Explaining Clave (Clave for Dummies)

[Quinto Governor II]

Hey guys, Since taking up the drum, I've experienced a lot of conversation and explanation of clave. I'm still limited in my ability to apply my knowledge of clave in a practical sense, and still have many questions about its practical function in the structure of music. I don't feel so bad about this dilemma, after about 9 years of studying, because I've read statements attributed to professional musicians, who've had difficulty with the concept also. I recall reading in a forum speaking about a musician trying to get an understanding of clave, from Mongo Santamaria, and Mongo's reply was " Either you feel clave or you don't " This statement may be interpreted in many ways, but if nothing else, it sums up the ambiguous nature of this subject. I've always questioned whether the cart is put before the horse, when it comes to clave. I've always questioned whether clave is superimposed over the music, as apposed to the music being structured to fit clave, as I have always gotten the impression. Anyway I'm still not sure, however hear is the best practical explanation of clave that I have heard. Any of you dancers will appreciate it. It applies the concept to dancing as well as singing, so it a very thorough explanation. Anyone care to critique it? Thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LWxIqnbxWQ

[goingquinto]

Seems like a good description of clave. He is using son clave instead of rumba clave. It sounds a little odd to me because I'm used to hearing rumba clave with salsa. I'm not saying son clave is wrong, just not what I'm used to.

[vinnieL]

Seems like a good description of clave. He is using son clave instead of rumba clave. It sounds a little odd to me because I'm used to hearing rumba clave with salsa. I'm not saying son clave is wrong, just not what I'm used to.

that's odd most salsa (not all but the majority) is done in 2/3 or 3/2 son clave. Rumba clave is completely different.

[jorge]

I think "explaining" clave is only a tiny part of learning to play in clave. Mongo was right, either you feel the clave or you don't. But it goes beyond that, and it is not as hopeless as that may make it sound. Clave is a cultural thing, but it is not genetic. I have played with some AfroCubans who felt the clave and NEVER heard them cross it or waver in their timing. I have also played with other AfroCubans who sometimes cross the clave, waver in their timing, sing or play on the wrong side of the clave, and these are some of the people who get the most bent out of shape if they think someone is playing it wrong. Problem is, sometimes they are the ones who are off and they are too ignorant, arrogant, or drunk to realize it. So "feeling" the clave is not a guarantee that you play it right. Feeling it is necessary but not sufficient.

So how does a person LEARN to feel the clave? Again, this is not a genetic trait limited to AfroCubans, it is a learned skill. The problem is that most people underestimate the amount of practice it takes to learn the skill. In my 38 years of playing rumba, the only way I have seen that reliably produces people who can play clave correctly, in time and not crossed relative to the rhythm and melody, is hundreds of hours of playing clave in settings where if you drop a beat or go off time or cross the clave, you get criticized and have to correct yourself immediately. La universidad de la calle, it is not warm and fuzzy, but it works. All the intellectual and theoretical explanations may be nice for Juilliard trained music theorists and performers, but these explanations don't seem to produce percussionists who can play in clave. In fact, many many professional and well trained musicians, including percussionists, have failed to learn to play in clave. Some of them don't even realize it when they go off, they happily play on oblivious to the crossed clave.

You just have to play clave for hundreds or thousands of hours, get yelled at immediately when you go off even a few milliseconds or cross the clave (or yell at yourself if you can train yourself to listen objectively to your own playing and be honestly self-critical) and have the self discipline to repeatedly correct yourself by listening for the right cues in the music. In rumba, locking in with the cata (guagua) so the 2 instruments sound like 1 is key. Playing cata helps a lot too, because you are locking in with the clave from the other perspective. If either the clave or the cata is off, even just a little bit (we are talking milliseconds here), you won't be able to lock in, so don't just give the cata sticks or the clave to an inexperienced player and expect it to sound right. Listening for the clave (not so much the instrument but the timing) in every (clave based) song you listen to helps a lot too. Even singing while tapping clave with one hand on your leg while you are walking down the street helps (just don't get hit by a truck or fall in a hole). Being obsessive compulsive probably helps too, although I have never seen an actual study on this. Growing up in Cuba is an advantage, because most of the music you hear is in clave, usually (not always) played correctly. But even being AfroCuban, born and raised in Cuba, does not guarantee that you will "have clave", you still have to practice it to internalize the feeling. I have even played for AfroCuban dance classes taught by ENA-trained AfroCuban choreographers who sometimes get their clave mixed up. So AfroCubans don't automatically have clave, they still have to work at it, but they do a lot better than most of the rest of us. Of course a lot of Cubans have put in their hundreds of hours by the time they are 5 years old (or even before they are born!). Growing up in other countries where you hear salsa (often with the clave crossed once or many times during each song) or worse, bachata, cumbia, merengue, jazz, latin jazz, rock, or other music where clave is not central to the art form, you hear and internalize wrong timing and then have to unlearn it and relearn it right. Unlearning/relearning is difficult, time consuming, and painful and many people never get there.

So I think explaining clave is a start, but then you have to put in the time and work to internalize the clave, so the main thing you need is the commitment to do it. Don't fall into the trap of underestimating those 2 little wood sticks!

[windhorse]

Seems like an excellent set of instructional videos for the basics of knowing how your percussion parts fit to the dance steps.

I kept being distracted by the conveyer belt behind him,, It must have been in the back of a baggage area in a slow airport..
Also, kept wondering what would happen if he turned on that fan!!

Dave

[Derbeno]

I watched the all three parts he posted, this has more to do with the alignment of the various Salsa styles to the Tumbao rather than the concept of the underlying Clave beat in a band holding the whole thing together.

