Cáscara

Every exercise here grades you on finding "the one" — count 1, the downbeat that opens the phrase. New to that? The counting salsa lesson covers it first.

Cáscara patterns vary a lot in practice: accents matter more than exact stroke placement. This is one common form, played on the timbale shell: seven strokes per two-measure phrase, count 1, the "&" of 2, and count 4 in measure 1, then the "&" of 5, counts 6 and 7, and the "&" of 8 in measure 2. Like the clave, it's asymmetric: measure 1's downbeat gets a stroke, measure 2's doesn't.

"The one" (count 1, ringed above) is what this exercise grades you on. It happens to already get a stroke here, so this one doubles as a warm-up. The real test is feeling that same count 1 in the clave-family exercises, where it's left silent instead.