When you’re tight on space or time and need to approximate the sound of kick, snare, and hi-hat, pull out a cajon and a pair of brushes and use the following strokes to add some different colors to your musical canvas.
One thing that I like to do to help me with my independence is to do exercises that I normally wouldn’t necessarily use as such, but would help me in playing other patterns. This particular exercise will help you get started.
Let’s have a shake at three popular maraca patterns used in Latin music. Ex. 1 is a salsa pattern that is played at a medium-to-fast tempo. Make sure you hit the accents clearly. Ex. 2 is a son montuno pattern that is played at a slow-to-medium tempo.
The Mozambique pattern originated in Cuba and is a lot of fun to play.
The front plate of your box cajon is designed to have a certain amount of flex or “give” to not only obtain a rich deep tone, but also to be easy on the hands. Because of this you can actually bend it with slight pressure from your heel as you are playing to change the pitch.
Here are two patterns that go great together. The patterns will change hands in the second measure of each example.
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