Rumba Clave - An Illustrated Analysis

[taikonoatama]

I first learned to play congas while living overseas in a part of the world with very few Cubans or others who really understood rumba-clave-based music. The rumba clave taught was the same one that many of you (who did not grow up with rumba) have learned and think of as rumba clave, written as:

x . . x . . . x . . x . x . . . ||

And, like many of you, after years of practicing/playing what I thought was rumba clave, I had occasion (in my case after moving to the SF Bay Area) to play with some rumberos who played a clave that was quite unlike what I had learned as rumba clave. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Couldn't lock it in. Were they just playing in six? I tapped 12/8 bell to it and it sorta locked, but not quite. It wasn't really in six. But then It wasn't in four, either.

Help.

I found a new rumba class starting, taught by a highly-respected rumbero here of Puerto Rican heritage via Brooklyn, NYC, and he just couldn't believe the sad state of our (student) claves. We were pathetic. I could hear that what what he was playing was different (and beautifully swinging, funky and rock solid), but because it did not fit into a strict four or six framework, it was really tough to get it locked in. I worked hard at it, playing along to countless hours of rumba recordings walking to and from work everyday. My playing got better - not great, but better. My ears, however, got *a lot* better - they started to get a sense of what was going on.

Fast forward.

I attended the Afro-Cuban drumming camp up in Humboldt in Northern California last summer. Mind-blowing rumbas every single night for a week, with world-class heavyweights laying it down till 2 in the morning. It was sick, as my buddy "windhorse" and others here can attest. And one thing that really struck me was that everyone's clave was different! I stood next to Francisco Aguabella as he played clave, which was obviously heavy, heavy, heavy, and then he'd pick up a drum and hand them to the great Reynaldo Gonzalez and he'd play and sing and then hand them to someone else and so on, and it was all great, but everyone's clave was subtly different. One thing was for sure: none of it was in straight 4/4.

I started to think about how I could break it all down to understand it better - for better or worse, it's what I do, as you shall see.

I've finally gotten around to putting my research and findings on the subject into (hopefully) cogent form on a web page. David Penalosa has seen an earlier version of the work and will no doubt have much of value and insight to contribute to what will hopefully be an enlightening thread for many of us. The work is not complete, and I look forward to all of your feedback.

Enjoy!:

http://rumbaclave.blogspot.com/

~James



Edited By taikonoatama on 1201020935

[congamyk]

James this is a great topic. I listened to all of the tracks. Great website with good examples.

Compared to many here, I'm a beginner, having been learning rumba folkloric for about 3 years.

I'm curious, what criteria - if any - did you use when choosing which bar you took the graphic samples from in the examples?

1) Humans are not metronomes and our time is imperfect, so any one (single) isolated bar can be "off" from a straight four in (perfect) metronome time.

I hear and feel a perfect count in clave when played - whether in 6 or 4, does that mean we don't agree?



Edited By congamyk on 1200994706

[CongaTick]

James,

Superb blog and contribution to study and fascination with clave. I have to agree with congamyk ("..our time is imperfect") and postulate that the variations are possibly due to individual interpetation, cultural influence, etc. Thanks for this.

[windhorse]

it's possible that in some cases the clave might shift in relation to whatever else is going on, and/or settle in as the groove gets established, but I would think this to be less of an issue with established groups playing together regularly.

Not only possible,, but probable...
I was schooled months ago at a rumba that I was playing the Salidor too square.. Not round enough.. More 6/8ish so that clave could stay rounder along with all the other parts.. That I should listen to everything going on and fit my part in perfectly.. Big lesson that one. Listen to EVERYTHING.
And it makes sense that the tumba and clave would fit like a glove. I would guess that the rounder the tumba, the rounder the clave, and vice-versa.


Have you heard anything about Humboldt this year?
I'm psyched up for it already!

[martingoodson1]

this is great stuff - very interesting. Its difficult, though to get a good idea of how much difference is due to individual style and how much to random variation. If a few bars from the same song were there we could see whether the players are just randomly wavering away from exact time rather than playing with a particular feel.

[burke]

This is interesting but I'm afarid I can't play the clips and don't have the chops to use anything else but what computer gods gave me (IE).

[taikonoatama]

I'm curious, what criteria - if any - did you use when choosing which bar you took the graphic samples from in the examples?

1) Humans are not metronomes and our time is imperfect, so any one (single) isolated bar can be "off" from a straight four in (perfect) metronome time.

I hear and feel a perfect count in clave when played - whether in 6 or 4, does that mean we don't agree?

An excellent point, and one I thought I had addressed but I see I only did so indirectly.

For each track, I grabbed the cleanest measure of clave I could find, which was usually the first measure. The reason being that my music editing chops are not good enough to reliably extract/isolate the clave (and graph it) when other instruments are playing at the same time - the waveform is just too cluttered. I went through every track on all of my 90 rumba CDs and only found about 15 that I could possibly use for this - it's really hard to find one *complete* measure of clave. The palitos, especially, tend to get in the way, even if they only start on the pickup note before a measure of clave begins

Let me look again for a track that has at least 3 complete measures of clean-enough clave and try to graph that. I agree that it's something we need here.

Obviously there's going to be some variation from measure to measure, which is a good thing and what keeps it human - just how much will take more research. The fact that we do see consistent patterns amongst all the tracks presented leads me to believe that the variations in a given track would be minor for someone with a solid clave. And it seems to me that what I see graphed for a given track lines up with the clave heard throughout the track, but maybe that's just me and my ear. More work to be done here to objectively show what's going on. If anyone has a good track for this purpose, let me know!

