Timba is basically the best genre
An introduction to the music that converted me from listening to EDM for over a decade to forgetting about it for a year.
Many of my articles have been dedicated to dancing, but only one has been dedicated to what we dance to. And even so, I only wrote about lyrics, rather than about music. Let me share my compiled efforts regarding the musical genre most suited for dancing casino: timba.
What is timba?
Timba is an evolution of salsa music (which, according to some, is synonymous with son montuno) that has more percussion and more variable orchestration, which allows it to build and release tension.
The “orchestration” of a segment of music is how the instruments are assigned to the melody throughout the segment. The “arrangement” of a song is a sequence of orchestrations. In traditional salsa, there is little variation in the orchestrations throughout the same piece; the adjectives “monotone” and “droning” come to mind, which is not accidental, since salsa derives from son which carries a distinct “horse galloping” sensation. One song is one tune all throughout.
Meanwhile, a timba song could be described as being a sequence of multiple tunes. The orchestrations of these tunes are known as gears (invented by Paulito Fernández-Gallo for being able to change the “energy” of a song during live concerts, to evoke certain reactions from the audience). Timba identifies the existence of basic gears in salsa, and extends them with additional gears that build tension.
It is because of this that timba songs demand more musicality from dancers: when tension is being built, the song demands that you close the position and reduce your footwork. It is not optional to act on this musicality, and inappropriate if you ignore it. The song lays the groundwork for the dance – which keeps it interesting for leaders and followers alike, because followers react to surprises by the leader and leaders react to surprises by the music.
If this explanation is not clear to you, it should be very clear once you compare salsa and timba side-by-side. A good example of timba:
A good example of salsa:
All the instruments in the salsa song – campana, conga, trumpets, piano, … – are also present in the timba song, but there is so much more happening throughout. The salsa song is a flat line, the timba song has ups and downs, tension and release.
Playlists
A couple months into my dancing journey, I started collecting the “salsa” songs that appeared to be played at all the socials I attended, and specifically those that had high enough energy to enjoy the dance. I then realised that the people providing music at these socials were actually salseros rather than casineros, and thus the entire genre of timba to them was reduced to a small set of agreed-upon songs: Abre Que Voy, Caramelo Con Picante, La Cosa Mala, A Lo Loco Titi, and a handful of songs they thought were timba which weren’t, like La Vida Es Un Carnaval (which is cumbia) or La Gozadera (which is reggaeton).
So, after some time, I went on a journey through the depths of Spotify to find better timba. Here are the results of my efforts so far.
For dancing casino
My main playlist (and thus the longest one) consists of timba songs that are not too fast, not too slow, and not too long. When I am tasked with providing the music at socials (which happens about once a month nowadays), this is the list I sample from the majority of the time.
I was told by multiple DJs that songs over 4 minutes are basically useless to them, for mostly inconceivable reasons that all end up being some version of “bachata songs aren’t that long” (which to me is a problem with bachata songs, not timba, since timba is an actual genre whilst bachata is an astroturfed genre that has maybe 10 songs in total, and these 10 songs are themselves basically the same song). So, me and a friend say down to collect the very scarce sub-4-minute songs we like. (We expanded it to 4m10s, because just those 10 seconds open up a lot more songs for consideration.)
I draw from this playlist when others ask me for recommendations for socials where people dance casino, because these songs are not part of the word-of-mouth set and could not possibly run into the objection of “iT’s tOo LoNg”.
Finally, for dancing rueda, you explicitly need long songs which have little introduction and high energy. There aren’t so many songs which fit this bill, but that’s okay, because how many good ruedas do you really dance anyway?
For dancing other styles
For dancing son, I have a small but pleasant list that tries to avoid timba’s gravitation towards a tiempo orchestrations:
And, because timba is a mix of many genres, here are timba songs that have rumba segments. (They tend to be quite fast, so I would not play too many of these in one social.)
For listening
I have two playlists to which I add songs mainly as a gimmick: the first is for very fast timba, where the definition of “very fast” is something like “if you dance a tiempo, you don’t have the time to pause on 4 and on 8”.
The second is for medleys of timba songs that have enough length to distinguish them from a regular song. There are only a few of them, but I find them entertaining to listen to.
For classes
For teaching beginners (but only beginners), you don’t want to exceed the capacity of their brain to keep up with the music, since their skill has not sunk into the muscle yet and thus they have to actively think and decide every movement. Here is a list of slow songs for that purpose. (The reason why you should not play these songs as people improve, is that they are so slow that they partially close the communication channel of arm tension, and a student who doesn’t learn to speak or listen through tension, never learns to dance.)
I have a similar list for long songs that lack the energy to be useful for a “real” rueda, but because explaining figures in a rueda takes time, these songs do serve as a good backing track for rueda practice.
List of artists covered
The way I constructed most of the above playlists was to simply pick an artist of whom I liked at least one song in the past, and listen through their entire discography on Spotify, digging for gold nuggets. Here is a hopefully complete list of artists whose entire discography I listened through to fill out these playlists.
- Barbaro Fines y su Mayimbe
- Juan Formell y Los Van Van
- Elito Revé y su Charangón
- Bamboleo
- Papucho y Manana Club
- Compota de Manana
- Leonardo Diago y La Nueva Era
- Calle Real
- Nic N’Taya
- El León y su Tripulación
- Mixael Cabrera
- Berna Jam
- Mola
- Pablo Timba
- FredyClan
- Afro 23
- El Noro y Primera Clase
- Tumbakin
- Yasser Ramos
List of artists partially covered
The following artists I have only partially listened through. The reason is usually that they have a massive catalogue and have a lot of good songs, so I can’t decide what to add.
- Alexander Abreu y Havana D’Primera
- TIMBALIVE
- Maykel Blanco
- Pupy y Los Que Son Son
To do
These artists I would like to cover in the near future.
- The Cuban Golden Club
- Los DJs Timberos
- David Calzados y Charanga Habanera
- César Vega
Conclusion
Now you know what timba is – “salsa with more gears and tension” – and you have a playlist for every casino-related dance occasion.
Timba is an amazing genre. It is basically the only genre I have been listening to for about a year now. To put that into perspective: I started listening to EDM even before entering middle school, back when iTunes was still the place-to-be for collecting your music, and after an unbroken chain of over a decade of listening to it, I stopped cold-turkey when I discovered timba. And I’m still digging for nuggets, so I’m not planning to go back any time soon. (In fact, when I now enter the clubs I used to very sparsely go to, I find the music and the anti-social dance “culture” quite jarring and repulsive.)
