Latin Rhythm No. One

This is more or less a beginning exercise just to get the feel of the offbeats. That seems to be the primary effect of these Latin rhythms, where everything important happens on the “ands”, the notes in between the beats. I played it twice, the first time at half speed, the second time full speed. It’s tricky.

Last week I was investigating what salsa is, and what “montuno” means, and I found this:

1. Noun: montuno; plural noun: montunos
2. an improvised passage in a rumba.
3. American Spanish, literally ‘native to mountains, untamed’.
4. The literal translation of montuno is “from the mountains,” and it is often at the heart of Cuban dance music, giving piano players a range of harmonizing phrases to use.

Immediately I see problems: Since there are many Latin American countries in addition to Spain in which you might here this music, there are going to be regional variations. So far no one seems to agree totally on what such music should sound like. But I think we can make some basic points:

1. The driving force is the rhythm section, and how those instruments play the rhythms makes or breaks the music.
2. The piano is largely restricted to simple patterns that have a very specific rhythm of their own. Playing the piano parts only can be mastered very quickly.
3. Other instruments, mostly brass, are key and add a huge amount of the flavor.
4. Trying to get any of this feel on piano only is much more difficult. It’s probably impossible to be fully convincing, but as a pianist I was interested in how we might get close.