There are two ways to play conga drums. One is from a seated position and the other is standing. It is typical for a percussionist who plays a number of other drums and instruments to have the drums on stands so that they can be played in a standing position.

It takes a lot more creativity to play congas than most people think. Look at it this way, each drum has only one tone, so a pair gives you two notes to work with. By altering the way we strike the congas, we change the sonic characteristic, or timbre, of each drum.

Congas, being percussive instruments, do not have to be tuned to any particular note in purely percussive settings. However, when playing with harmonic instruments, they may be tuned to specific notes. Generally congas are tuned using the open tone. But what notes do I tune to?