bongo

Bongos (Spanish: bongó) are an Afro-Cuban percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small open bottomed hand drums of different sizes. The pair consists of the larger hembra and the smaller macho, which are joined by a wooden bridge. They are played with both hands and usually held between the legs, although in some cases, as in classical music, they may be played with sticks or mounted on stands. Bongos are mainly employed in the rhythm section of son cubano and salsa ensembles, often alongside other drums such as the larger congas and the stick-struck timbales. In these groups, the bongo player is known as bongosero and often plays a continuous eight-stroke pattern called martillo as well as more rhythmically free parts, providing improvisatory flourishes and rhythmic counterpoint. Bongos originated in eastern Cuba at the end of the 19th century, possibly from a pair of larger drums such as the bokú. These older, larger bongos are known as bongó del monte and played in changüí. The smaller bongos used in son cubano were popular across Cuba by the 1910s and reached the concert halls of the eastern United States in the 1930s. By the 1940s, bongos and congas were sharing the stage as son ensembles grew in size and Latin music began to cross-pollinate with jazz and other genres. During the second half of the 20th century, bongos began to be played in a wide variety of genres, from bachata to Latin rock. Construction Bongo drums are about high and have diameters of approximately and . The shells of the drums and the bridge (the small block that joins them) are usually made of wood, although fiberglass is also common. The heads are typically made of calfskin and attached to the shells via steel hardware that enables their tuning (lug tuning). Originally, metal tacks were used, so the skins had to be tightened by heating the skins with a flame and loosened with water or by striking them vigorously. This method of tuning is still used for the traditional bongos used in changüí. Therefore, Fernando Ortiz places the original bongó in the category of tambores de candela (flame-tuned drums), along with bokú, yuka, conga, bembé and smaller drums, since these were all tuned with the flame of an oil lamp.