The clave (; ) is a rhythmic pattern used as a tool for temporal organization in Brazilian and Cuban music. In Spanish, clave literally means key, clef, code, or keystone. It is present in a variety of genres such as Abakuá music, rumba, conga, son, mambo, salsa, songo, timba and Afro-Cuban jazz. The five-stroke clave pattern represents the structural core of many Cuban rhythms. The study of rhythmic methodology, especially in the context of Afro-Cuban music, and how it influences the mood of a piece

is known as clave theory.

The clave pattern originated in sub-Saharan African music traditions, where it serves essentially the same function as it does in Cuba. In ethnomusicology, clave is also known as a key pattern, guide pattern, phrasing referent, timeline, or asymmetrical timeline. The clave pattern is also found in the African diaspora music of Haitian Vodou drumming, Afro-Brazilian music, African-American music, Louisiana Voodoo drumming, and Afro-Uruguayan music (candombe). The clave pattern (or hambone, as it is known in the United States) is used in North American popular music as a rhythmic motif or simply a form of rhythmic decoration.

The historical roots of the clave are linked to transnational musical exchanges within the African diaspora. For instance, influences of the African “bomba” rhythm are reflected in the clave. In addition to this, the emphasis and role of the drum within the rhythmic patterns speaks further to these diasporic roots.

The clave is the foundation of reggae, reggaeton, and dancehall. In this sense, it is the “heartbeat” that underlies the essence of these genres. The two main clave patterns used in Afro-Cuban music are known in North America as son clave and the rumba clave. Both are used as bell patterns across much of Africa. Son and rumba clave can be played in either a triple-pulse ( or ) or duple-pulse (, or ) structure. The contemporary Cuban practice is to write the duple-pulse clave in a single measure of . It is also written in a single measure in ethnomusicological writings about African music.

Although they subdivide the beats differently, the and versions of each clave share the same pulse names. The correlation between the triple-pulse and duple-pulse forms of clave, as well as other patterns, is an important dynamic of sub-Saharan-based rhythm. Every triple-pulse pattern has its duple-pulse correlative.

Son clave has strokes on 1, 1a, 2&, 3&, 4.

:

1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a ||

X . . X . . X . . . X . X . . . ||

:

1 & a 2 & a 3 & a 4 & a ||

X . X . X . . X . X . . ||

Rumba clave has strokes on 1, 1a, 2a, 3&, 4.

:

1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a ||

X . . X . . . X . . X . X . . . ||

:

1 & a 2 & a 3 & a 4 & a ||

X . X . . X . X . X . . ||

Both clave patterns are used in rumba. What we now call son clave (also known as Havana clave) used to be the key pattern played in Havana-style yambú and guaguancó. Some Havana-based rumba groups still use son clave for yambú. The musical genre known as son probably adopted the clave pattern from rumba when it migrated from eastern Cuba to Havana at the beginning of the 20th century.

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During the nineteenth century, African music and European music sensibilities were blended in original Cuban hybrids. Cuban popular music became the conduit through which sub-Saharan rhythmic elements were first codified within the context of European ('Western') music theory. The first written music rhythmically based on clave was the Cuban danzón, which premiered in 1879. The contemporary concept of clave with its accompanying terminology reached its full development in Cuban popular music during the 1940s. Its application has since spread to folkloric music as well. In a sense, the Cubans standardized their myriad rhythms, both folkloric and popular, by relating nearly all of them to the clave pattern. The veiled code of African rhythm was brought to light due to the clave’s omnipresence. Consequently, the term clave has come to mean both the five-stroke pattern and the total matrix it exemplifies. In other words, the rhythmic matrix is the clave matrix. Clave is the key that unlocks the enigma; it de-codes the rhythmic puzzle. It is commonly understood that the actual clave pattern does not need to be played for the music to be 'in clave'—Peñalosa (2009).

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Clave theory

There are three main branches of what could be called clave theory.

First is the set of concepts and related terminology, which were created and developed in Cuban popular music from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. In Popular Cuban Music, Emilio Grenet defines in general terms how the duple-pulse clave pattern guides all members of the music ensemble. An important Cuban contribution to this branch of music theory is the concept of the clave as a musical period, which has two rhythmically opposing halves. The first half is antecedent and moving, and the second half is consequent and grounded.

Ethnomusicological studies of African rhythm

The second branch comes from the ethnomusicological studies of sub-Saharan African rhythm. In 1959, Arthur Morris Jones published his landmark work Studies in African Music, in which he identified the triple-pulse clave as the guide pattern for many pieces of music from ethnic groups across Africa. An important contribution of ethnomusicology to clave theory is the understanding that the clave matrix is generated by cross-rhythm.

The 3–2/2–3 clave concept and terminology

The third branch comes from the United States. An important North American contribution to clave theory is the worldwide propagation of the 3–2/2–3 concept and terminology, which arose from the fusion of Cuban rhythms with jazz in New York City.

