how do you tell the stuctural changes in song are coming?

[Smejmoon]

how do you tell the structural changes in song are coming?

How do you tell from intro what will follow? I can tell only tempo and sometimes "the one" and rarely when "the verse" part begins.

Usually I listen to the song for a bit, to make sure I can dance to that music.

How do you tell what will next big part of song like?

Do you know the cliches of each style of salsa music? Some songs I read easily, but some not at all.

How do you tell the end is coming? I've noticed that certain musical phrases from intro get repeated odd number of times without continuation, this means end is usually within few bars*.

Also are there shifts in harmonies, like in blues? I'm not educated in that but might make sense.

(the context

I have previous experience with music; listen it, dance to it, sing it and even played some for few years.

But with salsa music I've been paying intensive attention only for 4 months. Mostly by going to parties 3-5 times a week + classes and some at home. The range of music still is broad for me, I can not describe salsa music with such quality as reggae or rock, that I've spent much more time with. So far it sometimes seems salsa is catch all for certain tempo range and son clave construction. Also modern instrumentation.

I'm a lead and take responsibility for most musical interpretations on dance floor.)

 

[RugKutta]

It's really going to take just alot of listening to salsa music. Just like you spent years listening, singing and dancing to other types of music before you had a feel for them, the same is true for salsa. It's not going to come overnight, but it definitely will come if you put the effort into it. For me, when I got into salsa, I fell in love w/ the music and found myself listening to it in my car more than my typical hip-hop and R&B and downloaded songs and had friends make me salsa CDs every chance I could. Eventually, I found myself getting off beat less and less and, further down the road, I found myself hitting breaks and stops in the music w/ out even trying! If you don't love it enough to bump it in your ride 24/7 like me, it may take more effort, but it is definitely attainable.

 

[bailar y tocar]

Those are a lot of questions and only an experienced salsa musician/composer/historian could give you a really accurate answer as to things like phrasing, what instruments/vocals/coros do what and when etc.

Simple guides that are useful just for the dancing only:
Ending: the horns (if there are any) come in to announce.
Exact ending: varies by band, they all have a "sello" (which translates literally as stamp or seal but really means signature). El Gran Combo always has a classical orchestration style crescendo to end their songs, others have more of a fade out or no specific sello in their ending.
Intro: some songs present the whole orchestra and sound in the intro, then go to a quieter section, other songs do it the other way around, they build.
There is a section that has different names depending on who is playing and what they like to call it. I have heard musicians refer to the "the mambo", "the bomba", even "the rumba". This has nothing to do with the dances or the musical genres. This section is when the song hits the climax (for whatever reason they don't use that word).

 

[azzey]

How do you tell from intro what will follow? I can tell only tempo and sometimes "the one" and rarely when "the verse" part begins.

Firstly it depends on the genre and type of Salsa music playing. e.g. NY, Puerto Rican, Colombian, Cuban salsa. Cuban Salsa, otherwise known as Timba is arranged much differently to other Salsa. Next who the band is playing and how they've started the song. i.e. what type of phrase they used to start the song and what kind of progression that implies. e.g. If it starts with a mix of Rumba and Salsa (lots of clicking) and then hits hard with Salsa after a geometric number of bars (8, 16, 24, 32, 64 beats of intro). This is just one example.

Get a Salsa Rhythm, Phrasing and Timing CD to start learning on what beats the different instruments play and some sample arrangements broken down.
mambofello.com/smrpt.html

This will only help you step in the right direction. You'll still need to listen to a LOT of Salsa over and over again to learn differing arrangements, types of Salsa, the way bands mix and create their own unique sound.

Also, learn some Cha cha cha, afro-cuban Rumba, Mambo for when the phrase changes to that style of music.

Do you know the cliches of each style of salsa music? Some songs I read easily, but some not at all.

Yes, but I'm not sure how that can help you. You still need to learn to hear it yourself. Just telling you won't make it so.

Tell you what I did:
Buy 1 Salsa mix compilation. e.g. Rough guide to Salsa.
Buy 1 Colombian Salsa compilation: e.g. Salsa Moderna, Vol 2: Colombia Calling.
Buy 1 Cuban Timba compilation. e.g. Salsa Timba: the hot new sound of the latin dance floor.
Buy 1 NY salsa compilation. e.g. Rough Guide to Salsa Dura NYC.
Buy 1 Puerto Rican salsa compilation. e.g. Salsa de Puerto Rico.

