Writing Out Clave

Hello everyone and welcome to a new instalment of Dr. Clave. I hope these discussions will inspire you to submit a question or comment.

A while back Will asked me to explain the different claves. I wrote them out, typing X's and .'s and put them up here at Ask Dr. Clave. Then, another visitor to our sight pointed out that I had made a typo error. Oops. Sorry about that. Now that I've gotten a bit of a handle on a music writing program, I offer a new and improved representation of clave.

It has been my experience that percussionists refer to the standard ternary bell pattern as the 6/8 bell, the ternary claves as 6/8 clave and the binary claves as 4/4 clave. While these names make sense, they refer to the way they are written out within time signatures of the standard European notation system and do not accurately describe their structure. The standard ternary bell pattern is often called simply the standard pattern by Ethno-musicologists. I like the name key pattern, coined by Dr. Eugene Novotney. Afterall, clave means key. All these names work and are understood among those groups who use them. The problem arises when we try to communicate with those outside our immediate circle who don't use the same terminology. I'm still working on an accurate terminology for describing this music that isn't clunky.

I wrote out the ternary clave and bell pattern using quarter note triplets in 4/4 time. Typically, these patterns are written in 6/8 time, but I did it this way in order to stress the primary beat scheme. This scheme exists whether patterns originate from the ternary or binary divisions of the beat. There are four evenly spaced beats within each clave, be they ternary or binary. This is the primary beat scheme (or simply The Beat), where one typically taps their foot.

Please note that the time values of the notes were selected for ease in reading and all attacks are stacatto.

Of course the ternary clave can be written in 6/8 time

or in one measure

Did you know that there is a binary equivalent to the standard ("6/8") bell pattern? However, this is a pattern I've rarely encountered. The same is true of the ternary son clave.

"BREAKING THE CLAVE" COULD MERELY BE THE ALTERING OF JUST ONE OF THE POSSIBLE AESTHETIC PRIORITIES.

Dear Dr. Clave,

I just wanted to say that the clave is the essential pulse that makes son, salsa, bembé, rumba etc... what they are. If you break the clave, it seems to me that you will have something else: jazz, rock, or whatever. The clave polyrhythm goes back to it's roots in Africa and no matter how progressive the music, the clave still shines through. -Annasile

Dear Annasile,

I tend to agree with you. It's interesting that when one learns this music, the importance of clave consistency is often stressed, yet there are examples of the clave occasionally being broken by the Cuban masters themselves. The following letter is a continuation on Zeno's interpretation of this phenomena. -Dr. Clave

Dear Dr. Clave,

The classic recording "Quisera Ser Mi Estrella" (That She Might Be My Star) by the great Sexteto Habanero (Las Raices del Son: Tumbao 09), contains a provocative illustration relative to our discussion. It contains unquestionably intentional highly radical clave turnarounds in the main section of the melody. Whereas you wrote them a citation for "clave violation", I feel that your designation of the interesting anomaly contained in that example places a misleading cultural bias (yours) on its musical reality. It is your law that they are violating, not their own, and they are the mysterious creative innovators of the "form" in the first place. This is always a danger when forming a theoretical analysis of any phenomenon. They are offering ("flowers") in the cast of a creative variation which seems in this case to come about from the priority of the poetry which spawns the lyrics which spawns the melody, and in the process of putting it all together the clave needs to regularly reverse itself until the tune gets to the next section at which point the clave stays in one direction.

This concept of "priorities" in this context may be worth exploring for a moment. The law that they are "violating", in your perception, is the one that says maintaining clave direction is always the highest priority, the Sexteto's example shows that this is not so, that indeed melody or lyrical necessity can sometimes be a higher priority. In the Changui examples referred to earlier there seem to be priorities higher than clave and clave direction which that musical form seems to want to investigate. Rhythmic pulse seems to be the key there rather than the more familiar clave. This reminds me that in a previous era of Cuban music an exciting and often used technique was to accelerate the tempo as part of a tune's structure ("Elegua Queve Tambo"), I don't think we would want to call that a violation of tempo consistency, it was just something that was done sometimes which worked.

Science as a description of nature's infinite complexity has to be revised continuously every time a new apparent "violation" is observed, for example, the so-called "Ultra-violet Catastrophe" which gave rise to the need for the more "messy" and less "spiritually appealing" (at the time) explanation of Quantum Mechanics. And it is still going on, can you dig Chaos Theory?

