davidpenalosa wrote:Hi Jay,
Thanks for taking the time to explain all that. I was really just trying to pin down your definition of the term “ponche”.
I was introduced to guarapachangeo by members of the Conjunto Folklorico Nacional in the late ‘80’s. Thanks for all those references though. I don’t have all of them and I always appreciate getting turned onto “new” material. That is definitely helpful.
May I recommend another guarapachangeo to you? – It’s from “Drum Jam” (Grupo Exploracion), featuring Miguel Bernal, Mike Spiro, Harold Muñiz and the late Chichito Cepeda. It’s also available on itunes, but as I just discovered to my horror, it’s listed as “cuarapachangeo”, an obvious typo error. Anyway, I produced the CD, which consists of just percussion. I intentionally did not have singing so that the drum melody would be dominant.
In regards to your statement: “the ponche/bass/bombo. Its always played on the second hit of the clave.” It seems that you are calling both bombo and ponche the second stroke of clave. I have never heard the term ponche used that way before. Do you remember your source for that usage?
I’ve only heard the second stroke called bombo. I defined ponche in my previous post. I believe that the term bombo as a specific pulse originates from the conga de comparsa, where the bombo drum’s main emphasis is that pulse. In time, the term has come to mean that important accent as it occurs in other genres as well.
I believe that the term ponche comes from popular music like salsa, where that pulse is an important accent in unison breaks. Unlike bombo, I think the term ponche originated in popular music rather than in folkloric music.
I have to take issue with your statement “…remember that original clave was rumba clave which came over from Nigeria. Son clave evolved from the Spanish roots of afro cuban music”. You say that it’s another topic, but this or similar statements have been repeated a lot over the years, so I’d like to address that topic at this time.
What we call “son clave” and “rumba clave” both exist in Africa. That’s where they both came from. Son clave did not “evolve from Spanish roots”.
Since the Revolution, rumba clave has gradually replaced son clave as the most common guide pattern in Cuba.
-David
pcastag wrote:Was son clave commonly used in africa before the reverse exchange? If so can you pinpoint some recordings? I'd love to hear it.
PC
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