Conga Technique for Finale

[Deacon Don]

I'm writing a part for conga. The techniques are slap, open, tip & heel strikes.
How does someone write the proper articulations and techniques for conga on Finale?

[zuill]

The Finale Percussion Font has some symbols that come close to what you want. There are probably other fonts that include all of them.

Zuill

[ttw]

I use Finale 26 and when I use the two percussion libraries "percussion layouts" and "GWI layouts" (I use the GWI congas). I then edit the layout (not much required) as the there are no requitos in Garritan stuff and the bass conga, bass tumba, and bass super tumba, have the same staff lines as the conga, tumba, and super tumba respectively; I move them down to a staff space. The libraries use open notes for normal, X shapes for slaps, and triangles for muted. I think the open and muted tumba are reversed though; as no one is playing my stuff, I didn't fix this; it can be done by re-doing the symbols.

I use the Score Manager. I set the percussions (for the relevant instruments) to a five-line staff. I usually make a percussion library for my stuff by "save library" when I have all the stuff aid out. Some instruments are easy (bongo) and some take a bit of work (conga, guiro). I get some help by letting the Score Manage only download things available in the chosen Garritan libaray.

[Deacon Don]

The Finale Percussion Font has some symbols that come close to what you want. There are probably other fonts that include all of them.

Zuill

Thanks. I'll look at it.

[Deacon Don]

I use Finale 26 and when I use the two percussion libraries "percussion layouts"
and "GWI layouts" (I use the GWI congas). I then edit the layout (not much required) ...

I'll look at it. In all my arranging and orchestration books there is very, very little about
scoring for Latin percussion.

[ttw]

I picked up most of my knowledge of Latin drumming from the internet. There are lots of things about Latin Drumming. Victor Lopez has a page about this. I just look up things like "conga drum patterns" (and replace conga with the other drums). The clave rhythm is an important organizational technique which is described under Cuban Music.

One of the drum-selling sites has lots of stuff. There are terms like clave, martello, palitos, and montunos; lots of stuff is available. (There are things on youtube but I don't do well from videos. Basically I use claves, maracas, guiros, bongos, congas, timbales, and cowbells. Each has several "standard" patterns These patterns interlock with themselves and the bass line and piano to make a core rhythm section.