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Jon, much enjoyed your "accompanying" tale. Just wondering, you say Mercedes corrected your (Juan Martin's?) rumba accenting. Would you care to expand on this for me? Cheers, Graeme
RE: Hey Jon! (Juan Martin's Rumba) (in reply to Graeme)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Graeme Jon, much enjoyed your "accompanying" tale. Just wondering, you say Mercedes corrected your (Juan Martin's?) rumba accenting. Would you care to expand on this for me? Cheers, Graeme
I'll try..
I played her a couple of rumba variations that Juan plays with the slap on the guitar on beat one and she said it was not right, she wanted the accent on beat three.
That how she described it, although I think she meant she wanted the accent 'on strum three' in terms of what I was actually playing.
Accenting beat three (in musical terms) doesn't make sense to me here because my understanding of the rumba rhythm against a brisk 4/4 count is: one ...twoand...four
In other words count out one, two, three, four and tap the table on beat one, between beats two and three, and then on beat four. The off beat in the middle gives rumba that swing.
Now it could be that I have got something badly wrong, in which case I'm sure one of the other guys will rescue me here , but I suspect this confusion is because dancers rarely play the guitar and can't always communicate in musical terms what they want.
I'm hoping to get her to play me some solo rumba accompaniment from one of her CDs to show me what she wants. This seems to be the best approach at the moment.
I'll post some more about this soon. She's asking me to play falsetas now, which is inteteresting, as I assumed she's be more interested in just having good compas to dance to.
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: Hey Jon! (Juan Martin's Rumba) (in reply to Graeme)
Jon, first off, I'll commiserate that dancers do not understand the guitar...the rhythm is all they understand and that only parts of. Second, I understand the rumba as being in cut time, thus one strum pattern happens with two taps of the foot. Rarely do I play rumba in normal 4/4. One way to prove this to yourself is to try to dance to Gipsy Kings tunes. It's too slow...that's because we're feeling 2 beats, not a full 4 per 130 bpm or so.
A good rumba strum is light on the golpes, imo. Do a hard strum on the 1, a good upstroke on the "clave" or "e"... A lot of people play the right pattern but they hit hard golpes on the 1 and 2 (in cut time, or the 1 and 3 in 4/4). This gives a very driving beat, which imo is not appropriate. Rumba is lilting and tropical, not punk rock.
RE: Hey Jon! (Juan Martin's Rumba) (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
Mike, Can you upload a short mp3 example? A couple of chords is worth a hundred words and all that! (Hey you did it for the CG Forum. so we know you have the recording facilities!) Rumba interests a lot of ForoFlamenco members, so it will be a valued contibution.
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: Hey Jon! (Juan Martin's Rumba) (in reply to Ron.M)
Ron, I've uploaded quite a few mp3s here... if you'll recall. But unfortunately the last few times I tried here there was some kind of problem. If you want to hear rumba, just listen to the Gipsy Kings! They do it better than me.
RE: Hey Jon! (Juan Martin's Rumba) (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
Aw! come on man, just try this one teensie-weensie time again for all of us. You know you can do it! I don't want to hear the Gypsy Queens, I wanna hear some of that Phoenix stuff!
RE: Hey Jon! (Juan Martin's Rumba) (in reply to Jon Boyes)
Hi Jon
From what little I know there are two ways to accent a beat, one is to play the off beat just before the 3 (Like contra palmas) or to give a good slap on the guitar on the three beat LOL... Usually if u leave a silence on the three the dancer can fill that beat in with their feet!!. So you are then working together, if she isn't happy with that :-( LOL
Try to strum the first beat with your thumb and using the pattern i taught you slap on the three.
Or if you want to be really clever hold the chord over two bars and so instead of counting 1 2 3 4 etc you count 1 on the one and two on the 3 and 3 on the one and 4 on the three. so u count it over two bars of 4/4 lol..easier to show than to type LOL...
A bit like what Miguel says make it light: I quote "eople play the right pattern but they hit hard golpes on the 1 and 2 (in cut time, or the 1 and 3 in 4/4). This gives a very driving beat, which imo is not appropriate. Rumba is lilting and tropical, not punk rock.
RE: Hey Jon! (Juan Martin's Rumba) (in reply to Ron.M)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ron.M Mike, Can you upload a short mp3 example? A couple of chords is worth a hundred words and all that!
Yes, show us what you mean Mike. Its difficult for me to be clear about what you are explaining. For one thing I don't know what you mean by you 'rarely play a rumba in 4/4', simply because it IS in 4/4.
As I recall, your problem uploading was because your files were too big. Wth a short 20sec. clip of rumba, there will be no such problem
Listening to Gipsy Kings wil not not help me understand your point - as you know I play loads of their stuff anyway.
RE: Hey Jon! (Juan Martin's Rumba) (in reply to musicalgrant)
quote:
ORIGINAL: musicalgrant Try to strum the first beat with your thumb and using the pattern i taught you slap on the three.
Hi Grant - thats exactly what she didn't like.
I have one of Juan's videos now for reference in which he demonstrates his rumba rhythm pattern, and I find it quite straightforward to play. But Mercedes wasn't impressed!
I am determined to find out what she wants, and once I do I will upload the Juan Martin pattern along with something that Mercedes likes for comparison. I couldn't make the dance class this week, so it will have to wait until next week.
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: Hey Jon! (Juan Martin's Rumba) (in reply to Graeme)
I will try to upload something. But for now, Jon, rumbas are usually in cut time. You can count a rumba 1 and 2 AND 3 and 4 and, where the AND is the accent. The slap would be played on the 3. But rumba really is in cut time, which means there are only two beats, not four. You could count this 1 e and A 2 e and a, with the slap on the A. This is a big difference in feel, and this is how most rumba feel. Very slow rumbas can be in 4/4.
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, but I suspect this confusion is because dancers rarely play the guitar and can't always communicate in musical terms what they want. 
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