Cuban music is built on percussion. The extraordinary density and variety of Cuban rhythmic culture reflects the meeting of West and Central African drumming traditions with Spanish, Haitian, and creole musical practices over four centuries. The instruments below form the core percussive vocabulary heard across Son, Rumba, Timba, Danzón, and their descendants.
- Batá
The batá drums are a set of three double-headed hourglass-shaped drums central to Yoruba religious tradition and Afro-Cuban sacred music (Lucumí / Santería).
- Clave
The claves: two hardwood sticks that play the clave rhythm. How they are made, how to hold them (hembra and macho) and where they come from.
- Bongo
The bongo is a pair of small open-bottomed drums played with fingers and palms. It originated in eastern Cuba and became one of the defining percussion voices of son and timba.
- Güiro
The güiro is a notched gourd scraped with a stick or fork to produce a rasping, rhythmic sound. It is a standard feature of charanga orchestras and is central to danzón, cha-cha-chá, son, and salsa.
- Caja china
The caja china (woodblock) and its plastic successor, the jam block: from rumba and son to the timbales and drum-kit set-up of songo and timba.
- Cajón
The cajón de rumba: wooden boxes from the docks of Havana and Matanzas on which the first rumba was played, forerunners of the tumbadora and the quinto.
- Cowbell
The campana (cowbell) is the metal bell of Cuban dance music, played by the bongocero or the timbalero. In timba and songo it is more than a rhythm: it tells dancers how much energy the music is asking for.
- Catá
The catá or guagua: a wooden cylinder from eastern Cuba, played with sticks, that gives the main rhythm in tumba francesa and sets the clave together with the claves in rumba.
- Chekeré
The chekeré (aggüe): a gourd covered with a net of beads or seeds, of Yoruba origin, played in Cuba as a trio in the toque de güiro and as the pulse keeper in rumba and conga.
- Conga
The conga (also called tumbadora) is the primary hand drum of Cuban music and the rhythmic backbone of timba, son, rumba, and salsa.
- Guayo
The guayo is a metal scraper used in Cuban folk and popular music, most commonly associated with changüí and early son from the Guantánamo region in eastern Cuba.
- Maracas
Maracas are a pair of rattles — originally hollow gourds filled with seeds — that go back to the Taíno, the Indigenous people of the Caribbean. In Cuban music they add rhythm and texture rather than melody, above all in son, where they are often played by one of the singers.
- Marímbula
The marímbula is an Afro-Cuban bass instrument derived from African lamellophones (thumb pianos). It provided the bass voice in early son ensembles before being replaced by the upright bass.
- Timbales
The timbales (pailas criollas) are a pair of shallow, metal-shell drums mounted on a stand, played with wooden sticks. They are the rhythmic engine of charanga orchestras and play a critical role in timba.
- Timpani (Kettle Drum)
The timpani (kettledrum) played a foundational role in Cuban music history as the original pitched drum of the 19th-century orquesta típica — before being replaced by the lighter timbales.
- Drum set
The drum set (batería) in Cuban music, from Los Van Van's songo to timba: the hybrid set-up with timbales and bells, and the kick drum of timba.