Conga Drums: A Confusing But Moving Family
Conga drums are an fundamental part of most Latin American music. In North America, everyone has heard of a conga line and unfortunately, most of us have been forced to join one at one go out of one's way to or another, often during a wedding reception. But the music of the conga is far too diverse to be pigeonholed as wedding reception music. These instruments are used not only in genres like salsa and rumba, but in Afro-Caribbean unswerving music as well. Conga drums are a very important facet of life in South America.
The bodies of conga drums are "staved," or made of multiple strips of wood or fiberglass, compare favourably with to the construction of a barrel. Chances are that the ancestors of modern congas were, in fact, made from salvaged barrels. The drum heads are of rawhide or counterfeit materials and are screw-tensioned. The height of the average conga drum is about three feet, and the instruments are usually played in sets of two to four. They can be played from either a sitting or on one's feet position, although for the latter, the drums must be mounted on a rack. An artist who plays conga is called a "conguero."
Although the average apogee of a conga drum is about three feet, there is actually enough size variation to warrant different names for different sized drums. However, there is some misunderstanding over these names. One source maintains that the drums are called, in order of largest to smallest, the "tumba," the "conga," the "quinto," the "requinto" and the "Ricardo," the last being named for Desi Arnaz's symbol of Ricky Ricardo on "I Love Lucy."
Another source calls the largest the "tumba," but refers to the smallest as the "nino" and gives no names for the middle sizes. Still other names categorize the "segundo" and the "supertumba." Clearly, there is no standardized set of names. Even the term "conga drum" can sometimes be confusing....
But where are the conga drums? Greg Melvin and Paolo Ambu, the guys behind Babalú, untangle justify the name: "The term is so quintessentially Miami.