Only in the last couple of decades have the three branches of clave theory begun to reconcile their shared and conflicting concepts. Thanks to the popularity of Cuban-based music and the vast amount of educational material available on the subject, many musicians today have a basic understanding of clave. Contemporary books that deal with clave, share a certain fundamental understanding of what clave means.

<blockquote>Chris Washburne considers the term to refer to the rules that govern the rhythms played with the claves. Bertram Lehman regards the clave as a concept with wide-ranging theoretical syntactic implications for African music in general, and for David Peñalosa, the clave matrix is a comprehensive system for organizing music—Toussaint (2013).</blockquote>

Mathematical analysis

In addition to these three branches of theory, clave has in recent years been thoroughly analyzed mathematically. The structure of clave can be understood in terms of cross-rhythmic ratios, above all, three-against-two (3:2). Godfried Toussaint, a Research Professor of Computer Science, has published a book and several papers on the mathematical analysis of clave and related African bell patterns. Toussaint uses geometry

Types

Son clave

The most common clave pattern used in Cuban popular music is called the son clave, named after the Cuban musical genre of the same name. Clave is the basic period, composed of two rhythmically opposed cells, one antecedent and the other consequent.

Cuban folkloric musicians do not use the 3–2/2–3 system. Many Cuban performers of popular music do not use it either. The great Cuban conga player and bandleader Mongo Santamaría said, "Don’t tell me about 3–2 or 2–3! In Cuba, we just play. We feel it, we don’t talk about such things." In another book, Santamaría said, "In Cuba, we don’t think about [clave]. We know that we’re in a clave. Because we know that we have to be in clave to be a musician." According to Cuban pianist Sonny Bravo, Charlie Palmieri would insist that "There’s no such thing as 3–2 or 2–3, there’s only one clave!" The contemporary Cuban bassist, composer and arranger Alain Pérez flatly states: "In Cuba, we do not use that 2–3, 3–2 formula... 2–3, 3–2 [is] not used in Cuba. That is how people learn Cuban music outside Cuba."

In non-Cuban music

Controversy over use and origins

The musical usage and historical origins of the clave are debated. This section presents examples from non-Cuban music, which some musicians hold to be representative of the clave. The most common claims, those of Brazilian and subsets of American popular music, are described below.

In Africa

A widely used bell pattern

Clave is a Spanish word and its musical usage as a pattern played on claves was developed in the western part of Cuba, particularly the cities of Matanzas and Havana. Some writings have claimed that the clave patterns originated in Cuba. One frequently repeated theory is that the triple-pulse African bell patterns morphed into duple-pulse forms as a result of the influence of European musical sensibilities. "The duple meter feel [of rumba clave] may have been the result of the influence of marching bands and other Spanish styles..."— Washburne (1995).

However, the duple-pulse forms have existed in sub-Saharan Africa for centuries. The patterns the Cubans call clave are two of the most common bell parts used in Sub-Saharan African music traditions. Natalie Curtis, A.M. Jones, Anthony King and John Collins document the triple-pulse forms of what we call “son clave” and “rumba clave” in West, Central, and East Africa. Francis Kofi and C.K. Ladzekpo document several Ghanaian rhythms that use the triple or duple-pulse forms of "son clave". Percussion scholar royal hartigan identifies the duple-pulse form of "rumba clave" as a timeline pattern used by the Yoruba and Ibo of Nigeria, West Africa. He states that this pattern is also found in the high-pitched boat-shaped iron bell known as atoke played in the Akpese music of the Eve people of Ghana. There are many recordings of traditional African music where one can hear the five-stroke "clave" used as a bell pattern.

Cuban music has been popular in sub-Saharan Africa since the mid-twentieth century. To the Africans, clave-based Cuban popular music sounded both familiar and exotic. Congolese bands started doing Cuban covers and singing the lyrics phonetically. Soon, they were creating their original Cuban-like compositions, with lyrics sung in French or Lingala, a lingua franca of the western Congo region. The Congolese called this new music rumba, although it was based on the son. The Africans adapted guajeos to electric guitars and gave them their regional flavor. The guitar-based music gradually spread out from the Congo, increasingly taking on local sensibilities. This process eventually resulted in the establishment of several different distinct regional genres, such as soukous.

Soukous

The following soukous bass line is an embellishment of clave.

thumb|center|350px|Top: clave; bottom: soukous bass line

Banning Eyre distills down the Congolese guitar style to this skeletal figure, where clave is sounded by the bass notes (notated with downward stems).

