The Latin Clave* Demystified

It's difficult these days (maybe even impossible) to turn on a music station and not hear a Latin clave pattern. Dig deeper and you'll find clave rhythms or some derivative just about everywhere: the clave 'clap' of hip-hop, the bossa bass drum in Rosanna, the venerable Bo Diddly beat …  it's all clave. (As for demystifying this versatile rhythm, there are so many options, variations and subtleties that we may have to settle for merely documenting a few of them.)

Culturally Specific 

The clave rhythm proper is the aforementioned Bo Diddly beat, and it's traditionally played with claves, which are short, thick, wooden ideophones (i.e. fat sticks). The clave rhythm comes in a few varieties and serves as a framework and marker for a Latin tune. In 4/4, the pattern spans two bars and has two distinct forms. In the 3:2 form, the first bar contains three 'pulses' and the second bar contains two. Reverse it and you have the 2:3 form. Here is the Son clave:

More of a Good Thing 

There are variations on the basic clave form, and variations on the variations. The two most common are the rumba and the bossa nova. Again, each can be played in a 3:2 or 2:3 forms.

Clave in Modern Times 

The 'half clave' is ubiquitous in popular music. It's simple and reliable, and adds quite a bit of rhythmic interest. It's also easy to relate to, which is perhaps why it's used so often in hip-hop and top 40 tunes.

A simple modification can completely change the character of the clave. Compare the standard bossa nova rhythm to Toto's Rosanna. Just one small change gives us something totally new.

And I think that should be enough  for now.

(* pronounced claw-vay)

Beware the Thick Black Line

Consider for a moment the following bits of wisdom:

• At a wine tasting: “We only drink merlot”
• From an online ad for a 16-inch cymbal: “I won't play it 'cuz I only play 18 inch crashes”
• And how about this morsel from years ago: “There’s no place for the saxophone in jazz”

It crops up all the time: the invisible, immovable line that divides the acceptable from the unacceptable. There’s nothing wrong with setting some standards and adhering to them, but sometimes a well meaning guideline morphs into a thick black line that is not only arbitrary, but may be ill-informed, ill-advised, inconsistently applied, and perhaps all of the above.

Now before I get too involved in this, I must confess that I too only play 18" crash cymbals ... except for a couple of 17-inchers that are among my favourites. I don’t much care for 16-inch cymbals either, but the one on my practice kit does the job. Hmm ... I guess if I’d had some hard-core rule in place, I might never have given those cymbals a chance.

Aside from such rules sometimes being arbitrary, they are too rarely re-examined as things evolve. I’m sure glad nobody listened to that early jazz theorist who, I think we all would agree, was pretty clueless about what the sax meant to jazz. Unfortunately, zealots often get it wrong.

Creating a standard and making it an absolute can cut you off from opportunities. The fellow who only plays 18” cymbals is missing out on a lot of great sounds. Moreover, he may not be matching his equipment to the needs of the music.

Rules help us to manage our lives day-to-day, but they need to be re-examined from time to time. Situations change and sometimes so should the rules.  So what do you do when you find a rule that is too restrictive or at odds with your reality? Maybe it should be revisited to see if it needs an update. Or perhaps it's no longer relevant and it's time to toss it aside completely.

It Just Needed an Adjustment

I was surprised and intrigued one night to see one of our regular Monday night jammers pull out a tool kit and go to work on the house bass. In just a few minutes, the fellow had the bass playing and sounding much better, to everyone's delight. 

 

Adjusting the action of a guitar is not hard to do, as our jam-band friend demonstrated. And the return on investment can be huge. I put myself through university doing, among other things, guitars repairs. I've always been a tinkerer and I'm fascinated by guitars. Plus I love tearing things apart to see how they work.

If you were to go to a drum forum and ask about snare drum tweaking, you'll get lots of useful tips to try. But I can't think of a better way to get to know your gear than to tear it down and put it back together yourself. Take it apart piece by piece. Ask yourself what each component is all about. Think about what you want/need from it and how each component can help you achieve that. 

There are some things you may not want to know so intimately. Hi-hat stand innards, for example, can be quite tricky. You almost need a degree from MIT to figure out some cymbal tilters. But snares, toms, bass drums, BD pedals ... all will benefit from your efforts to understand them. 

Knowing how a thing works goes a long way toward getting it to do your bidding. You'll avoid a lot of blind alleys and will be better able to replicate a result. Then you can spend your time playing rather than trying to get @#$% thing to behave. Once a drum has been set up well, getting and keeping the right sound is relatively simple. And the best way to learn how to get that set-up is to know your instrument -- inside as well as out.

Knowing your equipment can also help avoid repairs. If something's amiss, you can look into it yourself and take remedial steps. Plus avoiding an equipment failure on the road is a great stress reducer and money saver. In the end, your setup will be more satisfying to use. It will sound good, it will play well, and it will be less likely let you down, all of which make for a better, more efficient and satisfying relationship with your instruments and hardware.