>I hear and feel a perfect count in clave when played - whether in 6 or 4, does that mean we don't agree?

I'm not sure what you mean by "perfect count." Are you saying you play or hear (in these recordings or others) rumba clave like the straight/written 4/4 example? Many people do, and I used to, and I'm saying that's not how it's done in Cuba or by people who play it in the true Cuban style. If that's what you're hearing, I submit that that impression is a result of having internalized/memorized 4/4 written clave "feel" to the extent that it's hard to hear anything else. It's a subtle difference, but it makes all the difference in the world.

Thanks for your feedback!

James



Edited By taikonoatama on 1201020247

[zumbi]

very nice and usefull blog, taikonoatama
thanks!

[taikonoatama]

I was schooled months ago at a rumba that I was playing the Salidor too square.. Not round enough.. More 6/8ish so that clave could stay rounder along with all the other parts.. That I should listen to everything going on and fit my part in perfectly.. Big lesson that one. Listen to EVERYTHING.
And it makes sense that the tumba and clave would fit like a glove. I would guess that the rounder the tumba, the rounder the clave, and vice-versa.

Yep, as Dave says, it all has to fit together, timing/feel-wise, like well-meshed and matched gears. When I was finally taught by someone who really played it right, I could see how NONE of the main rhythm parts - claves, palitos, tumba, tres dos - are played in straight time, yet they all have to gel, and the clave is, of course, the key. If just one part is off then the whole thing crashes, flounders along like a car with a flat tire, or at the minimum just doesn't swing. I'm not there yet, but at least I understand what's going on now, and I can hear it.

Have you heard anything about Humboldt this year?

Nope.

I'm psyched up for it already!

Yeah, that was just a ridiculously great week. Let's catch up soon, Dave.



Edited By taikonoatama on 1201022518

[guarachon63]

Wow, tremendous effort James, what an interesting contribution!
One minor detail the groups name is not Los Parranqueros but rather

"Los Parragueños" as I was corrected by El Goyo.

Congratulations again!
Barry

[taikonoatama]

One minor detail the groups name is not Los Parranqueros but rather
"Los Parragueños"

Thanks, Barry. Fixed. That's my favorite track here - love it. I think I must have gotten that from your site, though I think that's the only one I have. Hint, hint.

James

[congamyk]

James, i love this stuff. Really makes me think.

After listening to the examples this is my brief analysis. When I played clave along with these samples and tapped a four count with my foot, I observed that the first hit of the clave came just before the one and the last hit came just before the 4th count. The clave intervals are constant, the distinction is where you place them in your graph.

You always place the first hit of the clave exactly on the one in each example.
This is how I was taught to feel and play rumba clave.





Edited By congamyk on 1201051006

[taikonoatama]

When I played clave along with these samples and tapped a four count with my foot, I observed that the first hit of the clave came just before the one and the last hit came just before the 4th count. The clave intervals are constant, the distinction is where you place them in your graph.

An interesting take, congamyk - one I haven't heard before. Hmmmm... If this were the case, though, where would the first downbeat strokes of the other instruments generally playing the ONE (palitos and tumba) fall in relation to the first hit of clave? After? Maybe it's a question of different people feeling the music differently or something.

The intervals are key, though, to be sure. I'm working on better understanding something I'm now calling the "3-4:4-5 ratio." It's the ratio between the 3rd and 4th note interval (i.e., the elapsed time between the 3rd and 4th notes), compared to that of the 4th and 5th, expressed as a ratio. For straight 4/4, you'd see a ratio of 3:2 (1.5:1). Straight 12/8 would be 1:1. I think, when we think of a clave as sounding "very square," or "very 6," it's this interval that we're feeling perhaps as much as where in relation to the written marks any one note may be. I'll hopefully have more to post on this soon.

It's a lot to get your head around, to be sure.

PS. The link to the audio clip isn't working, congamyk.



Edited By taikonoatama on 1201113256

[davidpenalosa]

Congratulations James,
This is some really fine data and analysis. I think you are right-on-the-money with your focus on intervals and ratios. The most accurate and detailed analysis of African-based rhythm (Ladzekpo, Locke, Novotney) confirms that it is generated by rhythmic ratios. Not surprisingly, they are the exact same ratios that generate the harmonic sequence. The ratios reflect the laws of nature.

3:2 is the most important rhythmic ratio in clave-based music. It is the genesis of clave. 3:4 is the next important ratio. The systematic simultaneous occurrence of triple and duple pulses, as we find in rumba is an example of 3:4. Every main beat is subdivided into three pulses and into four pulses. That means every main beats generates a (rather fast!) 3:4.
-David

[congamyk]

"Rhythmic ratios" are just another way of saying keeping time... right?

The wave forms show that the pulse is essentially the same, the difference is so slight there is no way they are intentionally making each bar slightly different. That would be as impossible as playing exactly the same BPM perfectly over the entire song like a metronome, both are equally humanly impossible. Therefore the only conclusion is they are trying to keep the clave static and as synchronous as possible, but humans do not keep perfect time thus the difference. Especially when putting the first few bars under a microscope - those bars that have the highest chance for being off until a groove forms.

I'm not sure what DP said. David, are you saying they are intentionally altering the intervals in an effort to mimic nature? Please advise.