Highlife

Highlife was the most popular genre in Ghana and Nigeria during the 1960s. This arpeggiated highlife guitar part is essentially a guajeo. The rhythmic pattern is known in Cuba as baqueteo. The pattern of attack-points is nearly identical to the 3–2 clave motif guajeo shown earlier in this article. The bell pattern known in Cuba as clave, is indigenous to Ghana and Nigeria, and is used in highlife.

thumb|center|420px|Top: clave. Bottom: highlife guitar part. ().

Afrobeat

The following afrobeat guitar part is a variant of the 2–3 onbeat/offbeat motif. Even the melodic contour is guajeo-based. 2–3 claves are shown above the guitar for reference only. The clave pattern is not ordinarily played in afrobeat.

thumb|center|420px|Top: 2–3 clave. Bottom: afrobeat guitar part.

Guide-patterns in Cuban versus non-Cuban music

There is some debate as to whether or not clave, as it appears in Cuban music, functions in the same way as its sister rhythms in other forms of music (Brazilian, North American and African). Certain forms of Cuban music demand a strict relationship between the clave and other musical parts, even across genres. This same structural relationship between the guide-pattern and the rest of the ensemble is easily observed in many sub-Saharan rhythms, as well as rhythms from Haiti and Brazil. However, the 3–2/2–3 concept and terminology are limited to certain types of Cuban-based popular music and are not used in the music of Africa, Haiti, Brazil or in Afro-Cuban folkloric music. In American pop music, the clave pattern tends to be used as an element of rhythmic color, rather than a guide-pattern and as such is superimposed over many types of rhythms.

In Brazilian music

thumb|right|300px|Afro-Brazilian bell patterns , , ,

Both Cuba and Brazil imported Yoruba, Fon and Congolese slaves. Therefore, it is not surprising that we find the bell pattern the Cubans call clave in the Afro-Brazilian music of Macumba and Maculelê (dance). "Son clave" and "rumba clave" are also used as a tamborim part in some batucada arrangements. The structure of Afro-Brazilian bell patterns can be understood in terms of the clave concept (see below). Although a few contemporary Brazilian musicians have adopted the 3–2/2–3 terminology, it is traditionally not a part of the Brazilian rhythmic concept.

Bell pattern 1 is used in maculelê (dance) and some Candomblé and Macumba rhythms. Pattern 1 is known in Cuba as son clave. Bell 2 is used in afoxê and can be thought of as pattern 1 embellished with four additional strokes. Bell 3 is used in batucada. Pattern 4 is the maracatu bell and can be thought of as pattern 1 embellished with four additional strokes.

Bossa nova pattern

right|380px|thumb|Bossa nova stick pattern ()

The so-called "bossa nova clave" (or "Brazilian clave") has a similar rhythm to that of the son clave, but the second note on the two-side is delayed by one pulse (subdivision). The rhythm is typically played as a snare rim pattern in bossa nova music. The pattern is shown below in , as it is written in Brazil. In North American charts it is more likely to be written in cut-time.

According to drummer Bobby Sanabria the Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, who developed the pattern, considers it to be merely a rhythmic motif and not a clave (guide pattern). Jobim later regretted that Latino musicians misunderstood the role of this bossa nova pattern.

Other Brazilian examples

The examples below are transcriptions of several patterns resembling the Cuban clave that is found in various styles of Brazilian music, on the ago-gô and surdo instruments.

Legend: Time signature: ; L=low bell, H=high bell, O = open surdo hit, X = muffled surdo hit, and | divides the measure:

  • Style: Samba 3:2; <code>LL.L.H.H|L.L.L.H.</code> (More common 3:2: <code>.L.L.H.H|L.L.L.H.</code>)
  • Style: Maracatu 3:2; <code>LH.HL.H.|L.H.LH.H</code>
  • Style: Samba 3:2; <code>L|.L.L..L.|..L..L.L|</code>
  • Instrument: 3rd Surdo 2:3; <code>X...O.O.|X...OO.O</code>
  • Variation of samba style: Partido Alto 2:3; <code>L.H..L.L|.H..L.L.</code>
  • Style: Maracatu 2:3; <code>L.H.L.H.|LH.HL.H.</code>
  • Style: Samba-Reggae or Bossanova 3:2; <code>O..O..O.|..O..O..</code>
  • Style: Ijexa 3:2; <code>LL.L.LL.|L.L.L.L.</code> (<code>HH.L.LL.|H.H.L.L.</code>)

For 3rd example above, the clave pattern is based on a common accompaniment pattern played by the guitarist. B=bass note played by guitarist's thumb, C=chord played by fingers.

&|1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &|1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &||

C|B C . C B . C .|B . C . B C . C||

The singer enters on the wrong side of the clave and the ago-gô player adjusts accordingly. This recording cuts off the first bar so that it sounds like the bell comes in on the third beat of the second bar. This is suggestive of a pre-determined rhythmic relationship between the vocal part and the percussion and supports the idea of a clave-like structure in Brazilian music.