Listen to each over and over again. Try to pick out the instruments used and break down the phrasing (e.g. Montuno section = lots of piano) using the Salsa Phasing CD as a guide.

Then you will have covered the majority of popular music genres and quite a few of the bands played in Salsa clubs. Other ones include African Salsa (e.g. the great band Africando) and ones that you can't quite place in a particular genre or country.

How do you tell the end is coming?

The intro often gets repeated and can be anywhere from a few seconds to 30 seconds in duration. Memorise the intro and other early phrasal sections and when they repeat with small variations you will magically be able to predict or at least guess what might come next.

Also are there shifts in harmonies

Depends on the type of music but yes it happens.

But with salsa music I've been paying intensive attention only for 4 months. Mostly by going to parties 3-5 times a week + classes and some at home. The range still is broad, I can not describe salsa music with such quality as reggae or rock, that I've spent much more time with.

I spent 10 hours a day listening to music listed above at work and in the car for more than a year to really get it. Now 8.5 years of dancing on I'm still learning rhythms and nuances of bands I know well.

Tip:
- Learn to play air drums when you're listening to the music and try to follow and pick out what comes next. Often there are little arrangements of instruments (e.g. roll of drums) that signal an end to a phrase and the beginning (break) of a new one. That's often where the 1 is.

If you want to know much more about how the music is arranged and the history of different kinds of Salsa music there are many good Salsa music web sites on the web. e.g.:

musicofpuertorico.com/index.php/genre/salsa/
timba.com/
salsanewyork.com/

 

[t0mt0m]

Short answer I think that's seen on some other threads covering this - a lot of songs fall within a finite number of song structure layouts - learn the layouts, and you get to more accurately predict when changes will occur - have that, and you'll be tuning in at more likely the right points to sense instrument hints of when those changes will be.
The better you know things, the more your prediction will be right for a given number of songs. And also, you'll "see"/be able to sense further ahead in the song.

Seems the first hurdle is to hear things, to sense things, then understand these, internalise these, and build on the predictive aspect, and hone down from "a change is coming up very soon" to "i sense it's likely a change will be happening in X beats/bars time" to " I sense it's likely the x/y/z is coming (breakdown, chorus, breaks etc)"


But how do you learn song layouts?

Hard way - unguided, just listen to 100s of songs, 100s of times.
Easier way - guided
1)View visual representations of songs, whose structure is already worked out. Then use this, to guide in learning how to map out a song's structure, and also learn to predict a song's structure.
2) Listen to representative examples of common ways that structure is hinted at

My view is that salsa hasn't visualised song structure much at all
e.g. For a given song - I'd say it would be much quicker to grok/understand a song's structure by seeing a visual representation of that song (pre-worked out) - than have to do it yourself (listen, jot down, turn into drawing of structure).

Alex Wilson has done some of this on his Find the Rhythm workbook & CD - I'd say that this can be pushed even further.

I'd imagine that when you say cliches of each style, it's another way of saying common patterns of a music style's song structure?


Same goes with song endings - some possible ways of learning
1) Listen to whole salsa tracks, catch the ending once
2) Listen to only endings of salsa tracks, on repeat
3) Listen to examples of common endings, and be told/guided how they're being hinted at.

musicality teaching, i'd say, has a lot more growth potential. There are many who've learnt the hard way, but that doesn't mean efficient ways can be found. Those who've worked hard on this, will be the best guides to give specific/general examples. I think the length of time involved to get a bit better at this, not to be expert at it, but to gain a basic grounding, doesn't have to take years. Saturation with the music could certainly help.

As bailar y tocar says - the experts out there can help gain insights quickly, that might otherwise take much longer to find yourself, and that there are examples - it's not totally a black art.

 

[terence]

this means end is usually within 2 or 4 bars (in 4/2 time which makes it 8/4 for dancers).



)

4/2 time?.. the music, Guaracha Guaguanco and Montuno, is written in 4/4 ( as a general rule ) whilst Son and Guajira can be in 4/6...

And.. for dancers, and teachers, the same applies.. teaching and dancing.. to a 4/4 timing...

 

[Smejmoon]

Thank you all for elaborate answers! Listening is more helpful and learning faster, when you know what you're looking for. I'll be busy to grok this for a while.

t0mt0m: "I'd imagine that when you say cliches of each style, it's another way of saying common patterns of a music style's song structure?"

