Electronic Musician
August 1995
Copyright 1995, Neil Leonard

Afro-Cuban rhythms have influenced North American jazz and pop music throughout this century. In the 1920s, W.C. Handy wove these enchanting rhythms into his enormously popular "St. Louis Blues" after visiting Cuba. A more intense infusion of Afro-Cuban rhythms took place in the '40s when Machito and his Afrocubans packed the dance floors at the Palladium in New York. This orchestra was directed by Cuban trumpeter/composer Mario Bauza, who also helped Dizzy Gillespie update his big-band sound with Afro-Cuban rhythms. By the '60s, Cuban rhythms and percussion instruments were cropping up everywhere in North America from Woodstock to Nashville.

The most popular forms of Cuban music are son and rumba. Both styles accompany highly virtuostic and sensual dances, and date back to the nineteenth century. Son is Cuba's most popular dance form, and it went on to inspire salsa, which emerged in Puerto Rico and New York. Rumba is strictly a folkloric style performed by vocalists and percussionists. Rumba accompanies fierce dance competitions held in Cuba's working-class neighborhoods. For the moment, I'll focus on rumba, which can be played by drums alone.

The three main styles of rumba are columbia, yambu, and guaguanco . Columbia is played with a 6/8 feel and incorporates both English and Spanish lyrics. yambu is played on different sized boxes called cajones. The most developed and well known form of rumba is guaguanco , which is played by three congas (quinto, tres golpes, and salidor), clave, and palito (a thick bamboo stock played with sticks). Unlike salsa, in which a single percussionist is likely to play all the conga parts, guaguanco uses one musician for each drum.

For the basic guaguanco pattern (see Fig. QQQ), you need a minimum of eight samples: clave and palito as well as open, palm, and slap strikes for both the salidor and tres golpes. (The quinto drummer plays a complex and individual solo over the groove, often in response to the dancers, so I have not included it in the basic pattern.) If you are limited to General MIDI drum sounds, you can make substitutions. The accompanying drum map works with the Kurzweil K2000 General MIDI kit, although some of these substitutions do not seem like they would work based on their names (see table, "K2000 GM Rumba Map").

I tend to record each instrument separately in real time. When I do step enter a part, I record the Velocities as played. Once you have entered the rhythm, you may want to adjust the mix of the drums or quantize if necessary. The clave and palito timbres are relatively bright, so I usually keep their Velocities substantially lower than the congas. If I absolutely must quantize, I start by quantizing with a strength of 50%. Quantizing to a groove can work better than quantizing to a grid. When quantizing the guaguanc

rhythm, try a medium shuffle groove.

Of course, there are many variations of the basic pattern. A good place to start is by re-orchestrating the original groove. For example, make a copy of the original pattern and assign the tres golpes slap sound to play the palito pattern and vice versa. Make a new sequence that has the original guaguanco rhythm for bars one and two, and the modified rhythm for bars three and four. Loop these four bars and listen; the difference between the two rhythms is noticeable, but the rhythmic flow is maintained and even enhanced.

Now take it a step further. Remap the tres golpes open pattern to the salidor open pattern and vice versa. Paste the original rhythm in bars five and six and this new rhythm in bars seven and eight. Loop all eight bars and listen. Now choose your own orchestration changes, listening to each new variation in context before making more changes. You can even try introducing additional samples to the timbral pallet, like bongos, timbale, sidestick snare, shakere, or agogo bells.

One problem that crops up when a rhythmic pattern is played by a new sound is that the Velocities are often in an inappropriate range for the new instrument. If your sequencer offers a groove quantize feature that applies to Velocities as well as attacks and durations, you can quantize individual drum lines to put a particular series of notes in a uniform range, then shift the range to the appropriate level.

I have achieved great results using only some of the patterns; for example, the clave, tres golpes slap, salidor slap, and salidor open patterns. I map all the instruments of the guaguanco rhythm to this subset of patterns over the course of sixteen or 32 bars. I also make sure that no rhythmic pattern is played by two samples simultaneously. This thinner orchestration works well on arrangements that build in intensity by bringing in rhythms parts gradually. You can also try shifting one part of the entire rhythm so it starts an eighth note or quarter note later than it did in the original.

Cuba's premiere rumba group is Los Mu equitos de Matanzas, who have several CDs out on the Qbadisk label. Their latest album, Vacunao, is excellent for listening to the sound of the drums. Rumba Caliente 88/77 is a larger selection of shorter pieces that features several older members of the 43-year-old group. Both recordings are essential listening. Jos Luis "Changuito" Quintana played with Los Van Van for over two decades and can be heard on their CD, Azucar (Green Linnet Records). In New York, Bobby Ameen has adapted the Afro-Cuban grooves to trap set, which can be heard on Ruben Blades' Escenas (Elektra).

Bio: Neil Leonard teaches music synthesis and multimedia at Berklee College of Music. When not listening to rumba, he plays concerts for saxophone and interactive music system.

Table: K2000 GM Drum Map

GM drum sounds can be used to approximate the guaguanco