I would agree to the following practical guidelines: that oversights and unwitting mistakes are a no-no, (however sometimes mistakes give ideas for later creative discoveries), that it is possible for different forms to be generated by altering various aesthetic priorities, that for purposes of learning it is best to have a theory and stick with it until mastery leads to contrarian creativity, that, when practicing music appreciation one should grant the genius of the true sources ultimate authority even when one doesn't quite get what they are up to. -Zeno.

Dear Zeno,

My ability in understanding another culture (Cuba in this case), is certainly limited by my own cultural bias. I will always be an outsider in that sense. Your tempo analogy seems like a comparison of apples to oranges.

I've tended to be obsessed with the music's 99.99 % conformity with clave and held up this as one of the Afro-Cuban musical Ten Commandments. Nevertheless, the word "law" does not accurately describe the uniformity of clave because of the exceptions which you so eloquently described. Perhaps "strong consistencies" may be a better description than "law". I'd settle for "aesthetic priorities" though. I certainly meant the term "clave violation" as tongue-in-cheek. I enjoy hamming up my cyberspace role of Dr. Clave.

Be that as it may, clave consistency is the music's aesthetic priority, not mine. It's the Cuban sources whom I consider the ultimate authority on clave's uniformity. However, if the Cuban sources are the ultimate authority on the consistency of clave, then they are surely the authority on its' occasional inconsistencies too. Truly, clave consistency is not the supreme priority. If it were, the Cuban masters wouldn't break it. I would venture to say that there is no supreme priority and agree with you that there are several aesthetic priorities at work in the music. I like your practical guidelines. You have given me a deeper appreciation of the Chaos Theory's part in this magical, musical path. Thank you. -Dr Clave

DO THE CUBAN MUSICAL MASTERS EVEN CARE ABOUT ANALYSIS ANYWAY?

Dear Dr. Clave,

It is tempting to be so analytical about the roots of clave, but in the realm of Cuban musical masters, do they care about analysis? Is clave just what it is, no why, wherefore, therefore? -Bevan Suits

Dear Bevan,

Your point is well taken. I think some Cuban musical masters would be pretty amused by all this analytical discussion. Nevertheless, analysis may be helpful and entertaining to students of the music such as myself.

We know that the concept of an overriding rhythmic principal is acknowledged in Cuba (where it's known as clave), but what about other African-based (be they in Africa or the New World), musical traditions? I cannot speak to such an large inquiry, because the amount of material in question is so enormous. However, I do have what I consider to be some interesting anecdotal stories.

There is a thriving pan (steel drum) scene in the college town of Arcata, California not far from where I live. This is do to the efforts of Dr. Eugene Novotney. Not only has Eugene shared his own knowledge of pan with the community, but he's brought pan masters over here from Trinidad as well. One of the most important of these masters is Ray Holman, the first person to write original music for the pan in the great annual carnaval competition known as Panorama.

I've enjoyed playing Ray's compositions with him and the local pan devotees of the Humboldt Calypso Band. I was amazed to learn that the style known as panorama takes a melody and then plays many, many variations on it using phrases that sound to me like chromatic quinto riffs. What really floored me though, was the revelation that many of the pieces, with all their rhythmic variations were consistently in clave. Panorama and soca often sit on top of a groove that is a 2-3 clave based figure:

Having music that's based in clave, and consistent in clave is nothing new, but what's remarkable about this happening in panorama and soca is that composers such as Ray don't think in terms of clave. Until rather recently, Ray was unaware of the concept, yet his musical intuition is aligned with this most fundamental of African rhythmic principals.

I was privileged to be at a week-long workshop at Humboldt State University in Arcata where C.K. Ladzekpo, a master drummer from Ghana and professor at U.C. Berkeley, John Santos percussionist and educator and Ray Holman were the instructors. Ray sat in on C.K. and John's classes. C.K. used the standard ternary bell pattern, which he called the "12 bell" as the foundation of the music. He wrote this bell pattern in one measure. John Santos coming from the Afro-Cuban vewpoint, used clave (two less attack points than the bell), as the foundation and wrote it in two measures. Ray Holman was very interested in C.K. and John's classes, but had some trouble grasping all the concepts. The absolute irony of this is that Ray is a genius of clave-based compositions, but it's something that he feels and intuits. He does not intellectualize it. My conclusion is that clave is needed to make the music swing. If the clave was not consistent in Ray's music, it just wouldn't have the same impact. -Dr. Clave

TRANSLATING AN AURAL TRADITION INTO WRITTEN MUSIC

Traditionally, the methods used for learning African and African-based drumming include observation, working closely with a teacher, and trial and error. There is great value in the aural tradition. It's the channel which passed the music down through countless generations after all. There is no substitute for going to the countries where these art forms originated and learning from the masters themselves while emerged in that music's cultural context. The next best thing would be to learn from say, a master who is presently living in the United States. One has not really seen the music performed until they have seen a master perform it. A good working definition of a master drummer for me is: one who has mastered the vocabulary of rhythms of their culture, and is recognized within that culture as an authority.