I'm looking more into signals that musicians use to announce structure, lead from one part to other.
For example if piano goes into loud solid montuno in the middle of the last bar from 4, (i should have answered terence first ) and increases loudness most of the time change will come in next bar. if piano does from beginning of 4bars and does not increase loudness, it'll probably stay like that for all 4 and other instruments will join in. Or something like bass guitar getting quiet out of sudden. I don't find drum rolls very telling, there is too much improvisation going on most of the time. certain timbale patterns are used for signals, i think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coda_(music)

With regard to layouts, i don't feel much regularity there. Length of song in salsa is quite variable and that opens up huge amount of combinations to memorize. I'm also guessing that musicians don't learn all these songs by heart at all times or play from charts, so there have to be some signaling in live situations.

terence: I think I know what You mean; You're talking about musical notation and tradition to put everything in 4/4?

In salsa music that does not make sense, compared to looking at full clave cycle. Only few exceptions come to mind: sometimes congas, cowbell or other percussion would play 2 patterns of the same per 1 pattern of clave. If I look at the cycle as 4 strong beats (1;3;5;7 in dance counting tradition) it makes much more sense both from players and dancers perspective. There are very few exceptions where this cycle does not work. Not fun to dance to music that switches clave directions yet

I can go with traditional convention as well, but don't think it's best. Similarly 123.567. counting system is used for historical reasons, but it's still badly designed.

 

[terence]

. .

terence: I think I know what You mean; You're talking about musical notation and tradition to put everything in 4/4?

In salsa music that does not make sense,

. If I look at the cycle as 4 strong beats (1;3;5;7 in dance counting tradition) it makes much more sense both from players and dancers perspective.




Similarly 123.567. counting system is used for historical reasons, but it's still badly designed.

Yes.. there are , as you know , 4 beats to a bar in this structure.. the poly rhythms within that framework, ARE the whole point of the music.

Advanced dancers, in many cases, are able to incorporate those subleties, that underpin the melody.One often hear dancers say they are dancing to the Clave,the Base, the Cow bell the Tumbao ,etc..



Structurally, after the intro. there is frequntly a "set " sequence of bars that translate into melody and chorus.. something on the likes of 16 bars, with a 16 bar repeat and then a 32 bar chorus ( this is just one e.g. ).. on occasion, a 4 bar " bridge " is added..( good for clave change.. which musicians hate, so they say )..and or, as in Descarga, a "free for all" more typical of a Jazz format( Machito has good e.g. ) .

Knowing where and when those "phrase " changes take place, is not that difficult to the trained "ear ".. in the majority of cases cases..

Music being a mathematical exercise, it makes little sense ( to me ) to count 1,2,3 in a FOUR beat bar set ( thats Waltz !).. one SHOULD be expressing ALL beats in the bar, both numerically and in beat "value ".. that 1.2.3 system is what creates dancers who finish up knowing little or nothing, about all the possibilities that are available from a dance perspective .

From an historical perspective, up until the early forties, the majority of Rumba /Bolero ( its correct " Umbrella " name, genealogically speaking ) was written in 2/4 time... it was the Jazz influence that affected not only this genre, but also some dances in the Ballroom genre, who started to switch to a 4/4 time sign.

 

[azzey]

For example if piano goes into loud solid montuno in the middle of the last bar from 4, (i should have answered terence first ) and increases loudness most of the time change will come in next bar.

I know what you're talking about but it won't fit all kinds of Salsa music. Not even all kinds of tracks played by one band even.

if piano does from beginning of 4bars and does not increase loudness, it'll probably stay like that for all 4 and other instruments will join in. Or something like bass guitar getting quiet out of sudden.

Uhuh but some Salsa music doesn't even have piano!

I don't find drum rolls very telling, there is too much improvisation going on most of the time. certain timbale patterns are used for signals, i think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coda_(music)

Timbale rolls at the end of a phrase are often used by musicians in certain kinds of Salsa music to tell you when the music will change. There are other times when you don't get a hint at all. That's musicians for you.. often putting together arrangements in a new way.

With regard to layouts, i don't feel much regularity there.

Really? Check this out: World's Best Leads E-mail From Edie

Length of song in salsa is quite variable and that opens up huge amount of combinations to memorize.

