Tips for Conga Tones
By: Megan E. Thomas

Getting consistent tones on the congas can be a challenge. Making your open and slap tones sound the same every time IS attainable. Aside from working on consistency with one tone there are exercises that can help you get comfortable with moving from one tone to another tone.

First, let’s look at things to do to get into making the open tones and the slap tones sound the same every time. Playing a single stroke roll very slowly with all open tones (then slap tones later). This is just playing right hand then left hand and repeat. Things to focus on that will help even your sound out are your hands, placement, and muscle tension. Look down at your hands or even better, practice in front of a mirror. Make sure that both hands are doing the same thing, hitting the drum in the same spot every time, and fingers are together creating a mallet. Make sure you are not going too fast or you will create tension and will not be productive in reaching consistency. Practice slowly and as it becomes easier then increase the tempo in small increments.

Moving from tone to tone can be difficult to execute at times. Let us use another popular rudiment to practice this, the paradiddle. The paradiddle is a combination of hand movements that are all at the same tempo. It is the same rhythm but the order in which the hands strike the drum changes. It is right, left, right, right and then reversed for the left hand, left, right, left, left. (rlrr, lrll, etc.) Now use the paradiddle with all open tones, then all slap tones, and then all bass tones. Once that feels comfortable make all of the rights bass tones and all of the lefts open tones then reverse it. Then make rights slap tones and lefts bass tones. Reverse the hands. Continue to go through the different combinations of tones. There are endless variations to this exercise and it allows you to change through the tones much easier afterwards. You are on your way to producing clean and consistent tones on your congas.

Megan Thomas, percussionist from Chicago, is an active performer and teacher. She currently plays percussion with Chicago-land's premier steel drum band, OD TAPO IMI (www.odtapoimi.com), as well as playing drum set with an all original rock band from Chicago called Reptoids (www.reptoids.net). She has played in numerous bands over the years, opening up for acts ranging from Jimmy Buffet to Evil Beaver to Foreigner to Johnny Clegg while playing in venues from House of Blues to Alpine Valley to The Park West. She has experience in a plethora of musical genres: latin, pop, rock, blues, punk, fusion, latin-jazz, salsa, world, folk, soca, calypso, classical, etc. In addition to being an active performer, she plays sessions at recording studios, performs with jobbing bands, puts on world percussion seminars, facilitates drum circles, writes for freemusiceducation.com and chicagomusicguide.com, and teaches private lessons at North Shore Music Institute.