Sometime around mid-summer 2012,
it hit me that I had been practicing Bomba faithfully for about eight
months. I had improved a lot from
my first class, but I realized that in order to get better I needed a “barril”
(bomba drum). I had heard from my
director Manuela that a barril would cost about $500 and that I would have to
find a drum maker to build the instrument for me. Bomba has two drums the subidor (aka “primo”) and the
buleador neither of which are not sold in stores and few people in New York City
let alone the United States know how to make it or have time to make it for
Bomba practitioners. My search for
a drum maker and the subsequent search for a conga bag to fit my drum, along
with my research for information on the history of Bomba lead me to realize
Bomba and its sister genre Plena had very little presence on the web. I had had
a previous idea for a webpage that listed Bomba teachers, but sometime before
New York’s Bomplenazo 2012 festival I realized Bomba needed a place on the World Wide Web to call home. After Bomplenazo 2012 I went home and looked up
the names of various groups and individual performers. Slowly through Facebook I was able to
find other Bomberos. This finding only confirmed my thoughts for doing this
project. I envision this
blog/website as place Bomba and Plena practitioners can discuss up and coming
events, where Bomba is going strong, who various performers are and their
recordings, recent performances, where a teacher will be appearing, and the different
approaches to Bomba.
Creating this blog will be a work
in progress. I will be learning as I go about what it takes to build a quality
blog, I welcome your advise and your assistance. As you may have noticed I am
not a Spanish speaker, I’m sure most will agree that not being fluent in
Spanish and/or not being of Puerto Rican decent is a major drawback for this
blog, as I am sure to miss certain nuances. Well like anything in life I will
do my best to cope with the language gap and with learning Puerto Rican and
Bomba culture. If you can read and
write in Spanish and would like to contribute to this blog get in touch with
me.
Yours truly,
De
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