Conga: Barbados musical instrument

The conga which can also be called tumbadora is a tall and single headed Cuban drum that is small in width. Although the drum is assumed to be derived from Africa and is made from hollowed logs, the Cuban conga is staved just like a large cask. The drums are probably produced from salvaged large cask originally. They are mainly used in both Afro-Caribbean religious music and as the central musical instrument in rumba. The conga is now very rampant in Latin music such as salsa music, merengue music and reggae and also many other types of popular music.

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Most of the modern congas have a band of wooden or fiberglass shell and a tension drumhead. The musical instrument can be played in set of two to four using the finger and the palm of the hand. The main conga is about 70 CM from the bottom of the shell to the head and may be played while seated. As an alternative, the musical instrument may be mounted on a framework for holding the drum or a stand to permit the player to play the instrument while standing. Although the instrument is believed to have originated from Cuba, their merge into the popular and folk music of other countries has made the difference of the terminology for the instruments and the players. In Cuba, the musical instrument is called ‘tumbadora’ and the players are called ‘congueros’ while those who dance following the path of the players are called ‘rumberos.’

The term conga was made popular in the 1950s when the Latin music cleaned the United States. Cuban son and New York jazz merged together to form what was then called ‘mambo’ but later was known as ‘salsa’ and the popularity of the conga line helped in the spreading of the new term. Desi Arnaz and among the people that played a major role in the popularization of the musical instrument. However the drum he played was almost the same thing with the type of drum known as Boku which is used in his hometown, Santiago de Cuba. The word conga is assumingly derived from the rhythm ‘la conga’ which is used during carnival in Cuba. The drums that was used in the carnival was called tambores de conga since they played the rhythm la conga and when translated into English, it is conga drum.

There are fiv3 basic ways of playing the musical instrument, they are; open tone which is played with four fingers close to the rim of the head and producing a clear timbre with a distinct pitch, muffled or mute tone which is done by holding the fingers against the head to the muffle timbre of the drum, bass tone which is played with the full palm head on the head to produce a low mute timbre, slap tone which is the most difficult technique producing a loud clear popping tone when the musical instrument is played at fast and short intervals, and touch tone which is done by just touching the finger or heel of the palm to the drum head. The moose call can be done by rubbing the third finger with the support of the thumb across the head of the drum. The finger can sometimes be damped with saliva or sweat and a little coat of beeswax is applied on the surface of the conga head to help produce the sound. To bend the pitch of the conga, the player might use his elbow to shift around on and put pressure to the many parts of the head and this will make the note to change automatically.

The conga drum can be tuned to many notes. The original drums were tuned by slightly changing the knots and tension ropes on the drum head. Most modern congas use screw and lug tension head system that makes them easier to be adjusted. The conga being a percussive musical instrument does not have to be tuned to any exceptional note in purely percussive settings. Meanwhile, when playing the harmonic musical instruments they can be tuned to a particular note. Most of the congas are tuned with open tone; the particular note may depend on the make, model and size of the drum. With a single drum, it is easier to tighten the drum until it make the needed sound and then tighten a little more so as to reach the uniform desired pitch. Also it is essential to make sure that the tuning is uniform around the drumhead.it is important to consider that the head tension can impact greatly on lack of difficulty or difficulty of the player and a looser drumhead can lead to getting an injury on the hand more than a tighter drumhead, this is because a looser drumhead has small rebound and much muffling effect. When two or more drums are being played, there is a potential for more state of differing of which notes are selected and tuning between or during composition is unusual in live performance. With only two drums, it is shared to get to a perfect fourth apart as is the tradition in western classical music for the timpani.