Rhythms › Latin American rhythms
3-2 son clave (two bars) 1 (& 2) & (3 &) 4 (&) | (1 &) 2 (&) 3 (& 4 &)
Learn first Lesson 7: Syncopation and ties
Clave is the five-stroke pattern that organises most Afro-Cuban music. It is named after the claves, the pair of hardwood sticks it is often played on, and works as a key pattern: melodies, bass lines and drum parts are all built to fit it, and it can shape the music even when nobody plays it. Son clave is the version used in son, the song and dance genre usually traced to eastern Cuba in the late nineteenth century, and in its descendants such as mambo and salsa.
The pattern has two halves. The three-side is tresillo (3 + 3 + 2) and the two-side answers with two strokes on beats 2 and 3. North American salsa charts usually write clave across two bars of cut time with eighth notes; it is shown here the same way in a 4/4 frame. Most Cuban musicians now write it in one bar of 4/4 with sixteenth notes, where the strokes fall on 1, the 'a' of 1, the 'and' of 2, the 'and' of 3 and 4. Both describe the same rhythm, and the last exercise uses the one-bar form.
| Pattern | Count |
|---|---|
| 3-2 son clave (two bars) | 1 (& 2) & (3 &) 4 (&) | (1 &) 2 (&) 3 (& 4 &) |
| 2-3 son clave (two bars) | (1 &) 2 (&) 3 (& 4 &) | 1 (& 2) & (3 &) 4 (&) |
| Bass tumbao | (1 & 2) & (3 &) 4 (&) |
| 3-2 son clave (one bar, Cuban style) | 1 (e &) a (2 e) & (a 3 e) & (a) 4 (e & a) |
Clave never changes its shape, but a song can start on either half. A tune is in 3-2 when its phrases and chord progression begin on the three-side, and in 2-3 when they begin on the two-side, so you have to be able to start in both places. According to the drummer Bobby Sanabria, quoted by Peñalosa, the 3-2 and 2-3 labels were developed in New York in the 1940s by the Cuban-born Mario Bauzá, music director of Machito and his Afro-Cubans. Many Cuban musicians do not use the terms at all.
A tumbao is a repeating accompaniment figure. The classic son and salsa bass tumbao is tresillo with its first note left out: the bass plays on the 'and' of 2 and on beat 4, often holding the last note over the next downbeat. Musicians often call these two strokes bombo and ponche. They are the same as the last two strokes of the three-side, so the bass restates the three-side in every bar. Because this basic tumbao lasts a single bar, it fits both 3-2 and 2-3 songs.
The worst mistake is reversing the clave against the song, which makes everything else in the band sound wrong. A close second is playing the third stroke of the three-side on the 'and' of 4: that is rumba clave. Players also rush the two-side, coming in before beat 2 after the long gap. Salsa is usually much faster than the practice tempo here, so build up speed gradually and keep counting through the rests.