So I finished a lesson on how to play salsa guitar. I still am planning to record some audio/video so each section has a demo. But I figured I might as well release it now and add some more later!
I’ve been trying to learn salsa on and off for about 5 years now. It feels great when everything clicks. It helps to have big ears and great time. If you are playing the montuno, the time is intimately woven around each of the rhythm parts. When any single part falters, the groove dramatically suffers.
Plans for further lessons
- how to play both the montuno and the tumbao on the guitar
- more riffs and typical chord changes
- playing octave montunos
- playing in 3/2 clave
- playing 6/8 vamps
That’s a bunch of lessons! I also hope to add video clips of short tumbao type grooves. It doesn’t seem like there are many with guitar on youtube. It would be fun to add these sections
Making short videos
Part of the process for writing this lesson included recording a couple of videos. I recorded the audio separately to have a good sound and so I could multitrack all the instrument since I played everything.
Synching up the audio with the video using Windows Movie Maker turned out to be a fairly easy process. Audio and video line up fairly well. I guess I would need an expensive program to get everything perfect. It seemed like the audio is quantized and therefore not completely synchable.
Best way to learn salsa
To really learn salsa you gotta dance salsa! If you want to learn by tomorrow, then maybe you won’t be able to catch all the moves. But dancing to good salsa teaches you what makes people move to the music. Plus it’s a lot of fun. If you play music where no dances, you may realize playing dancer is the best!
The basic move for a guys is left-right-left-pause then right-left-right-pause. For the ladies it’s right-left-right-pause then left-right-left-pause. Here’s a video:
Anyways have fun! Play along with some music, learn the different parts!