I didn't apply myself too well in my high school music theory class, but I did benifit from harmonic analysis of four-part Bach chorals. That analysis led me to the revelation that four independent melodies can intersect and create chords. The chord progressions in turn move in accordance with the rules of harmonic theory.

Another revelation which I had sometime later, was that one can analyze the rhytmic counterpoint of African drumming and observe an overriding rhythmic principal from which all of the repetitive patterns and improvised phrases originate. This overriding rhythmic principal is called the standard pattern by ethno-musicologists. The Cubans call it clave, a Spanish word meaning key, as in the key to a puzzle.

North American students of African and African-based percussion often learn from teachers who are themselves students. I call these teachers student-teachers, and include myself among them. I have been assisted greatly in my pursuit by studying with both master drummers and student-teachers.

Learning from a student-teacher can have certain risks. Because they are students themselves, their knowledge base may be under revision, meaning that their understanding and interpretation will change. Then there are student-teachers who just plain get it wrong. Some student-teachers have put out instructional materials that look sharp, but are full of erroneous information. It is not surprising that many student-teachers (including tenured ethno-musicologists) have misunderstandings about rhythms based in clave. Afterall, this type of music plays tricks with time. While one is emerged in learning it, it is quite possible to be fooled.

Student-teachers can also be helpful though. Some are able to translate an aural tradition into written music, European musical jargon, or any way that makes it accessible to someone outside of the music's culture of origin. There is certainly some translation involved when musical knowledge travels from it's original culture base to another culture. There's an excellent example of a translation of clave given by Birger Sülsbruck in his instructional video Latin American Percussion. A Danish man explaining an Afro-Cuban musical principal to you in English is an amusing juxtaposition, but more importantly, it works.

If the masters themselves were the translators, it could be a case of the best of both worlds. C.K. Ladzekpo is a master drummer who can explain African music in terms which can be understood by any student of the Western European musical tradition. (Check out C.K.'s cool website: http://cnmat.berkeley.edu/~ladzekpo/index.html). C.K. however, is definitely the case of the exception to the rule.

Although Cubans use words such as clave, tresillo, tumbao and bombo that relate to the basic structure of the music, I found there to be no traditional vocabulary used in describing what happens when it comes to drum improvisation. Because of this, I found the need to create a vocabulary for my lesson plans. This has always felt a little funny to me, due to the cultural bias factor which Zeno brought up earlier. When teaching such material, I always stress that the terminology is my own creation and not part of the music's tradition.

My analysis is an attempt to translate a rich aural tradition into written form. My intention is to explain this mysterious musical puzzle in a way that will benefit a wide range of people. I think if anything has been lost in the translation, it's the feeling one gets from actually hearing the music over a long period of time. Understanding African-based music intellectually can help one, but it will never replace "knowing it" in one's body, that is: being able to actually play it. -Dr. Clave

PLAYING BEFORE, ON AND AFTER THE BEAT

Dear Dr. Clave,

My question is about time, playing on the beat as opposed to playing slightly before or after, (I'm talking about microseconds). As a drummer, I've noticed that this can alter the way the music feels. For instance, by pushing the beat slightly, the music feels more exciting, hotter perhaps. my question is, if the whole ensemble is playing in the same place, say ahead of the beat, does the music then become on the beat? it seems the excitement comes from the tension caused by the slight variations in time, and that if everyone is in the exact same spot, that tension would be lost. what do you think? -Curley Dog

Dear Curley Dog,

I have contemplated this question myself. This is what I think: In the case of being ahead of the beat, some attacks are struck earlier than they would if they were exactly on time like a drum machine. Certain beats are "rushed" if you will. This certainly causes slight variations in time and creates rhythmic tension because some attacks are played ahead and others are right on the beat. -Dr. Clave

CLAVE, RUMBA AND QUINTO Dear Dr. Clave

First, I would like to congratulate you on your great review articles of the past in the Descarga Newsletter.

I learned my rumba initially from Los Muñequitos de Matanzas so I was quite suprised to learn on a recent trip to Santiago de Cuba that son clave is still the standard clave in Santiago when they play yambu. Are you aware of other regional differences regarding clave in Cuba? -Dr. Trevor Salloum

Dear Dr. Salloum, Thank you so much for your kind words regarding the reviews I did for Descarga.

