Tumbao - Timba Keyboard Guajeos

Timba Keyboard Guajeos

The Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba developed a technique of pattern and harmonic displacement in the 1980s, which was adopted into timba tumbaos (timba piano guajeos) in the 1990s. The following tumbao for Issac Delgado's "La temática" (1997) demonstrates some of the innovations of timba piano. A series of repeated octaves invoke a characteristic metric ambiguity. The following timba examples are written in cut-time.

Many timba bands use two keyboards. The following example shows two simultaneous tumbao parts for Issac Delgado's "Por qué paró" (1995), as played by Melón Lewis (1st keyboard), and Pepe Rivero (2nd keyboard).