Length of song is quite variable, but only few combinations for a particular genre of music put together in a slightly different way. I haven't bothered to put them all down on paper but after listening to a lot of Timba, NY, PR and Colombian salsa sounds so derivative.

terence: I think I know what You mean; You're talking about musical notation and tradition to put everything in 4/4?

In salsa music that does not make sense, compared to looking at full clave cycle. Only few exceptions come to mind: sometimes congas, cowbell or other percussion would play 2 patterns of the same per 1 pattern of clave. If I look at the cycle as 4 strong beats (1;3;5;7 in dance counting tradition) it makes much more sense both from players and dancers perspective.

There are very few exceptions where this cycle does not work. Not fun to dance to music that switches clave directions yet

In most pop music strong beats and accents coincide. In many styles of music with African roots the rhythm structure is more complicated with percussion instruments which interleave with one another marking both the odd and the even beats. For me, it's where they coincide that creates the strongest feeling.

In Colombian and Cuban Salsa the strongest accent is often on the downbeat, on 1 and/or on 3.
In Puerto Rican and Cuban salsa the strongest accent is often on 2 and 6. With the Tumbao of the conga drum.

So in the later case 1 3 5 7 is not as strong. In Puerto Rican music 1 and 5 are often the weakest beats.

When I dance I often syncopate my steps using the half beats of the music. I go down to 8ths and sometimes 16ths within a bar to accent or stress a movement, e.g. when the clave is offset on 6.5 or 8.5.

If I thought of the music as 1, 3, 5, 7, it wouldn't be an accurate model for the majority of types of Salsa music, except say when there is a strong cowbell playing.

http://www.timba.com/artist_pages/clave-debate-1

Regarding Clave changes, there are 3 kinds of Clave changes (1 of them only in Cuban music), two which have indications and 1 where the band just break with no lead in. e.g. Africando have a popular track where immediately after the intro there is a change. You just have to know the track. At the end of the song it does the same thing again on the outro.

Also, there are many kinds of Clave, 2:3 Son clave, 2:3 Rumba clave, 3:2 Son Clave, 3:2 Rumba clave. Sometimes mixed together in one song. I've found a few Colombian tracks that confused the hell out of me in the early days until I broke it down.

I can go with traditional convention as well, but don't think it's best. Similarly 123.567. counting system is used for historical reasons, but it's still badly designed.

For me, that's the dancers count (for the steps). Reason is you need to take a breath when teaching and saying 1234 all the time can get tiring. I just mix it up 1 5, 23 67, 4 8. I do stress to dancers that there are 4 beats in the music. Often dancers who've been taking classes for more than a year don't even realise this! (currently re-educating a female student on her timing in a series of privates).

For music I use either 4/4 or 12345678 when talking about clave, where say a reverse Son clave would be 23 5 6.5 8.

 

[UnlikelySalsero]

How do you tell from intro what will follow? I can tell only tempo and sometimes "the one" and rarely when "the verse" part begins.

Usually I listen to the song for a bit, to make sure I can dance to that music.

How do you tell what will next big part of song like?

Do you know the cliches of each style of salsa music? Some songs I read easily, but some not at all.

How do you tell the end is coming? I've noticed that certain musical phrases from intro get repeted odd number of times without continuation, this means end is usually within 2 or 4 bars (in 4/2 time which makes it 8/4 for dancers).

Also are there shifts in harmonies, like in blues? I'm not educated in that but might make sense.

(the context

I have previous experience with music; listen it, dance to it, sing it and even played some for few years.

But with salsa music I've been paying intensive attention only for 4 months. Mostly by going to parties 3-5 times a week + classes and some at home. The range still is broad, I can not describe salsa music with such quality as reggae or rock, that I've spent much more time with.

I'm a lead and take responsibility for most musical interpretations on dancefloor.)

The first rule I teach in my "Music For Dancers" master classes is:
"Music Has Structure"

An alternate way of saying that is: "Music Ain't Random"

Music without structure is also known as noise.

As you learn how tunes are structured, you can hear the first part of the tune and make very educated guesses on the rest of the tune.

While tunes are variable lengths, they all have their own internal structure, and within each style (or sub-style), they tend to have more similarities than differences from a structural perspective.

The differences in length primarily relate to the solo sections, which are often phrases of 8 or 16 bars at a time. If the phrase is 8 bars long (common), the solo section will be some multiple of 8 bars.

