Miguel7 wrote:. . . plena I've read that the time signature is "2/4" or "cut time". That may not sound very academic but it seems to fit the rhythmic pattern you're talking about. Other genres with 2/4 time are merengue and samba.
The term
cut-time (2/2) refers to a time signature used in a transcription, and in this type of music, does not necessarily indicate an inherent rhythmic structure. 2/4 is not cut-time by the way. 4/4 is
common-time (often indicated by the letter C). Salsa and Latin jazz charts are often written in cut-time (2/2) when the tune has a fast tempo.
Most salsa and Latin jazz charts are in fact, written in cut-time (two measures per clave, two main beats per measure, the regular pulses represented by eighth-notes), but the 4/4 (or C) time signature is used. This has led to a lot of confusion concerning the music's basic structure, how it is counted. Some musicians are now using the cut-time signature instead of 4/4. For example, the great Cuban drummer "El Negro" uses cut-time in his instruction book.
Does this sound confusing? It is. Essentially, early conga drummers in the U.S. misappropriated musical terms and notation methods. "Street drummers" in this country typically use a combination of formal musical terms, Cuban terms and drummer slang. This is a subject that I have researched quite thoroughly, but I don't think it is the topic in this thread, so I will stop here. If you want to continue, perhaps we should begin a new thread.
-David