Some additional thoughts: 1) At 0:54, I don't mean to imply that only academics get to record history, and we do have some oral histories passed down that fill in some of the gaps left by scholars of the time. It's just that oral histories, while very important, aren't necessarily the best for reconstructing precise timelines because specific dates and event orders aren't always the sorts of things that get passed on. We do know a fair bit about the cultural role of the clave and its ancestors during its early days in the Americas, it's just that, as far as I can find, we don't have any definite recreations of the specific patterns they played and we don't know for sure what changes it went through as it was passed from generation to generation. Unless, and this is a very real possibility, I just straight-up missed some paper that successfully reconstructed it. I tried to keep that possibility in mind, but I did look (including on Google Scholar) and couldn't find anything. 2) I didn't dive much into the details of the African origin because that's a whole video on its own (One I'd like to make at some point, but may be tricky given how far it is from my area of expertise) but if you want to know more about that, I'd recommend looking up Standard Bell Patterns or Bembe rhythms.
Clave is key but not in the sense of door key... Its like "esential" key as door key is llave... But clave is used like... "la clave para la felicidad es vivir en ignorancia" (the key of happiness is to live in ignorance)
Try to check Brazilian funk (kondzilla is the biggest music channel of this kinda music) it’s literally based on this rhythm and if you ask any Brazilian nowadays they will really call it “funks rhythm”
Cool video as always! I’ve been wondering where I can find resources to study ethnomusicology/history of ancient music, particularly the rhythms of Africa and how they’ve evolved. A video on that would be awesome
gingercore69 is correct; "clave" means key as in "critical/essential/fundamental" (the key to some skill or a key fact), as in code (a secret key for encryption, or a door lock code or credit card PIN), and as in keystone; in musical context it also means clef and of course the wooden sticks. It does not mean a key you'd stick in a lock (that would be "llave"), nor does it mean a key you'd press (piano or QWERTY, in both cases it would be called "tecla"). Interestingly, it can mean key as in C major, but we'd more often call that "tono" or "tonalidad", and a key signature can be either "armadura de tonalidad" or "armadura de clave".
I think there may be another reason the son clave rhythm is so catchy: implied polyrhythm. The first 3 notes sound very similar to triplets, while the last two strongly imply duple time. The rhythmic ratio is close to 3:2, which is also the ratio between the roots of a dominant and tonic in just intonation. Basically the "polyrhythm" resolves by the end of the phrase just like a dominant would resolve to a tonic.
The 2:3 clave is used in guajira, another popular cuban rhythm wich is built upon that clave. Also, the son clave is also known as candombe in south america, in countries like uruguay and argentina, mostly uruguay where african rhythms are very popular like murga an other genres. Candombe is primarily the name we use for the son clave in argentina and uruguay.
I like to imagine the first guy that brought the clave to a jam session. Frank's got his goat intestine lyre, Richard's rockin the pan flute, Gus has his tambourine...and frickin Bob brought two sticks that he found. Great video!
I think one important element you didn't point out explicitly here is that of tension and release. The first 2 notes build tension to the 3rd note which is then held slightly longer than the others, giving a sense of hanging over a cliff waiting to drop. Then the 4th note anticipates and emphasises the sense of arriving back to the 5th note which solidly rests on the back beat. It's like a rhythmic parallel to a chord progression with a cadence at the end. In fact, all rhythm is very much like this. The downbeat is the tonic and rhythms either emphasize or contrast that tonic throughout a piece.
I know mixing a 3 - 2 clave with a 2 - 3 clave is braking the rules, but it does allow us to create a fractal clave. You see, you can play the 3 note bar of the song clave at half speed under a 3 - 2 clave and it fits well, and you cna just as well fit the 2 bar part of a clave under a 2 - 3 clave. Going a few layers deep you can create a fractal cave beat. Which is interesting.
Interesting! Although, experimenting a bit, I think you can do the same thing without flipping: I just programmed up a 5-level fractal 3-2 son clave and I think it sounds pretty good.