How lucky for you, that you've been able to learn rumba from Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. Not only are they a generous, knowledgeable and talented bunch of folks, their ensemble's recordings are documents of the development of rumba. I've gotten mixed stories concerning the roll of son clave in yambu. Nevertheless, there is substantial evidence, that the original clave used in yambu and even guaguanco was what we now call son clave. I think that this bit of information could be quite confusing for those trying to get straight about the difference between the two claves. In the following example of an early guaguanco, you can see that the two lower-pitched drums (tumbao and segundo), are right on top of the clave. Notice also that the quinto's rhythm is the same as that of the 3-side of clave (called tresillo), only displaced one 8th note over.

Compare this with the example of comtemparary Havana guaguanco below. The segundo (mid-pitched drum), has been moved to the 2-side of clave. The lowest note on the bombo (second stroke of clave), is a bass note played with the palm of the hand on the lowest pitched drum. Also, by playing rumba clave, the third stroke of quinto is now on top of the third stroke of clave.

I love Matanzas guaguanco because it has such a beautiful and complex melody. The tone-slap melody of the quinto is a two clave phrase. One of the strokes of the quinto replaces the second stroke that was on the Havana segundo.

Rumba is such a fluid music and it is important to remember that these examples are only outlines, especially in the case of quinto. Yet, I do not agree with those who state that there's not a "part" for quinto. The quinto part is complex and multi-facetted, but it's not the sort of "anything goes" jam that some mistake it for. Just the fact that the quinto melody reveres from tones to slaps and back continually, makes it a very difficult drum to comprehend. -Dr. Clave

I agree with your comments about quinto. I was studying with Roberto Viscaiño in 1994 at Escuela Nacional de Arte in Havana. He provided me with a written part for quinto. (lowest note: bass, middle note: open tone, highest note: slap).

It seems that the quinto is also very sensitive to the clave and cascara when soloing. -Trevor Salloum

You are correct. Quinto works with the clave. I think of it as "torquing the clave", creating tension and release.

It's difficult to know where exactly time is in your example (translated from the typed-out representation you sent me, to standard music notation here), because you didn't indicate where clave is. I'm assuming that your example is in 3-2 clave. Maybe there's a typo in the example you emailed me. I say that because the most significant attack point in quinto is the second 8th note (clave written in two measures) after the "one" of clave. Your example has the first attack point on the third 8th note. If I have transcribed your example correctly, I'm not sure what to think. I am not comfortable trying to second guess the great Roberto Viscaiño. The example below is what I consider to be a more typical quinto part.

I was shown the basic quinto part from North Americans who called it the "quinto lock". That name stuck with me ever since. This part is prevelent in all the recordings of Los Muñuequitos. I've had to come up with names for the other quinto modes for use in my own teaching.

Los Muñequitos' quinto player Jesus Alfonso told me that (what I call), the quinto lock is used for all three forms of rumba: yambu, guaguanco and columbia. In columbia, the part is played in more of a "six feeling" though.

-This is probaly a good time to plug the week-long course Explorations in Afro-Cuban Dance and Drum, occuring July 25th to August 2nd on the campus of Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. I will be teaching two master classes in quinto there, as well as a class in how to decern the fundamental melodies within the bata drums, and hearing clave in the bata. Other faculty members in the course include Barroso, Harold Muñez, Howard Kaufman, Los Muñequitos' lead drummer Jesus Alfonso and principal dancer Ana Perez, Ilu Aña's Regino Jimenez, Grupo Folklorico Afrocuba's Teresita Perez, and Bata Ketu's Michael Spiro. Four levels of percussion instruction are offered. All dance classes are accompanied by live drumming. It's a really fun time for everyone! To register, call the HSU office of Extended Education at (707) 826-3731. You can check out their website at http://www.humboldt.edu/~extended/specialdrums.html Below are written examples representing the basic quinto lock and some variations. I consider the first three beats of the basic lock (ocurring on the 3 side), to be the root of quinto. As brought up earlier, this root is the same rhythm as the tresillo, only displaced one 8th note over. Variations of the lock can happen by doubling any or all of the three beats of the root. Quinto variation 1 doubles the first beat of the root. Quinto variation 2 doubles the second beat of the root. Quinto variation 3 doubles the third beat of the root. Variation 3 is the least used variation, presumably because it falls on the fundamental open tone of the segundo.