In live situations the charts will often show 8 bars with a repeat sign for the solos, and a note saying "open" so the musicians know the soloist will probably take 2, 4, 8, 12 or 16 phrases (8 bars each in this example), then the next soloist will start OR the band go back to the tune. (Lots of possibilities there... This is a simplified example...)

Most salsa charts I've read/seen are written in 4/4 time or 2/2 time (AKA "cut time"), where the clave is spanning two bars.

Salsa tunes actually follow a similar structure to other tunes, including R&B, and many other dance music styles.

Once you see the structure in less complicated music, it takes little to see how that same structure maps to salsa music.

Seeing the structure mapped out (via a musical chart) is very helpful.

The first baby step is learning to correctly count the bars, so you can figure out how the phrases are constructed (4, 8, 12 or 16 bars are the most common)

But that's a can of worms because you have to hear things in the music to figure out how it maps. Most people are only hearing a minor subset of the music, and they don't know it.

Each person in a room is actually hearing a different tune, some hearing much more, many hearing much less than others.

This is a tough topic without hearing examples and visualizing the structure.

The best part is you will start hearing the structure because you're aware it exists. Once you reach that point, then you're searching for the structure and it will become clearer over time.

The easiest way is to get with someone who already hears its it and work through examples with them (start with simple music...)

In any case you'll listen to some tunes 100s of times. Mindlessly listening a few hundred times won't hurt, but isn't the most efficient method for learning the structure.

[Continuing on my habit of having the longest posts of any person, bordering on insanity]

 

[Smejmoon]

The first rule I teach in my "Music For Dancers" master classes is:
"Music Has Structure"

Thanks for replying Unlikely I feel a bit lost, because from the title of thread I thought it's obvious I know that structure does exist and I hear it and use to dance.

What I'm looking for is salsa specific hints to open ears to. Take some of your experience in distilled form. Of course it will already take a year or so to grasp information folks already provided in the thread.

Also I have not so great short term memory, so i forget intro by the end of song unless i deliberately focus. Once I understood how important phrases in intro are, I'm trying to do it.

Also it seems you all have gone through exercise of transcribing the form of song? By all I mean people who can explain what happens not only sense. Sensing develops with repeated experience as most neural networks, but if one pays deliberate attention it will be faster.

I'm right now in that part of beginners hell, where intermediate ladies are asking me for dances and I feel I underdeliver. My capability to interpret song really changes from song to song. Also if I get tired it does not work, because attention is taxing. I'm a bit afraid they're gonna give up on me.

 

[bailar y tocar]

Another way to "hear" musical structure of a (IMO) very tightly structured genre like salsa is to practice hearing with challenging percussion rhythm genres that appear less structured. I wouldn't recommend this for dancers though. IME most dancers just want to know about the rhythms they are going to dance to and not all the other stuff that musicians get excited about.

In the last two weekends I went to performances by these groups:
So Percussion is a "classical" percussion group that challenges our perception of what is rhythm and melody. I didn't know what I got into when I bought the ticket to the show but I had seen a piece by one of the composers where the musicians played the entire piece with clave sticks, which was awesome. The performance I saw was quite different from the video links and very different from the other piece I had remembered. They had about a dozen marimbas, vibraphones and assorted other percussion instruments on stage plus one number on a drum set. This stuff is definitely beyond my comprehension level.
youtube.com/watch?v=4WD1fdA-Plo
youtube.com/watch?v=XwHgbPKfir0

Fode Bangoura (of Guinea) plays lead improvising drum. The structure is very challenging because the music is based on rhythm keys not beat. If you were to focus entirely on when the improv drum enters, weaves around the main rhythm and then syncopates, you would start to hear how rhythm layers played in rhythm keys is so different from the European/American music concept of beat and count.
youtube.com/watch?v=ZKueFIDGLEc&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=NP8GyjMLpy8

As I said above, for dancers, this is way to far out. Even if you just look at what rhythm the west african dancers are dancing to, its only two, three or four hits within the bar that are danced to. And yet the rest of the music is far more complex.

As for me personally, I go to many many Jazz and African music concerts (~30-40) throughout the year so I treat listening to these other genres the same way I would treat going to those concerts. It is its own thing, nothing to do with dancing at all.

P.S. Listening to the same type of music over and over is probably less effective and possibly ineffective at learning musical structure. If everything always sounds the same you can't learn to understand differences.