I do instruct Salsa dancing and generally see no need to dwell too long on Clave.

Simplistically speaking, dancing is stepping in rhythm to the down beats of the music. (in overwhelmingly most cases)

I see this from dancing salsa and also have observed similar when playing for Silfrido's Afro-Cuban dance class here in SD.

There is one instructor/dancer that I know off that actually steps on the Clave beat by the name of Felipe Polanco.

Back to feeling the Clave.
Jorge is 100% correct. If you have not grown up with this music/concept, I would suggest to do a hell a lot of listening to the music tapping the Clave along for a period followed by internalizing it, stop tapping and just feel it 'tapping' inside you so to speak.

[davidpenalosa]

...I've always questioned whether clave is superimposed over the music, as apposed to the music being structured to fit clave

Governor,
In folkloric music and good popular music, clave generates the structure. You won't find Africans, or Afro-Cuban folklorists making something "fit clave" per sé. Clave is the generating principle. It's the source of the structure. Folklorists have that wonderful gift of playing in-clave without having to think about it.

Making parts "fit" clave is something found in popular music. Some soloists, composers and arrangers have to at times, think about how something fits with clave. And of course, as students we have all had to at times, think about how something fits with clave.

My new book "The Clave Matrix, Afro-Cuban Rhythm: Its Principles and African Origins" is coming out on September 1. It's over 300 pages, comes with two CDs and is everything you wanted to know about clave and then some.

Seemed liked a good opportunity to plug my book.
-David

[ABAKUA]

Seemed liked a good opportunity to plug my book.
-Dr Clave

Fixed.

[windhorse]

Dave, in what formats will the book be available?
Will there be an online downloadable version? etc?

Dave

[davidpenalosa]

Will there be an online downloadable version? etc?

Hi Dave,
It will be in good old fashion paperback form, like El Negro's "Conversations in Clave", only more than twice as thick. I do plan to investigate getting the book into digital form for Kindle, the digital book platform from Amazon. 20% of Amazon's book sales are now through Kindle. I may end up selling it in PDF form, but that means that I would have to also figure out how to make the two CDs downloadable. One thing I know is that I will have to re-negociate with a couple of the companies I bought photo rights from. Their terms do not include digital formats.

Are you more interested in getting the book in digital form? Maybe I'm thinking too "20th century."
-David

[windhorse]

I realize now that I asked a foolish question. If it's that large, it's just ridiculous to expect someone to print it all out, once you downloaded something that large.. It'd probably cost much more than the hardback book if the browser were to print it all out for themselves..

However, if it were segmented into different sections that might be of interest to different groups of people for different reasons,, then let's say chapter one being only about some aspect of African music, might have a spot in a website with a possibility to download just that chapter for some fee, and maybe it's associated sound files as another option in an online purchasing "basket",
then the browser has the option of parts of their own particular interest.

But, that means that you the writer have made a compromise with your labor of love.. So maybe it's a dumb idea..

[davidpenalosa]

I'm open to hearing any and all suggestions. This is just the first volume of what is a multi-book series called "Unlocking Clave." The other books will be much smaller and sell for around $15-$20. My thinking at this point is that the next volume will be my rumba quinto book.

Vol. 1 "The Clave Matrix" deals with the overall structure of all clave-based music. While large and comprehensive, it is one complete idea and breaking it up into smaller volumes does not really make sense to me.
-David

[goingquinto]

Hey Vinnie, thanks for the info. I just spent a while on youtube, and you are absolutely right. My salsa experience is very limited. I have only played in a couple of bands in the Boulder, CO area. I think they played more rumba clave than most salsa players do. I had a misconception about the whole thing. It did seem like the newer the recording, the more likely it was to be rumba clave instead of son, but I am only taking a small sample, so my conclusion could be skewed.

I love this forum, I learn something almost every time I come here.

[davidpenalosa]

Goingquinto,
For decades son clave was the only clave pattern used in Cuban popular music. After the Revolution rumba clave began being used in the popular music. The first popular genre to do so was the mozambique (created by Pello el Afrokan) in the 60s. The trend of using rumba clave continued in songo during the 70s and 80s, right up to today with timba. So much so, that in Cuba, rumba clave has replaced son clave as the “Cuban clave”; timba musicians refer to rumba clave now as “clave Cubana.”

As far as I know, salsa, which is essentially Cuban music created anywhere but Cuba (NYC, PR, Colombia, Venezuela, etc) never made the switch to rumba clave, as salsa remains frozen in the pre-Revolution styles.

Do these Boulder-based bands play timba music?
-David

[Quinto Governor II]

Hey Guys, Does the clave cycle begin on 1? In the video, the gentlemen began his tumbao on 1 with the heel toe being counted as 1+, if I'm not mistaken, which had his slap taking place on 2, which is what I have consistently heard it should be. Also, in his singing demonstration, he all ways began his phrase with the first stroke of clave and ended it on or very near the last stroke. I've heard many rumba recordings and the phrases began on various strokes of the clave, and on what count does guaguanco begin, and/or on what count does it's clave begin? What is the practical definition of singing in clave, and what exactly is meant by "crossing the clave"? My gut instinct tells me that the clave is placed over the music. I have experiences where my orientation of clave changes during the song. It begins with the 2 side, but after a few bar I realize I'm know hearing the 3 side as the beginning of the cycle or the 1. This statement by davidpenalosa reinforces my opinion just as the different claves used in yambu's. The only consistency I comprehend is a consistent division of 2 bar in 4/4 time.

As far as I know, salsa, which is essentially Cuban music created anywhere but Cuba (NYC, PR, Colombia, Venezuela, etc) never made the switch to rumba clave, as salsa remains frozen in the pre-Revolution styles.