Mel Bay The Bongo Book

Here's an entire book devoted to the all too often overlooked Latin instrument, the bongo drums. Trevor Salloum guides you on an inspired informative, and educational musical journey; offering many valuable insights of playing this instrument as well as revealing its colorful history. This text features jazz, rock, Danzon, Mozambique, and bomba patterns with fills, exercises, and performance techniques to get you going in these styles. Maintenance, characteristic rhythmic patterns, and important artists in the evolution of bongo technique are also covered in depth. The companion CD features recordings of the rhythm patterns discussed in the book.
Customer Review: Bongo Book
Serves its purpose well. It is the thinnist book I've ever seen, but hey it's about music. WHat more can you say. It isn't really worth the money. Get the CDs over this I recommend videos over both.
Customer Review: Not For Beginners!
The item description doesn't say that this book is for beginners. But based on the reviews I read it seemed like a good book for beginners. That was a horrific assumption. I don't blame the publisher for this, I blame other reviewers who lead readers to believe this is a good book for beginners. From the beginning this book uses all kinds of terminology that I've never heard of before (and I have played some keyboard, drums and guitar). Which leads me to wonder who this book is for because, in my opinion, anyone who can understand the terminology probably has no use for such a book. I do fault the publisher for the terribly exposed, grainy photographs. I also fault the publisher for allowing several interviews with bongo players which, in my opinion, do not belong in a book like this. The whole book just feels cheap as if it was quickly thrown together. As an absolute beginner what I would have liked to see is a more detailed explanation of technique along with photos (this book has a few photos, but most of them look the same, and the photos do not correlate with the techniques described in the text). I would also have liked to see more description of how to read the notation used in the book. And while I understand musical timing due to my previous experience an absolute beginner will have no clue as to what tempo the notes should be played, this is not described anywhere in the book. This is a very poorly executed and frustrating book about bongos. It borders on useless for a true beginner. If you are a beginning bongo player do not buy this book it will not help you learn to play the bongos and will give you nothing but frustration. I have no idea how a book like this ever made it to print.

It seems to me that too many bands spend way too much time playing what they want to hear, rather than what is right for the crowd at any particular moment. Whether this fact stems from rampant narcissism (Look at me!), an inability to read their crowd, or an extremely limited set list - the result is the same. Dancers tend to sit down when they don't know the tunes.

Conversely, some deejays and bands can't seem to make it through a single night without hauling out hoary old chestnuts like YMCA, New York New York, and The Macarena. While granting that there will always be a market - somewhere - for such tunes, these particular songs (along with Stairway To Heaven, Freebird, and anything from Mamma Mia!) run a very high risk of turning off a big chunk of your dancers. For that reason alone, they should be played sparingly (every February 29th, for example.) Alternate tunes - with a much lower "cheese" factor - exist which inspire many fewer cases of violence against music providers.

Even big-name performers can occasionally benefit from this same advice. I once sat through an entire Carlos Santana set without hearing a single tune I recognized (and I know a bunch). Now, you can add me to the list of former Santana fans.

But last night, the lovely Gina Tanner and I attended a concert performance by Gladys Knight. In a 90-minute set, Gladys perfectly balanced new songs and borrowed tunes (made famous by others) with all of her greatest hits. No matter how many times she has sung them, she knows that they are what makes the cash register ring.

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dance music 2007