P.S.2 I have always felt I have to know what is the limit before I can say I understand something. I know for sure that SO Percussion is beyond my limit so when I dial back to Hiromi I am back in my comfort zone.
youtube.com/watch?v=6JfKY0K_NQk

 

[UnlikelySalsero]

Thanks for replying Unlikely I feel a bit lost, because from the title of thread I thought it's obvious I know that structure does exist and I hear it and use to dance.

What I'm looking for is salsa specific hints to open ears to. Take some of your experience in distilled form. Of course it will already take a year or so to grasp information folks already provided in the thread.

<snip>

I'm right now in that part of beginners hell, where intermediate ladies are asking me for dances and I feel I underdeliver. My capability to interpret song really changes from song to song. Also if I get tired it does not work, because attention is taxing. I'm a bit afraid they're gonna give up on me.

I'll tell what I've learned from working with hundreds of people over the years: You're normal.

The first step is knowing the structure exists. You do and that's excellent.

The funny thing is the structure of salsa is not much different than the structure of most R&B or pop tunes. When you clearly understand/hear those structures unfolding, salsa is simply more of the same. (Live bands have solo sections which repeat X times or are open ended, but that is simply one element of the structure.)

My first suggestion is be sure you're exploring the structure of music OFF the dance floor. It should be happening when you're driving, when you're eating, when you're brushing your teeth before bed. Anytime you can listen and ideally count through the sections.

Second is to make sure you're nailing it on simpler music, like most commercial pop tunes. Love songs are great for learning, since they tend to be slower with less music at points. But the structure is still similar to Salsa.

Can you predict the section (phrase) points in a slower love song? If you can great, but many people can't.

Walk before you run... start with easier music, get the structure map on paper or in your head. Then salsa is easy, because it's the same concepts, but often faster with more density in the music.

Most people don't work enough off the floor, and they don't use simple music to clarify the structure before they get to salsa music. You can start with salsa, but I've had much greater success with people when they start with less intense music.

In a few months they are MUCH farther than the ones who only worked salsa as their starting point.

Your mileage may vary, depending on where you are actually starting. Most people don't realize what they are not hearing (again: normal) because you can't know what you're not hearing...

That one variable (figuring out what someone is really hearing) is one of the huge challenges for those us who teach music for dancers. Nobody on this board really knows what you're hearing, and you can't know what you're not hearing, until you hear something and realize it was missing before...

So all the advice on this board is subject to the fact that you are hearing a different tune than others, hearing more or less of the music.

What songs are you using to learn about the music?

 

[nowhiteshoes]

You could try this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnOp7LkNAoA

This song builds up tension (imo) which is released at a break in the song, where the pattern then continues.

In some songs (as with this one) with lots of early changes/breaks there is a point in a song where i think "ok, now no more changes" and i can step the dance up a gear.

 

[Smejmoon]

That one variable (figuring out what someone is really hearing) is one of the huge challenges for those us who teach music for dancers. Nobody on this board really knows what you're hearing, and you can't know what you're not hearing, until you hear something and realize it was missing before...

So all the advice on this board is subject to the fact that you are hearing a different tune than others, hearing more or less of the music.

You could try this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnOp7LkNAoA

This is what I put together in an hour and half after I came home from the salsa party.

0:16 countoff; tells tempo, "1" and clave direction (3 side of clave + 4 quarter notes. also i think clave part is slightly off. there is shouting of tempo as well)
0:19 4 claves of percussion, bass and quiet harmonies.
0:28 4 claves + horns and ends with a phrase in next clave
0:40 break. verse. solid bass that i will rely from now on. feels like clave changed to 2:3 after break, but not true. will become more clear later.

1:10 solid break. no messing around with my head. bass starts first clave cycle on 1.
1:19 timbale roll.
1:20 piano steps in with chords similar to intro
1:30 horns join to play theme
1:41 horns play like before break at 0:40, but no break
some repeats of verse; each 4 clave cycle ends differently.
2:26 pickup scream + horns and next section starts. chorus.
2 claves chorus + 2 claves improvisation (repeat)
2:37 horn break for no apparent reason; later continues singer + chorus
3:20 piano goes into triple time for a little bit. some piano variations before and after.
3:50 horns break in; bass + piano keeps solid groove. instrumental solos.
4 claves congas
4 claves horn phrase
4 claves horn phrase

2 claves horns stay, other instruments fade or go stacate with horns, except piano and bass; singers come back.

