Today we're gonna explore the concept of using our baqueteo pattern to prepare and anticipate some of our fills.

Now in this case what we're referring to with our baqueteo, sometimes called la chapa, is playing a bar or a few beats of a groove, made up of a combination of palm-tip and closed slaps, with no open tones like we would normally play in our common tumbao. So let's just review what a common one bar baqueteo sounds like.

Now this is just one of many different options as far as playing a baqueteo within the tumbao. And it's something that I've heard used time and time again in the bar before a fill, by some of my all-time favorites like Papo Pepín, Marc Quiñones, Bobby Allende, and George Delgado, and it's something that I personally love using from time to time to help set up my fills and variations.

Now whether or not they're doing it deliberately, I can't be certain, but it's something I would love to pick their brains about. Now what I can say for sure, is that when they do use this, it creates a specific effect: leaving a bar or a few beats with non-open tones, which gives us a break from open tones in the tumbao, helps make any fill we might play afterwards have a bit more impact.

So, for this first fill, let's work on applying this concept over a four bar phrase in 2-3 clave. We'll play two bars of tumbao, followed by one bar of our baqueteo pattern, and a simple fill in the last bar.

So even at this slower tempo, we can hear that the third bar of the phrase, being the only one with no open tones in it, gives us some breathing room, and helps create some space before we play a fill in the fourth bar. Now, this can serve as a great way to practice building up anticipation with the baqueteo, and then a sense of release with our fills, in a way that gives us some time to listen to what's being played around us by the other instruments, and use it as inspiration for our fills.

So for this second fill, we'll take the same exact concept, and play the same thing in the first two beats of the fourth bar to start our fill, again using the "and" of one on the "three side" of the clave as a jumping off point. But in the second half of the bar we'll swap in some upbeats, and a couple of open tones to start the following bar, that we'll use to connect our fill to our two drum tumbao pattern on the "two side" of the clave, to create a longer, more fluid phrase.

As with all of what we'll study in these lessons, make sure you take the time to go over each pattern slowly, to work on the sticking and the tones, and to do your best to lock up with the metronome. Now it's also super important that we take the time to analyze and clap the clave along to each example, so we can start to understand how the tumbao and the accents of each fill fit and work in respect to the pulse and the clave.

So now that we have an idea of how this basic formula works, let's apply it to help us work on our fills over an eight-bar phrase. We'll play six bars of tumbao, followed by our baqueteo pattern in the seventh bar, and then each of our respective fills in bar eight. Let us see what it sounds like a bit faster over one of our exclusive practice loops from CongaChops.com.

So, as you can hear, this simple concept really gives us a great starting point for playing any fill or variation. Now generally speaking, aside from being aware of what's going on musically with the other instruments and the vocals while we're playing, this concept offers us one of the best ways to deliberately create some sonic and mental space, to allow ourselves to become inspired to play some fills and variations, like the ones we just learned.

So, feel free to practice doing this same thing on the opposite side of the clave as well, or by making your baqueteo pattern longer or shorter, to give your fill a different jumping off point.