hitting the cymbal.

Some people practice increasing the speed to 16th notes. (UMMM...fast)

It just takes practicing slowly and eventually increasing speed and later changing the sounds with the drums, hands, alternating, etc, etc..

Good luck!



Edited By Raymond on May 29 2003 at 16:00

[clifford]

For extra fun you can also do under and over cross handing to gether. You can also double up in the middle of a cross motion or add a paraddidle in the middle position, where your hands cross.
Look for a technique book on this stuff, once you've got the concept down, you can make up your own stuff.

Clifford

[Norte]

In the movie "The Mambo Kings" Armand Assante's character, Cesar, joins Tito Puente (playing himself) for a solo during "Ran Kan Kan". Cesar does a little cross stick action, which by his bug-eyed reaction appears to impress Tito.

It's a pretty good film and also stars Ralph Irizarry as Cesar's timbalero. Celia Cruz and Desi Arnaz Jr. (playing Desi Sr.) appear as well.