4:27 i'd call this chorus 2.
1 clave solo + 1 clave chorus (repeat)

5:10 horns come in; repetitions
5:25 conga solo
5:30 full note on horns.
6:05 cowbell fill. then trumpet solo.
6:20 trombone?
6:22 singer goes "aiii"
6:30 alt trumpet? maybe same as before, maybe 1st was some high pitch horn
6:45 singer takes over solo position.
7:04 fade of instruments.
8 claves similar to intro. variation of "theme"?. ends with break that goes over clave lines.
7:13 feels like something strange is happening with harmonies.

 

[t0mt0m]

I'm thinking, as a tool, would it be useful to have a tool that you could map out that would link to a song mp3 file/youtube video? To link time /section of video, with sections of the song?

It'd be kind of cool, to have a salsa song counter - like you can get lap counters - but hit start at the start count, then on the 8, maybe a few times so it could get bpm - then be able to click when there was a change?
Kind of simplify mapping out the structure.

I was looking at Alex Wilson's Find the Rhythm a while back and thinking the same - there seems to be a niche, to have a nice bar like way to represent a song - not sheet music style, more like excel cell style, but colored/simplified - indicate visually bars taken per section, to highlight repitition/overall structure?
If people are willing to help Smejmoon out with the song he's chosen - perhaps I could sketch out for this one (though on initial glance, it seems to perhaps a more complex structure than some salsa songs?)

 

[bailar y tocar]

This is what I put together in an hour and half after I came home from the salsa party.

0:16 countoff; tells tempo, "1" and clave direction (3 side of clave + 4 quarter notes. also i think clave part is slightly off. there is shouting of tempo as well)
0:19 4 claves of percussion, bass and quiet harmonies.
0:28 4 claves + horns and ends with a phrase in next clave
0:40 break. verse. solid bass that i will rely from now on. feels like clave changed to 2:3 after break, but not true. will become more clear later.

1:10 solid break. no messing around with my head. bass starts first clave cycle on 1.
1:19 timbale roll.
1:20 piano steps in with chords similar to intro
1:30 horns join to play theme
1:41 horns play like before break at 0:40, but no break
some repeats of verse; each 4 clave cycle ends differently.
2:26 pickup scream + horns and next section starts. chorus.
2 claves chorus + 2 claves improvisation (repeat)
2:37 horn break for no apparent reason; later continues singer + chorus
3:20 piano goes into triple time for a little bit. some piano variations before and after.
3:50 horns break in; bass + piano keeps solid groove. instrumental solos.
4 claves congas
4 claves horn phrase
4 claves horn phrase

2 claves horns stay, other instruments fade or go stacate with horns, except piano and bass; singers come back.

4:27 i'd call this chorus 2.
1 clave solo + 1 clave chorus (repeat)

5:10 horns come in; repetitions
5:25 conga solo
5:30 full note on horns.
6:05 cowbell fill. then trumpet solo.
6:20 trombone?
6:22 singer goes "aiii"
6:30 alt trumpet? maybe same as before, maybe 1st was some high pitch horn
6:45 singer takes over solo position.
7:04 fade of instruments.
8 claves similar to intro. variation of "theme"?. ends with break that goes over clave lines.
7:13 feels like something strange is happening with harmonies.

That is too detailed for dance cues from the music.

For dancing there are simpler cues:
1:30 horns are building
2:00 vocals - this thing is going to kick up soon.
2:28 soneo - coro this is where dancers step it up (but not all the way)
3:50 the solos, good for open breaks, shines etc.
4:25 soneo-coro back to partnering
5:12 horns are back something else is happening soon
5:32 climax (or mambo or rumba or whatever they want to shout)
6:34 sax announcing soneo/coro
7:03 closing coming soon
7:14 horns in to close

Btw, this is a very good song to study these changes. Its very typical for classic salsa.

 

[Smejmoon]

That is too detailed for dance cues from the music.<snip>

Btw, this is a very good song to study these changes. It's very typical for classic salsa.

Thank you! I was noting this down to illustrate what I hear and that I often can not differentiate what's important for structural changes to what's not. And it seems we agree on structure here, but I am not able to predict it except for at 2:26 i know chorus will come. There are 3 times where song might end in few bars (1:41- too early thou, 4:27 where they go to corus and 7:04 - same ammount of clues for me, so why not another verse? because 7 minutes is too long and variety of lyrics was not that big? but they might just repeat the same verse.)

