jorge wrote:I suspect a much more important factor in changing how he feels the pulse will be whether someone takes him to a bembe or guiro or cajon or something similar while he is in Cuba and he gets a chance to dance the beat for a few hours nonstop while hearing and marking the clave/bell.
That would indeed be a valuable musical and cultural experience.
jorge wrote:I see what you are saying about the afro jazz waltz label, and how the 3/4 notation may create a tendency to artificially break the clave in half.
It's a more fundamental a problem than that. Feeling "Afro Blue" in 3/4 untethers the musician from the grounding of the four main beats (per clave), and has them tapping their foot to six crossbeats. Talk about not being on the same page! I fear the
The Latin Real Book's representation of "Afro Blue" in 3/4 has perpetuated the confusion for another decade.
jorge wrote:I think I am going to ask the bass and piano player to each transcribe a whole song - all parts including clave, conga, timbales, bell as well as piano, bass and horns - as an exercise in intellectually analyzing the rhythmic relationships among the different parts.
Since many formally trained musicians tend to benefit from visual representations of the music, I think that would be a very good idea. At the very least, they
need to rewrite their own parts. They also need to be able to tap their foot to the main beats. If they are unable to tap their foot properly, they will not be able to lock-in with the rest of the band.
jorge wrote:Maybe I will start with Afro Blue, the exercise would probably be most instructive if they wrote it in 12/8 rather than 6/8. What do you think?
Yes, 12/8 is a more precise representation of the music, because then, one clave = one measure. By the same token, it is also more precise to write 4/4 clave in a single measure. When clave is written in two measures of 4/4 (as is the norm in North America), the uninitiated musician tends to tap their foot eight times per clave. That said, if Al McKibbon had a bass chart when they first recorded "Afro Blue," I am certain it was written in 6/8, as that is the norm in jazz.
Speaking of jazz, it may be helpful to refer your bass player to the jazz standard "Footprints" by Wayne Shorter.
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=miles+smiles+footprints&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8On the Miles Davis album
Miles Smiles, the bass seamlessly switches from a three-over-two hemiola, to its 4/4 correlative, tresillo. The chart below shows the correlation between these two fundamental parts. It's definitely not Afro-Cuban music, but it may convey this most basic of concepts, since it's a jazz standard, something he is already familiar with.
- Bass line for "Footprints" by Wayne Shorter, as performed on 'Miles Smiles' (Miles Davis 1967). Slashed noteheads indicate the main beats, where one taps their foot to "keep time."
The bass line in the original recording of "Afro Blue" is a straight hemiola; there is no "stretching of time" as there is in the conga solo. A properly written chart, indicating a slight accent on the last note (an offbeat), instead of the first (an onbeat), ought to be enough information for a reasonably trained bass player to properly hold down the part. The fact that it is sometimes not enough, reveals a great shortcoming in our music education.
I have performed with several musicians with music PhDs, who could not stay in-time playing salsa. I performed the Mongo version of "Afro Blue" with the most talented and celebrated bass player of a university. Within a couple of choruses, she fell out of time and, completely unaware, stayed out of time for the remainder of the tune. Our music education system emphasizes harmony and not rhythm.
Things are getting better though. There's a whole new generation of formally educated musicians who are better trained rhythmically, are familiar with clave, and acquainted with other musical principles not ordinarily associated with Western theory.