Cuban Carnival: Introduction to El Mozambiqué
with Christian Weaver
This short course is an introduction to the carnival music known as El Mozambiqué, developed by percussionists Pello el Afrokan in Cuba towards the end of the 1950s. El Mozambiqué developed the traditional percussion, brass and vocal music of carnival with new hybrid rhythms mixed with existing parts to create a new style that swept the island with its popularity.
The percussion ‘piquete’ (ensemble) consists of bells, congas, bombos, and shekeres. The parts range from simple to more demanding. The challenge lies in learning to hear all 10 parts together in their polyrhythm. We will cover instrumental technique, basic parts and some variations for improvising, hearing the melody of the polyrhythm, and will work towards becoming familiar with the clave (the important organiser in Cuban music). We will cover a number of short songs and eventually arrive at a full arrangement of a piece (percussion and vocals).
You don’t need any experience of Cuban music. An open mind and a desire to learn something new will go a long way to helping you on this course. A bit of experience playing hand drums could be useful but not everyone needs to play congas, the bells and bombos (played with sticks) are the foundation of the polyrhythm.
Christian Weaver studied with Pello el Afrokan in Cuba in the 1990s. He has many years of experience teaching Cuban music in the UK and currently directs the La Timbala/Oi Musica Cuban Big Band in Edinburgh.