For the ones interested in Latin American music based on clave, I'd suggest you to look for the Brazilian funk. It's rythm similar to the reaggaton, but have plenty influence from rap. There are a lot of different sub-genres, so I'll suggest some of the most famous and/or important for the genre's history: Furacão 2000 Claudinho e Buchecha Anitta Baile da gaiola MC kevin
it's not only cuban; this is so typical in Uruguay, it can be heard anywhere. It's part of the candombe, our african heritage. It would be nice that you did a little research on out candombe ^^
Great video! At 5:44 though I think you mean “compound meter” rather than “triple meter”. A “triple” meter would be a meter with three prevailing beats, such as 3/4, 3/8 or 9/8. 😊
The tresillo rhythm or first half of the son clave at 5:10 is also the core of French west Indian zouk music, which emerged in the 1980s and has since become popular in West and central African music too.
In Afro-Uruguayan music, the clave is used as a starting rhythm for young drummers during the yearly parade of "Llamadas" or "Calls". The young drummers use the clave to "call" or invoke the spirits of the drummers of old.
Here's a fun clave rhythm patter you can try and play. Start with the Son Clave for one bar, then flow straight into the Rumba Clave for a bar. Finally flow straight into the Bossa Nova Clave for a bar and for the fourth and final bar, play a samba clave. If you can smoothly loop this cycle, you've mastered the clave!
Switching the claves happens in music. It's typically a result of odd bar phrasing, like 5 measures of 3-2. Doing this causes the next phrase to be 2-3. Another thing that's really hip about the clave in Cuban music is the theory of the clave and how it influences the harmony.
The original origin is Africa. The same rhythm is originally from Africa and it’s African Music still used today. If you want to find how these are played in music especially Afro Beat, Reggae, Dancehall, Soca Trinidad and Afro Dance Music, go to the original source, Africa. It’s the same pattern and rhythm Afro-Latinos use across Latin America to introduce the African Culture. View videos from Africa on this ancient musical instrument.
I like how even a lot of house music uses those tresillo claves just with a kick beat on every quarter note. Shows how great these rhythms are for dancing.
As a non-music major, I’m glad that we finally got a video topic about the one music I know something about. Taking years of African drumming classes with a Togolese ethnomusicologist who’s also a Master Drummer has finally paid off lol
One thing I believe about clave: it's a powerful force; so powerful that even when not literally played, you feel it...... implied or up front in the mix, it literally forces a physical response. I often begin composing with a clave pattern in a sequencer (MIDI in DAW), using that as a grid for the bass part. What I'd really like to learn is song forms, when what hand percussion plays its patterns, etc. because more out of respect for the music than anything it's like learning to speak another language..... wanna sound close, anyway:) I've also heard a definition of clave related to "code", and "grid".
There’s this rhythm using the son clave is also used all the time, particularly in country music. You hear it in songs like Thomas Rhett’s “It Goes Like This”
Great video, I am very curious about this subject, although as a brazilian I think 'Bossa-nova clave' is more like a purely academic term, because bossa nova syncopation is more diverse, as it is more based on the many syncopations made with the brazilian 'tamborim' (not to be confused with tambourine, which we call 'pandeiro') and other instruments from many kinds of samba.
absolutely fascinating! turns out I've been using that trisillio pattern since I started making music, I just didn't realize what it was called before. you've given me so much more to work with!
For a 4/4 rhythm there are 100 distinguishable rhythms with two, three or four hits over 8 positions. These include a few rhythms that are simply shifted versions of each other we could say that there are 25 "basic" patterns, but these do tend to feel different. These are constructed by choosing any pair from 10 basic rhythmic building blocks of 1 or 2 hits over four positions. In general, more complicated rhythms can be created by stringing together these 10 simple patterns and then simply ornamenting (or occasionally simplifying). The point I'm driving at is that the fundamentals of rhythms are quite simple, they can be mastered to a mere 50-100 practice sessions. The rest is instrument-specific technique for percussion instruments.
