Following our latest timing video, “Cogele El Gusto”, I have received a thank-you letter from Denise, who was the reason for making this video. After watching the other timing videos, she joined our mailing list and requested to create a timing video for this song. Putting the video together took nearly a month, and the final result came out very satisfactory.
You can watch the video here, on youtube:
The song “Cogele El Gusto” was recorded by Wayne Gorbea and his band, “Salsa Picante”, back in 1997. It instantly became a hit in the Latin clubs across the UK, and later became popular “Salsa Dura” song in the rest of the world.
The piece is quite long – almost 10 minutes, and it features two trombones, a trumpet, a full percussion section: timbales, congas, bongos, a bass and a piano. The video contains on-screen annotations to explain the music and its structure, and also a visual image of the dominant instrument in each part of the song.
In addition, the video contains a visualization of several key rhythms that are very common in Salsa music:
- The Clave rhythm. Even though it’s not always present in the music, the Clave rhythm is always implied in the patterns the other instruments play. This is the fundamental rhythm all the other pattern revolve around.
- The Timbales bell (a.k.a campana / cencerro) – Played during the coro/montuno sections of the song, often accompanied by the Bongocero’s bell. The video visualizes the timbales bell pattern by highlighting the bell whenever it is struck by the player.
- The Timbales Cáscara - This unique pattern is played on the shell of the Timbales during the verse sections of
the song. The video visualizes the Cáscara pattern by highlighting the timbales shell whenever it is struck by the the Timbalero.
In addition to the patterns mentioned above, there are some parts of the song where the Cáscara pattern is played on the Timbales bell. This happens during the solos of the congas and the bongos. Don’t worry if you still can’t recognize these patterns yourself – the video will tell you which patten is played in every instant.
A screen shot from the new timing video
Finally, I would like to personally thank two people who helped in the creation of this video: Michael Morozov from Israel and Alex Schamenek from Houston, Texas. We are now working on bringing you the next timing video for the song “La Rebelion” by Joe Arroyo y La Verdad.