Paulo Stagnaro - Livin' La Vida Conga
Paulo Stagnaro is the percussionist for Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin and has also performed with many tremendous artists such as Sting, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Paquito D'Rivera, and Angelique Kidjo. Paulo is certainly one of the leading voices in Latin percussion today. Paulo was kind enough to spend a considerable amount of his time speaking with me about all kinds of great topics that I personally felt would serve the drumming community in a valuable way. If you are either a percussionist, drummer, aspiring to be either, or you perform in a band that features both drum set player and percussionist you will want to listen closely to this episode.
What you will learn in this episode:
- a brief overview on Paulo's website and membership service Conga Chops and everything that went into making that website and what you can expect from it if you are looking for a solid percussion based curriculum.
- Paulo's story about how he found his passion for percussion while attending Berklee's 5-week summer camp. He also shares his point of view on being the worst musician on the bandstand at all times in order to grow as a musician and why we must walk through our fears.
- Paulo attended Berklee for a total of four years and then he visited Cuba for about four months. In this portion of the interview, Paulo tells us the story of how he managed to stay in Cuba, or even enter for that matter as a USA citizen and the incredible life experience he gained by staying in Cuba and how that affected him musically.
- Following some terrific storytelling and providing a solid foundation as to why Paulo is a voice of authority on the subject of percussion, we now dive into the role of a percussionist. Paulo explains this in so much fantastic detail and I can't imagine anyone not learning a great deal whether you play drum set or percussion. This is some really great stuff in this section.
- Finally, we conclude our conversation with some motivationally driven dialogue. The anchor for this portion of the podcast is how Paulo, and his bandmates, bring the heat to each and every Ricky Martin performance even if he/they are exhausted both mentally and physically. The question that kicked off this part of the interview happened some 45 minutes before our chat ended. It gets deep and a bit heavy as it evolved into Paulo and I discussing pursuing anything with intent. We both feel that intent is what makes our goals become reality. Nothing can truly manifest into reality without intent. It is a terrific way to end this amazing conversation.
If you want to learn more about Paulo and his membership website please visit www.congachops.com.
Thank you for tuning in and I will catch you next week!