by wet bull » Mon Aug 03, 2009 2:49 am
Ciao all,
Wanted to weigh in on this a little bit. I have studied the Indian tradition as well as the African-based traditions (Cuban, Brazilian, others) and I thought I might be the only one who has thought about the syllablism (it's possible that I just invented this word) of clave.
For instance, a count of two beats can be pronounced 'ta ka'
a three-beat count 'ta ki ta'
a four beat count 'ta ka di mi'
a five beat count 'ta ki di na tom' or 'ta ri gi na tom'
so 4/4 son clave becomes ' TA ki ta TA ki ta TA ka | di mi TA ka TA ka di mi '
4/4 rumba clave becomes ' TA ki ta TA ka di mi TA | ki ta TA ka TA ka di mi '
6/8 son ' TA ka TA ka TA ki | ta TA ka TA ki ta '
6/8 rumba ' TA ka TA ki ta TA | ka TA ka TA ki ta '
Each syllable gets one 1/8th note in this notation. Make sense? Everyone has different ways of learning that work for them - I have found that showing this way of clave to some people really helps them in feeling the beats, rather than giving them sheet music or trying to teach them music theory if they are non-musicians.
Also, you can get heady and start using these for your solos. Say you have an 8 bar solo break. 32 beats. 64 8th notes. How many ways can you add 2, 3, 4, and 5 to make 64? This can help you play smoothly over and around the bar line. At first you may have to do some left-brain thinking, but eventually it becomes easy. You can still feel the one, but play in 5 bar phrases, simply thinking ' Ta ki di na tom Ta ki di na tom ....'
Try this. 5 + 3 = 8. So just make sure that you play an equal number of ' Ta ki di na tom 's and ' Ta ki ta 's, and you will be ok.
5 + 5 + 3 + 5 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 5 = 32. Try adding this kind of thinking into your playing and it can make "difficult" phrasing much simpler.
Hope you enjoyed this and were able to understand, I've been lurking around here for a while and glad to have an opportunity to contribute.
Ciao from Michigan