photo by Peter Maiden

Wow - HdP packed Don Quixote's International Music Hall in Felton. It turns out to be a great venue - reasonably priced, great sound, great dance floor, great food. Patrick Hickey was on hand with his amazing video rig so you'll have some clips to look forward to, and Peter Maiden (above) and Tom Ehrlich were both clicking away with reckless abandon. The band was on fire - new tunes - two longs sets. Bay Area sonero extraordinaire Fito Reinoso sat in and brought the house down. Hopefully we'll be getting more Cuban shows at Quixote's in the near future.

Next tour stop: Saturday night at Yoshi's San Francisco - only one night this time - my advice is to buy advance tickets - I wouldn't be surprised to see people turned away at the door. The rest of the tour is here.

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Alexander Abreu & Havana D' Primera tore it up in LA - check out Kay Torres' report here. They play Don Quixote's off of Highway 17 in Santa Cruz - only $20 for the whole night and then Yoshi's SF on Saturday. Here's the rest of the tour. Bill's report is here.

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Beyond Salsa for Beginners: An Introduction to Latin Music for Dancers and Listeners is the flagship volume for the comprehensive Beyond Salsa series that includes multi-volume sets of books on each instruments of the Cuban rhythm section: piano, bass, drums, timbales, bongó, congas, clave, ensemble, etc. There is an introductory free download of 107 audio files with sample pdf available here. 248 pages (248 páginas) with 184 audio tracks (184 pistas).

Format: Beyond Salsa For Beginners is an introductory volume for the comprehensive Beyond Salsa series of music methods books. Each volume is made up of an eBook with accompanying audio (and video if available) tracks. The books and audio tracks are sold separately.

Hard copy: The hard copy version can be purchased here.

eBook: The eBook is made available through our View to Print system. 248 pages.

Audio: All the audio has been organized into 184 audio tracks. 

Free Audio: The FREE audio portion of this volume can be downloaded here.

The Beyond Salsa For Beginners method alternates between two different types of chapters:Listening Tours and Clapping, Singing and Dancing Exercises.

The Listening Tours cover the full history of Cuban music: Afro-Cuban folkloric music, rumba, changüí, comparsa, son, danzón, son montuno, songo, timba, salsa et al. For each genre we have a "highlighted track" - analyzed with time stamps to point out the main features. After a short history of the genre and its place in the overall scheme of things, we have a Further Listening list. The idea is to make a playlist of the highlighted tracks and listen repeatedly to develop an emotional connection with the music before studying the chapter.

Interspersed among the Listening Tours are four Rhythmic Exercises chapters on clapping, counting and singing the basic rhythms on which all of this music is based: clave, the basic dance steps, cinquillo, tresillo, and all the other essential rhythms of Latin music.

Click here for a FREE pdf sample of the Beyond Salsa For Beginners eBook.

Click here to see the table of contents for Beyond Salsa For Beginners.
Email the author = kevin [at] timba [dot] com

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Although there were no victories for Timba this year, there was some progress in gaining recognition for our music.  Bill Tilford explains why here.

Aunque no hubo victorias para la Timba este año, hubo algún progreso en el reconocimiento de nuestra música,  Bill Tilford te lo explica aquí.

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