Now one of the most common questions that pops up in our Community Forum on Conga Chops, is how we can go about playing our tumbao pattern at faster tempos.

Now, of course we can simply practice playing our common one drum tumbao at blazing speeds, which is a great dexterity exercise. But at some point, it might get a bit tedious when we want to play at faster tempos for longer periods of time. Now, there's a bunch of ways that we can go about this, but one of the simplest solutions is just to take out some notes from our common Tumbao pattern, without sacrificing the feel or the groove.

So let's see what this fast tumbao pattern sounds like over a 2-3 Clave, at a slow tempo first, then we'll take a second to analyze it and speed it up. And feel free to clap the clave along as you listen, so you can get used to where the accents lie in respect to the clave.

So all we really did here, was place a rest on the "and" of one and the "and" of three in first bar, and play one single open tone at the end of the second bar, as opposed to two. Now, we also switched up the sticking a bit, from using three consecutive left hand strokes like we normally would in the tumbao, to alternating our hands right to left in certain spots, making the pattern easier to pull off at a faster tempo. And lastly, we stuck in some left hand accented slaps, which you can play on the inside of the drum, or out near the edge of the drum like a traditional slap, to help the groove swing. So let's check that out a bit faster.

So it's super important for us to be very secure with the pulse as we speed this up. And we also want to be aware of which direction the clave is flowing in, and how our pattern locks up. Now since this is a two bar phrase, there's one bar of the pattern that feels good and coincides with the two side of the clave, and one bar of the pattern that feels good and coincides with the three side of the clave. Now in this particular pattern, playing that single right hand open tone on beat four in the second bar, really makes it clear that we're on the three side.

Now, if you want to learn a bit more about the different claves, how to count them, and generally more about how they work, be sure to check out the Lesson on Clave from our Conga Fundamentals Course on CongaChops.com. So let's hear this pattern one more time, up to speed, in 2-3 Clave.

So that's a very simple way for us to play our tumbao pattern more comfortably at faster tempos. And you can also feel free to leave an eighth note rest on the down beat of the second bar, and come in with a tip in the "and" of one, if it feels more comfortable for you.

Now, remember that speed is something that we'll develop gradually over time, with consistent practice. So make sure you're taking the time to work on this pattern slowly at first, get comfortable with the sticking and the tones, do your best to stay relaxed and lock up with the metronome, and make sure you strive for a nice clear sound even as you speed up. Now although we'll always have the patterns we're learning notated here on screen, our ultimate goal is to internalize how things sound and feel, so we can play them without having to read them.