Musicality : Salsa song structure

These are my notes from the salsa musicality class that was conducted by Alex Diaz quite sometime back in Bangalore.

Every well made song/music has a structure to it. As a dance it helps us a lot to know the structure of the song. 

A well made salsa song can be divided into the following five sub-parts. 

1. Intro
 - Repeats sometime listen to first n react to repeat, instrumental no vocals, ends in break

2. Verse
 - Has lyrics
 - Lots of accents usually during no vocal. Usally accents using wind instrument.
 - May have repeating patterns
 - How to respond while dancing : Hitting the accents. Keep partner work simple & easy to respond

3. Bridge

 - Highly Irregular depends on song. Difficult to predict
 - This is most often used to transit to next part of the song the Muntono section.

 - Short usually about 4 bars or so. But can be multiple of 4 bars. Depending on the song.

 - Has a distinctive feel from that of the verse section
 - Sometimes may have vocals as well.
 - Might or might not have breaks

4 Muntono
 - 3 Sub sections
  a. Chorus 

     - Melody part or hook of the song. 

     - Repeats a lot. 

     - Repeats in multiple of fours. 

     - Might have alternating lead n backgrounds vocals

     - How to respond : listen to repeating part for first few times that it repeats and decide on how to hit the highs/changes.

  b. Instrument solos 

     - Highlights single musical instrument usually (drums/piano/xylophone) 

     - Can't really predict pattern of the music as instrument solos are most often improvised.

     - Most of the time, there are no repetitions in the instrument solos

  c. Pattern musical section 

     - Repeats in multiples of four bars. 

     - How to Respond: As it repeats listen to first and/or second repeat of the pattern and decide on highlights.

 - Mixup of multiple repetition pf two or more sub sections
 - Sometimes this overlap and/or overlay  of the above three subsections in random order.

5. Conclusion
 - Usually there are musical breaks before conclusion of the song.
 - Usually the intro part of song is repeat to end the song.