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What's listening for you? Listening for me is, for example, and I'm
still doing that today, go to my room, at night, put the earphones, put the sound very
loud in my earphones, put a pillow on top of my face, so there's no way that I can see any
light or anything, and I start listening to how the pianist reacts when the saxophone
player does something, or how the percussionist reacts when the bass player does something,
and you start listening to that conversation inside the band, I'm not talking bout the
solo of this guy, that's another thing... Interaction...
Exactly, between them, how they do that, how the percussionist goes down when the piano
is doing a solo, or what kind of rhythm he's doing, or if he changes rhythm, in what point
because the pianist does something and he's making him do that, that kind of conversation.
It's what I call the language, you can practice a lot of exercises,
and they sound beautiful, a lot of new stuff and that is technical, but if you don't know the language, this is
A, B, C, D, E, F, G... that's the alphabet, but if you don't know how to put that, those
letters in order to make a word, and those words together in order to make a sentence,
that is intelligent, you don't know the language... You can know many awesome words, but they
don't mean anything... That's why I see a lot of people on Youtube
doing a lot of stuff with 5, 10 Congas... I mean, doing that... Giovanni started doing
that when we were kids, I'm talking about 1970's, so nobody's going to impress me,
great technique and great stuff, but can they play a straight and good rhythm with a band?
And carry a band? And forget about those fancy stuff? And play with a band? With the style
of the band? That's another 20 bucks. So, don't get impressed with all the fancy stuff
and the sticks going around, and put it here... No, be more impressed... In my case if I see
a Conga drummer playing with band with two drums only and feel and carry the band like
he has 10 Congas, or there are three guys playing Congas, then I'll take my hat off,
and the style, if you play for example Mambo, the way that you're going to play a Mambo
with a Mambo orchestra, that is the one that I have, is the Tumbao but the feel is different,
than if you're going to play Salsa, what we call Salsa today, or if you're going to
play Cha Cha Cha... And that comes from listening, right?
Of course, listening, listening, really listening... Do you think is better to listen, like, to
one tune for one week? No,no,no, you can listen to different stuff,
but really listen, when you're really listening, you don't have to repeat and reapeat, you'll
listen one time and go to the next one or to another style, and then after you've mastered
all that style that you like, then you go to Brasilian, Middle East, Caribbean, there
are so many places, so many rhythms, you know, but by my time, I always say this because
is true, by my time if you were from Italy and wanted to study Latin percussion, you've
had to buy a ticket of the airplane and go to the Caribbean and study, or to Cuba, Portrico,
or New York. You've had to physically come to us, now you have Youtube,
you have everything on Youtube, you know, the other day I wanted to build a brick barbecue in my home, and
I said: Let me check... And they've put on Youtube: How to build, you know... And there
are like 10 videos of guys saying: You have to put this there... You're going to find videos about
everything on Youtube, so that means, that now what was our speciality and our stuff, now
everybody can have it, but, you know, from Japan, from Australia, from Italy, from wherever,
you have access of how to do stuff... It can be either a good thing or a bad thing
though, it depends on how you use it...
That means that you have to, now, be very prepeared on really focus on what you're going to do, because there are 10 000 other guys
looking for that chair, in that band, I believe that there is a space for everybody, but you
have to be prepeared, and that's the thing, now for example, in the hand percussion, Afro
Cuban, we love to call it Afro Caribbean because now is more integrated with some other rhythms
from the Caribbean area, you have to keep studying, you have to keep, you know, listening
to music, and listening and learn the language, because everybody think that these rhythms,
these styles started with Giovanni and Chanito, no, go back, if you sit with Giovanni and
talk to him, and Giovanni listens to everybody, I remember one day I came and saied: Hey Chucho,
we call eachother Chucho, hey Chucho i heard this tune of this band, but this is of 1930's,
and I don't know the name of the band but the tune goes like this... and he was like, oh
that band? This is this guy and the Bongo player, the Bongo player, his name is this,
and he does like... and I was like, how do you know that? Because he goes and studies,
and listens and respects, respects all the music, when you know from where all this music,
or your music, comes from you know where to go, and that is something that sometimes the
youngsters or the students now don't pay attention to, you know, they want to learn how, you
know, Vinnie Colaiuta is doing that stuff and El *** Hernandez with the clave... If
you sit with El ***, El *** studies everybody, and El *** is a very humble guy, and studies
all the time, all the kinds... studying everybody, and then Giovanni, you sit with Giovanni,
and Giovanni studies Tabla with Zakir Hussain, and he applies all those things to the Conga
drum. You see? The planet is very big, is not only Cuba, is not only Portorico, is not
only Brazil, is everything, we're in the same planet to share all these information, so
my biggest advice for all the people watching this video is study, sit down and listen to
the music, learn the languages, after that, when you are playing and you're in the real
situation, and somebody do something in the solo or whatever, or in the arrangement, automatically,
you're going to jump and doo the stuff, you won't start thinking: Oh I've heard something
like this in a record of Tito Puente, 1946, this rec... pff... the tune is over
Just do it... Yeah, you react, right away, that means that you know the language.