The following lesson is a good place to start if you want to learn how to play congas. This instrument can be incredibly satisfying to play, but it takes proper technique to get good conga sounds without hurting your hands. For me, developing conga technique has been a process that I’ve learned from some great teachers, so I want to share it with you.
The open tones and slaps are the conga sounds that most people think about. To develop those sounds, it first takes some technique development to train your wrists and arms. Otherwise, the consistency of the tones and slaps will drop off quickly without establishing some coordination.
This approach will allow you to play like the greats – Giovanni Hidalgo, Michael Spiro, Pancho Sanchez, Changuito, to name a few. But it’s only guaranteed if you work at it consistently and with respect for the drum, music, and yourself.
Congas, tumbadoras for the traditionalists, will tear you apart if you don’t respect their power. That’s why developing strong conga technique is crucial to performing at a high level.
1. Heel Stroke
Developing conga technique takes a lot of mental connection with your muscles. It’s important to achieve a high level of relaxation without losing control, and it all starts with the heel stroke.
The heel stroke, similar to a bass tone, is the palm of your hand dropped onto just off center of the drum. It shouldn’t bounce, and your hand should be flat. The sound is meaty, and the goal is relaxation and accuracy.
To prepare the stroke, imagine a string is attached to the center of your hand. The string lifts your hand straight up and releases, dropping your hand to the drum. Don’t push. Just drop. And breathe. If this feels like meditation, you’re probably doing something right.
2. Toe Stroke
The next stroke is the toe. This stroke leaves the beginning of your wrist and the end of your palm on the edge of the drum. Raise the fingers straight up to prepare for the stroke. The toe is a wrist stroke that should produce a higher-pitched muffled sound on the drum.
If the heel stroke is Yang, the toe is Yin. These strokes balance each other. One is about using gravity, while the other is about acceleration. The toe stroke builds strength, and the heel stroke deepens your ability to relax the muscles.
The three best exercises to develop conga technique include one for stretching and two others for developing chops. You will see the best benefit from these exercises if you do them at least 15 minutes a day with a metronome. Your conga sounds will sound better because of the precision that you’ll develop with these exercises.
Check out the video below for a walk through of the conga sounds exercises.
- Stretching the fingers is something that Changuito believed is important. This exercise was passed on to me from my teacher Norm Bergeron who learned it from Changuito. It’s heel, toe, and slowly stretch the fingers by pressing them on the drum and raising your elbow forward. This also raises your palm off the drum. But go slow and always breathe.
- The first chop development exercise alternates from right to left and focuses on the strength of the toe and the relaxation of the heel.
- This last exercise is one that Michael Spiro taught me in a private lesson. It’s similar to the previous exercise, but this time it’s in triplet rhythm and incorporates the hands in a slightly more complex hand-to-hand combination. I like it because it helps keep my feel and movement around the drums with more swing and coordinated syncopation.
3. Open and Closed Tones
The strength of your wrist stroke developed by the exercises is crucial for getting good sounding open and closed tones. Plus, the hand coordination that comes from doing those exercises consistently will help with the accuracy of your hand placement on the drum. These two issues comprise the most crucial elements of conga technique.
Open tones require three things to get the good sound.
- Use your wrist. Only use your arm if you need more volume, but develop the technique with your wrist.
- Keep your fingers straight and stiff. If they flop forward, you will have a slap, not a tone.
- Make sure the area of your hand where the palm meets the knuckles is the striking surface. This is a matter of fin tuning and can be slightly different from one player to another.
Related: Conga Tuning – Tips and Tools for Sounding Great
Closed Tone Conga Sounds
Muted tones are like a combination between an open tone and a toe. Your hand is positioned like an open tone, but your fingers are left on the drum at the end of the stroke. This should make a more resonant sound than a toe because your hand is positioned closer to the edge of the drum. It can also add some meat to your grooves and improvisations.
Touch strokes can be confused with muted tones. The major difference being that the touch strokes are for filler and timing, whereas muted tones are a more prominent voice in the groove.
Don’t underestimate the power of the closed tone. It can add feel to a song without dominating the groove or overpowering the singers or melody. As a percussionist, often on of the first positions cut from a budget, this tip is huge. Better yet, people will appreciate the way your playing feels beneath the conversations you play among the other rhythm players.
