congaplace.com

can anyone shed some light on this intro break the guys are using . I know its very similar to the intro to cuba linda on the grupo folklorico album " concepts in unity " with some changes made .They seem to change the pulse at the end when it goes into triplet phrasing ! Any info on the would be great .cheers . Niall ..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do6b-yOy ... FC&index=1

Hi Niall,

At the end of the break they are "quoting" the first part of a very popular melodic/rhythmic phrase that comes from the Conga de Comparsa traditions of Cuba.

Normally the entire thing goes like: Siento un bombo mamita me esta llamando, siento un bombo mamita me esta llamando
si, si, me esta llamando.
or
si, si, son los Dandy's.

Hope this helps!!!

Saludos,

Jorge Ginorio

Cheers Jorge ,

I know the conga song you mention . But i cant get my head around whats happening when they go from a very definite 4 pulse to what appears to be triplets at the end of the phrase .Ive been listening to it for days and when i think ive got it it slips away again . Ive also noticed that the pulse changes before they go into the song itself . Any chance anyone could transcribe this intro break for me Maybe not but its worth a shot

They just slowed the tempo down for the comparsa melody line at the end of the break. It is still in 4/4 clave, just slower so it sounds like a change to 6 or some other time.

The tempo change sounds to me like its a metric modulation, where a quarter note triplet pulse in the old tempo becomes the eighth note pulse of the new tempo.
I've roughly written it out - just the last bar of the fast tempo and the first 3 notes of the the next bit (Siento un bom...)