Pretty good intro. Misses 2 crucial understandings . The clave not only marks time, but identifies a front and a back side to the rhythm. ie question/ answer, call and response. This facilitates parts talking to each other, that is what clave is the key to. Players know which side their part speaks on ,and where it leaves space for another part to speak in. This among other things allows creates a foundation for improv. For Dance- and it IS for dance -clave accents both where feet move,and where hips move.
A couple related ideas for future videos: -tumbao rhythm! What is it, why does it work, and how does it fit into a latin rhythm feel. -more about tresillo and how it has moved into other genres - for example, the ubiquitous acoustic guitar pattern (1 2+ +4+) is, I believe, derived from the tresillo. Thanks for the fun+interesting content!
Last Wednesday I was terribly bored at work, and decided to look up some music theory. I don't have a smart phone, so about the only resource I have is cached wikipedia pages, because those are stored on Google servers, and Google is the only webpage I have access to besides the ones necessary for work. At one point I find the term 'cell' used in relation to music. I look up that page, and one example was the tresillo. So I looked up that page as well. As images are not cached, and wikipedia uses images for music notation, I only had the words to rely upon. I was very confused as to what the difference was. After work, I forgot completely about it because it happened during work and so as soon as I clock out, poof, gone. And now there's this lovely video which clearly explained the tresillo to me. Long story short, thank you, and stop perusing my browsing history, you sick bastard!
Maybe it's just me, but I'm having a hard time getting an actual feel for these rhythms by only hearing the clicks/notes without them playing against an even metronome. I don't know if this was intentionally left out as the clave's purpose seems to be to "replace" a regular metronome, but I only really got the rhythms after figuring out the quarter note tempo and counting 1234 to myself while the clave was playing. Apart from that, great information as always!
I'm the same way don't worry. Its the kind of thing that once you have the groove internalized, it can then replace a metronome. but yes, without a metronome or reference of a starting beat or up beat, it can be felt in tons of ways so it makes sense if you happen to not hear it the same as you would once you have a reference.
What has helped me the most is accenting the last eighth note of the second measure. Usually you can hear the bass playing it as a leading tone (I'm not referring to the note pitch, just the feeling it gives you) for the start of the next measure. Actually, the 2 notes of the son clave on the second measure are the most important to get a good sense of the whole rhythm. You could say they are important like the 1st beat of popular Western music. But the bass trick can help a lot!
Yeah, that's because you'll hear the first three notes as "quarter" notes since they're all dotted and the same length. As a result, until you know how to "feel" it, hearing it twice in a row isn't enough to really "vibe" it and try digesting it. You have to practice the clave to really "feel" it. If you're just counting "1,2,3,4" then you'll have a hard time really placing the clave. I would suggest starting with an eighth note version. Say aloud all of the parts and clap those that are quoted. "1"-and 2-"and" 3-and "4"-and 1-and "2"-and "3"-and 4-and When you can groove that, then you can speed it up and transfer it to sixteenth note subdivision. "1"-e-and-"a" 2-e -"and"-a 3-e-"and"-a "4"-e-and-a Hopefully that helps!
I am a classical musician of Yorùbá West African origin. The clave is definitely African, commonly used in a lot of the music. Check out many Yorùbá music and you will find the clave prominent. Thanks for your video lesson
Your rumba clave it’s used in Brazilian music. You can hear it a lot in Bahian music. Timbalada plays that often. Also the Bossa Nova clave, maybe that’s the name Western music have it. But it’s samba. That pattern comes from a tamborim, played in the samba schools. It’s a variation of a telecoteco. That’s why Bossa nova guitarist. Play the tamborim (clave) and surdo (bass) simultaneously with their right hand. Great video btw, really enjoyed it. And great details on the illustrations
Fabulous, thank you..... Been finding clave in the strangest places, like 'Suddenly Last Summer' by the Motels? My body automatically starts dancing to it even before I even know what's happening, I'm dancing around Trader Joe's - a'ho, Clave. But people do that at Trader Joe's. Thanks again, love your videos.