4. Open and Closed Slaps
Slaps are the conga technique that most people fail develop properly. They’re only different from tones in one way – relax your fingers. Sure, there are a few things that play out differently, but this is the most critical difference.
Following the same technique as the tones, relax your fingers and let the cupping of your hand and the whip forward of your fingers make a slap. The whipping motion is very slight and has everything to do with the striking surface of your palm on the edge of the drum hitting slightly before the pads of your fingers.
To produce a closed slap, leave your fingers on the drum. This mutes some of the tone from the drum. Practice them slowly and quietly. Focus on the sound quality over the volume, and remember to use your wrist.
These techniques may not sound strong at first, but they will develop over time and will be difference from sounding sophomoric or like a pro.
5. Exercises for Integrating the Conga Sounds
My favorite exercises for integrating these sounds focus on moving around the drum without compromising what I’ve developed for chops and technique.
The first exercise includes playing one of four conga sounds on each quarter note of a 4/4 bar. For example, play a heel, closed tone, open tone, and an open or closed slap. This combination can be changed in several different ways. Perhaps try playing heel, toe, closed tone, closed slap to integrate all of the sounds with less resonance.
Alternate hands on the 8th note to develop this same exercise further. You could also stick with the playing on the quarter note. This is all, of course, relative to a reasonable tempo.
As you play these exercises, focus on the sound quality. Tune your ears to help your hands make the necessary adjustments and keep them. If your technique is not sloppy and you are focused and patient, your brain will do a lot of work for you.
If you want to take this exercise concept to another level, play heel / toe with your left hand on the quarter notes and four different conga sounds on the 8th notes with your right hand. I usually play heel, closed tone, open tone, closed slap on the 8ths.
Start your exercises around 60 bpm and add 5 to 10 bpm every week.
For more about practicing with a metronome, check out this article because it has 4 strategies for using a metronome.
Traditional Patterns
Tumbao is played in Cuban music styles and salsa music. Styles like mambo and cha cha include tumbao as a primary conga pattern. It’s also the most used in American pop music in a stripped down form, leaving listeners with a slap on beat two and two open tones on beat four.
The traditional tumbao incorporates the marcha feel of folkloric heel / toe playing with a slap and tone backbeat. Unlike American pop music, the marcha feel is just as important as the slap and tones because it thickens the underlying rhythmic foundation.
Guaguanco is another important pattern be able to play on congas. The drum parts in folkloric settings are often played by at least three players. In this example, I will focus on one player guaguanco in the Havana style — as opposed to the Matanzas style.
This pattern is a two-bar conversation that must be placed precisely in relation to the 3/2 rumba clave rhythm. Each drum has its place that it must land, which means improvisation often plays off this place in relation to clave or it leads into it.
Traditionally, guaguanco has three main drum parts, including tumba, segunda, and quinto. The tumba is the low drum. It’s conversation phrases land on beat four on both sides of clave. Segundo is the middle drum and plays at least beat one on the two-side of clave. And the quinto solos in conversation with the tumba, segundo, and dancers. It’s more complicated than that, but let’s keep it simple for right now.
Rumba Columbia is a 6/8 pattern from the Afro Cuban folkloric tradition. It has a main montuno pattern that’s the same for both sides of the clave and a conversation with parts specific to either side of the clave, like guaguanco.
🔽 10 Conga Patterns FREE Download 🔽
Popular Music Patterns
You can never go wrong playing congas on Motown hits. Just be sure to keep it funky. There’s a fine line between funk and soul conga patterns and full blown Afro Cuban rhythms.
I usually start be stripping away the marcha quality of the pattern and treat the tones and slaps. Then, I try to think like I’m somewhere between a drum set player and bass player approaching congas. This is not to say that Latin rhythms are not good enough. I try to de-Latinize the patterns if the song was meant to have more space and fewer heavy rhythmic layers. That’s all.
Check out this article for 7 Conga Patterns Played on Popular Songs.
Final Thoughts
Playing congas well is just like any other instrument. You need good conga technique to get good conga sounds, play rhythms accurately, and make music through patterns and improvisation.
Every song has a rhythmic motive. I start with different parts played by the other rhythm section instruments and come up with a pattern that both supports and adds to the rhythmic motive.