As part of the master’s degree in musical leadership at the Guildhall, I went to La Plata, Argentina for 3 weeks of tuition in Candombe, Tango and styles of national folk music. It was an intense residential with a huge amount to absorb.
Argentina is famous for it’s Tango but it has a wealth of other music which has developed in different parts of the country. It has taken influence from it’s neighbouring countries such as Uruguay and Brazil, but retains its own unique soundCandombe is an African derived rhythm which developed in Uruguay and Argentina. It involves 3 types of drum; Piano(bass) Repique(mid) and Chico (high) which are strapped to the drummer to enable walking while playing. Each of the drums have their rhythmic patterns and when played together they create this unique groove, played over a 3 2 clave.We studied the rhythms for a few days under the guidance of local percussionists such as Gustavo Tumori, before being invited to join a ‘cuerda’. This starts as a social meeting outdoors with a fire to heat and tighten the drum skins. As the sun goes down, the drummers group into a tight formation and slowly march down the streets with dancers in front of them Candombe cuerda (circle)

3 days were allocated to studying styles of Tango. We were assembled as a small orchestra and were led by maestro Alejandro Rodriguez . Alejandro is a composer and band leader and is a wealth of knowledge in musical styles throughout Argentina and beyond. He had a hard job to pull us through the intricacies of orchestral Tango, but he did so with commitment. Below is an audio example of our efforts