In Jamaican and French Caribbean music

The son clave rhythm is present in Jamaican mento music, and can be heard on 1950s-era recordings such as "Don’t Fence Her In", "Green Guava" or "Limbo" by Lord Tickler, "Mango Time" by Count Lasher, "Linstead Market/Day O" by The Wigglers, "Bargie" by The Tower Islanders, "Nebuchanezer" by Laurel Aitken and others. The Jamaican population is part of the same origin (Congo) as many Cubans, which perhaps explains the shared rhythm. It is also heard frequently in Martinique's biguine and Dominica's Jing ping. Just as likely however is the possibility that claves and the clave rhythm spread to Jamaica, Trinidad and the other small islands of the Caribbean through the popularity of Cuban son recordings from the 1920s onward.

Experimental clave music

Art music

The clave rhythm and clave concept have been used in some modern art music ("classical") compositions. "Rumba Clave" by Cuban percussion virtuoso Roberto Vizcaiño has been performed in recital halls around the world. Another clave-based composition that has "gone global" is the snare drum suite "Cross" by Eugene D. Novotney.

Odd meter "clave"

Technically speaking, the term odd meter clave is an oxymoron. Clave consists of two even halves, in a divisive structure of four main beats. However, in recent years jazz musicians from Cuba and outside of Cuba have been experimenting with creating new "claves" and related patterns in various odd meters. Clave which is traditionally used in a divisive rhythm structure, has inspired many new creative inventions in an additive rhythm context.

<blockquote>. . . I developed the concept of adjusting claves to other time signatures, with varying degrees of success. What became obvious to me quite quickly was that the closer I stuck to the general rules of clave the more natural the pattern sounded. Clave has a natural flow with a certain tension and resolves points. I found if I kept these points in the new meters they could still flow seamlessly, allowing me to play longer phrases. It also gave me many reference points and reduced my reliance on "one"—Guilfoyle (2006: 10).</blockquote>

right|300px|thumb|"Clave" in after Guilfoyle

right|300px|thumb|"Clave" in after Guilfoyle

Here are some examples of recordings that use odd meter clave concepts.

  • Dafnis Prieto About the Monks (Zoho).
  • Sebastian Schunke Symbiosis (Pimienta Records).
  • Paoli Mejias Mi Tambor (JMCD).
  • John Benitez Descarga in New York (Khaeon).
  • Deep Rumba A Calm in the Fire of Dances (American Clave).
  • Nachito Herrera Bembe en mi casa (FS Music).
  • Bobby Sanabria Quarteto Aché (Zoho).
  • Julio Barretto Iyabo (3d).
  • Michel Camilo Triangulo (Telarc).
  • Samuel Torres Skin Tones (www.samueltorres.com).
  • Horacio "el Negro" Hernandez Italuba (Universal Latino).
  • Tony Lujan Tribute (Bella Records).
  • Edward Simon La bikina (Mythology).
  • Jorge Sylvester In the Ear of the Beholder (Jazz Magnet).
  • Uli Geissendoerfer "The Extension" (CMO)
  • Manuel Valera In Motion (Criss Cross Jazz).

See also

  • Bo Diddley beat
  • Sub-Saharan African music traditions

Footnotes

References

Sources

  • Mauleón, Rebeca (1993). Salsa Guidebook for Piano and Ensemble. Petaluma, California: Sher Music. .
  • Moore, Kevin (2012). Understanding Clave and Clave Changes: Singing, Clapping and Dancing Exercises. Santa Cruz: Moore Music. .
  • Novotney, Eugene N. (1998) "" (), UnlockingClave.com. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.
  • Ortiz, Fernando (1950). La Africana De La Musica Folklorica De Cuba. Ediciones Universales, en español. Hardcover illustrated edition. .
  • Palmer, Robert (1979). A Tale of Two Cities: Memphis Rock and New Orleans Roll. Brooklyn.
  • Peñalosa, David (2009). The Clave Matrix; Afro-Cuban Rhythm: Its Principles and African Origins. Redway, CA: Bembe Inc. .
  • Peñalosa, David (2010). Rumba Quinto. Redway, CA: Bembe Books. .
  • Stewart, Alexander (2000). Funky Drummer': New Orleans, James Brown and the Rhythmic Transformation of American Popular Music". Popular Music, v. 19, n. 3. Oct. 2000), p.&nbsp;293-318. .
  • The Four Great Clave Debates
  • Clave Concepts; Afro Cuban Rhythms
  • An introduction to clave theory
  • Clave Patterns
  • Clave Changes in the Music of Charanga Habanera
  • Clave Analysis of Charanga Habanera's Tremendo delirio
  • Bossa Nova Clave
  • Video about Bossa Nova Clave
  • family of Cuban clave patterns
  • BBC World Service – Special Reports – A Short History of Five Notes