I found only one timbale roll that was unusual (1:16) and it signaled nothing for me.

For dancing there are simpler cues:
1:30 horns are building
2:00 vocals - this thing is going to kick up soon.
2:28 soneo - coro this is where dancers step it up (but not all the way)

What is it in vocals that you pick up at 2:00? I hear in verse at 2:17 same question being repeated "Why oh why?!" so I'm guessing singer is desperate and that might mean end of verse. By why next verse would not answer to his broken heart's question? Seems as good next part as chorus.

4:25 soneo-coro back to partnering

How do you know the song will go on here? I could do a slow dip and then if it goes on, keep dancing.

5:32 climax (or mambo or rumba or whatever they want to shout)

Could you please break it down this for me a bit? What are the cues? What do they mean?

6:34 sax announcing soneo/coro

Wow, can't believe I missed that one. 2am and thinking this is solo section must fuzzed my mind

So is repetition of short phrase mostly 3 times, with untypical variation 3rd time and no release after tension, signal of end? I've noticed that a bit; also in jazz music.

Thank you everyone for input; this really will help some ladies out there

t0mt0m, I'll look into your software idea.

Also it seems knowing the language (Spanish) wold help quite a bit. Most song lyrics are rather lame, so it's a double edged sword

 

[sweavo]

Music is all about building and playing with expectations. (Adam Parnell, co-director, composer and horn arranger in my band explained that one to me, which caused a lot of my thoughts to fall into place. He was talking about motifs and themes, but I ran with the idea a bit below...)

You can expect that a salsa track is in 4/4, will have a clave direction, will include horns and singing and congas and bells and a piano montuno, and you can expect that it will include several sections. These expectations come from the genre of the music. But you could equally have a salsa track with no horns and a vibraphone, or no piano and an organ, or no horns and a flute. So in these cases your expectations have to be adjusted, and this is what makes those songs delightful.

Within a piece, expectations are set up in order to be manipulated. Once you hear a melody, you can expect it to repeat. When it repeats but is varied or extended or truncated, that creates the excitement of listening.

If you expect that music will change every 4, 8, or 16 bars, and heighten your awareness at those points, then you will catch many changes. If a section is, e.g. 15 bars long, then you will notice this feel like it ended early. But you also have a new expectation: that the next time you hear this section, it will be 15 bars long and feel as if it ended early. So you then try to sort out your turn patterns so that you end at the "right" point. But the arranger might have chosen to alter the length again and so you might get tricked. This is all part of the fun.

So that's from the point of view of predicting changes a long time in advance.

Closer to the moment of change, you will often "feel" the changes announced by the timbales, bass, or piano; or there may be a pickup (where the melody begins before beat 1) which give you between 0.2 and 2 seconds' warning that the change is here. It doesn't sound like much but because you are applying the above knowledge, it's just really a confirmation that you got your guess right.

 

[Flujo]

Hmmmn, that's the one. Thanks for putting into words what was in my head regarding this thread.

Smejmoon: The simplest way to put it is exactly that. Play guessing games when you listen to your music and each time it becomes a little bit easier to pick the more favourable/probable directions.

Think "when the <insert instrument> does this the song might do this..."

Things that help me predict the direction are:
- the length and timing of notes in phrases...that is whether they are sustained (long) or staccato (short) and how rapidly in succession they are play
- if there is a call and response where the vocalists chant and an instrument (brass for e.g.) answers
- whether the phrase is climbing or descending (tension building)

You asked about intros:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnOp7LkNAoA

- listen to how the intro to this song repeats the same 4 chords with each one higher in pitch than the previous one
- listen to the mood the sustained chords create
- listen to how the brass adds harmony (complimentary notes) in the same fashion with each note being higher in pitch than the previous one
​

This is being used to build tension that at some point will need to be released.
There are 8 bars before the complimentary brass comes in which will tell you that there could be another 8 bars before something else happens.

What happens at 0:40 ?
You might not have known exactly what but the established pattern up to that point would have had you prepared for something and also prepared for the obligatory 1 bar throw off that Salsa tunes have - that used to get me every time.

What happens at 1:25?
You'll be able to say "ah, I know this bit" because it's the same intro (actually the second half) with the ascending brass harmonies. There's your first pattern right there.

Recognising how instruments are played as well as when they are played will help you out a lot so maybe that is something you could think about...? Hope you enjoy the journey!

nowhiteshoes: Nice song as always!