Review: All About Bongos (book/CD)
29-Jul-07
All About Bongos: Everything You Need to Know to Start Playing Now is a book/enhanced CD by the singularly named Kalani. It’s a great book for the rank beginner who doesn’t have any experience playing a percussion instrument.
The book starts with a brief, one page history of the bongos, then covers the basic parts of the drum. Tuning and the seated and standing positions for playing are also outlined.
The section on basic strokes has photographs which show the different parts of the fingers used for the open, edge, and muted edge tones. The thumb-fingers combination, or manoteo, is explained, although it’s relationship to the martillo is saved for later in the book. Kalani also mentions other options for striking the drum, such as sticks and mallets.
For me, the most useful parts of the book were the sections on Hand and Rhythm Exercises and Rhythm Patterns. I’ve had repetitive stress problems in the past from guitar playing and videogaming, so learning warmup exercises to help prevent injury are helpful for your long-term bongo playing career. The exercises also improve your dexterity nicely.
The Rhythm Exercises prepare you for the martillo and variations that appear later in the book, and the section on 6/8 patterns and polyrhythmic patterns are great for developing the ability to play different time signatures with each hand.
The Rhythm Patterns section contains variations on the martillo as well as patterns for other popular styles including calypso, samba, merengue and funk, among others.
The book ends with a section on maintenance and head replacement, wrapping up a well rounded introduction to the bongo drum.
The CD includes recordings of the all of the strokes, exercises, and patterns, which increases the overall usability of the product as a learning tool. The CD also has movies of the basic strokes and the martillo so you can actually see how they’re done. You can also loop the movies or change the tempo.
Overall, this is the best introductory book/CD combination I’ve seen for the absolute beginner on the bongos, especially with the inclusion of the movies on the CD. Kudos to Kalani for a great multimedia package that is aptly named.