Salsa Rhythm

By: David Diaz

I heard it again the other day–someone saying: “you gotta have rhythm to dance”. It’s not so much that it’s stating the obvious–it’s the assumption that only a few people possess this magical phenomenon called “rhythm” <– I always have to take issue with this.

I know, I know… some of us are born with rhythm–others not. But some of us are born without a talent for calculus: that doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t use math in our day to day lives (going to the grocery store, buying a cup of coffee, etc.); that doesn’t mean we cant count flawlessly to 10, and then do it backwards. If you let the fact that some people have a natural talent for calculus stop you from considering that you might be able to do math too, you’ll have a hard time getting on in this world. Why should rhythm be any different?

In the end, rhythm isn’t really that difficult–and not really that magical either. Don’t let it get you down!–listening to the complex rhythm of a salsa song can be like taking on a quadratic equation when you’re still in first grade. If you’ve got the rhythm blues (not to be confused with R & B), here are a few tips that will help you find your feet (pun intended), and start finding your way around the music.

1) Start with the familiar:

Don’t listen to the music as a whole. I know, it may seem overwhelming at first, but trust me–if you can single out just one instrument out of the whole ensemble, you’ll be that much closer to finding the rhythm. I grew up with Latin music, but to me it was all the same. My dad never made a big deal out of explaining how to identify one genre (say, Merengue) from another (Salsa). When I started learning all the different steps so I could dance to these genres, only then did it become important to me to start paying attention to rhythm and count. At first, the song would bombard me with all these different sounds. I didn’t even have a name for some of the instruments. If someone told me to single out the bongo, I would have said, “My uncle works at a bike shop” <–what’s it got to do with anything?!?

When we first step into that noisy club (or ballroom, or studio), our ears are inundated. If you don’t know what a bongo is, that’s cool–you can start elsewhere. You know what a piano is; you know what a bass guitar sounds like; you know what a trumpet sounds like–START THERE!!!

2) Salsa songs are actually REALLY REALLY boring:

I’m serious, the percussion is generally polyrhythmic (<–scary word), but most of the melodic instruments play the same phrase OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER. So you read my first point, right?–we’ll skip the percussion for the moment, ’cause our ears aren’t quite used to it yet. American ears know what a piano sounds like. Salsa pianos are your best friend, not only do they set melody for the song–more often than not, they also function within the rhythm section. Montuno, a typical style of phrase played on the piano for salsa, is generally set over 8 beats (occasionally 2x as long, 16). Since musical phrases more often than not start on the 1 count, if you listen to how that piano phrase repeats itself it will consistently tell you where the 1 count is; you’ll also, by default generally know where the 8 count is (the end of the phrase). When you can hear the 8 count phrase, that’s when you start feeling the rhythm of salsa.

**salsa geek note: salsa-nazis will insist you should only be listening to percussion: particularly clave and conga. They’re full of it! If you can find counts 1 through 8, who cares how you do it? They’re your ears!!–use them however the heck you like. Me, personally, I like the bass guitar. It makes me wanna low-ride. The bass also generally follows an 8 count pattern.

3) Stop! Hey!–What’s that sound? Everybody look whats goin’ down!!

Yup. Some of us aren’t great aural learners to begin with; some of us are visual learners. Don’t be afraid to look at everyone else. If you’ve lost the 1 count, look at your neighbor. If he’s lost the one, you are screwed however. And don’t just walk over your partner!!–neither lead nor follow is one sided. We feel each other as we lead or follow. If you don’t have the rhythm, your partner may give you a feel for it. In either case, when you’re dancing in a pair, you are not alone!!–that’s always something you can fall back on.

4) Turnaround

A lot of salsa instructors will give you a little notice before they start in on a step during a practice lesson. Before starting the step on one, they’ll count into it, “Alright, guys, here we go: 5-6-7-8-1!“–and everyone starts their step on 1. The musical equivalent to this is called a turnaround. It’s a lead into the beginning of a phrase. There are always exceptions, but we call it On1 salsa because there is a noticeable accent on 1 (the beginning of most phrases). The difficult part is that phrases aren’t always limited to 8 counts. Sometimes they spread over 16; sometimes they spread over 32. No matter how long the phrase is, it always repeats itself, and there is almost always a turnaround giving you notice. Again, this may require you to single out a specific instrument, but turnarounds are generally played by the entire ensemble–it’s like the entire band is saying: “one-more-time-here we go!: 1!“. For you visual learners, it may look something like this:

Pattern A
Pattern B
Pattern A
Pattern B
Pattern A (<– at this point, you’re thinking… okay okay, another B is next, right?)
Pattern C (<– it’s this little guy that keeps the music from being utterly monotonous)
*And then we repeat it ALL over again.

The more you listen to that progression over and over, the more you’ll identify C as a signal: “okay, it’s all gonna start again”. This is an important aspect to dancing with the music, and it allows you to start predicting what’s coming ahead. At a certain point, you’ll even be able to get ahead of pattern C. If what you’re hearing is the above progression, at some point you realize that A-B-A is always followed by B-A-C. So when you see dancers who are dancing really closely with the music, it’s not because they’re magicians; it’s not that they’re super-human either–it’s because they’re listening to the phrasing and breaking it up in such a way that they have plenty of notice. They look so calm and unflustered because they know what’s coming, and they’re not unprepared.

They’re not magicians. They’re not super human… they’re just using a little common sense. It may take some practice, but reading the music is something any of us can do. If you can hear, and if you can count backwards from 10, you’ve got all the tools you need to start feeling the rhythm of salsa. Like anything else in life all it takes is practice and motivation. If you convince yourself that rhythm is only for people who “have it” it in the first place, though, you’re not doing any favors for your motivation.

Yes, some of us get it faster than others. Yes, some of us have a deeper understanding of rhythm than others. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a simple understanding of it that allows you to have fun while dancing.

Guest Author:  David Diaz, of La Paloma Dance School