If you will really think about it, you will see that standard 2-3 3-2 claves are just rhythmical pentatonics, it becomes especially clear if you will look at claves in 12/8 versions. And a standard bell pattern is just a c major scale reflected rhythmically
For those looking for a mainstream example, the opening rhythm of Shape of You (Ed Sheeran) uses the tresillo, and most reggaeton songs use that same tresillo rhythm as part of the drum beat.
Most pop music today uses a form of tresillo where it's actually actually at a pretty fast tempo but the first snare is shifted back by one 8th note. It's very annoying to hear it to me for its association with those types of songs though
There is a lot more info about the clave as well as what it means to be ‘in clave’. Both Ed Uribe and Rebeca Mauleon have excellent books expanding on clave and all the other aspects of afro cuban rhythm.
One song that heavily implements the son clave is New Fangled Preacher Man from the musical Purlie. (The verses are pretty much just the clave and some lyrics.) Which is supposed to be a slave song and based on who made the musical and when, was likely directly inspired by them
4:20: Have a listen to South African House music from about 2013 to now. These claves show their roots in Africa as they all sound very common to our dabce music's rhythmic rudiments.
I think the bossa rhumba clave ist used a lot in modern electronic dance music (minimal, house, techno). Even more of these dotted eighths you can find in Knower's "Overtime".
That triplet rythm is arguably even more fundamental than the cuban clave. It's found in genres all over the world, and the whole Southamerica is no exception. Here in Argentina we have it in rhythms such as Milonga campera and Rasguido doble. Also, composer Astor Piazzola used it A LOT. Check it out, it's a cannot-miss.
hi, i spoke a litle bit english (sorry).. great explanation of "claves afro-latinas", thanks.. note that son, rumba, bossa music notation are in 2/2 (because the bounce sensation and melody sincopation and phrases). There are many music's genders in america (mexico and below) based in ternary rhythms (triplets like) with interesting and complex "claves".. thanks for the info and video.. ;)
1:58 That is a solid quarter note there. Like, I never thought there could be just a *quarter note* until you drew that one (or wrote? I'm not sure...). Great job!
So, my band director was talking to the precision section of our ensemble. She was talking about the person playing the clave, and naturally precision was ignoring her. She then yells at them and tells the person playing the clave to listen. Then simultaneously everyone in precision looked at each other and said “WhAT iS a CLaVe”. She then stopped the rehearsal for the song we were doing and moved on. Now whenever she brings up the clave she has to specifically describe it and it’s characteristics. This is why I take pride in being a wind player.
Really great video, as usual! Maybe the 6/8 Clave is missing. It's a quite usual rhythm in afro cuban music and it has its so nice "ternary" flavor :). Thank you for all you give on UA-cam.
For u to have an idea how the clave is influent: there is brazilian funk, and... every single song is based on slight variations on the same beat, in which u can hear the clave on it
There is a Costa Rican book thats exemplifies some afrolatin rhythms. It's called "Compendio de Percusión Afrolatina" (Afrolatin percussion compilation). There have the most common rhythms and their relation with the clave.
Yes, or clave. Depends what it's the key to. The key to your house is a llave. The key to your wifi router is a clave. They must have a common root, since we have 'clau' for key in Catalan, 'clé' (or 'clef') in French, etc. You can see that all these words are related. I don't know how or when modern Spanish 'llave' deviated from the others.
It seems that 'llave' is always a physical key, like the one for your house or your car, whereas 'clave' is a 'key' as in a code or password. If you were trying to crack a cypher to read a coded message, you would need a 'clave' not a 'llave.
What this video taught me is that the 5/4 "clave" is technically not actually a clave rhythm, as it's only four notes covering one bar of five as opposed to five notes spanning two bars of four. It does, however have the split time feel (two dotted quarter notes followed by two straight quarter notes), so I'm guessing that's why it's called a clave?
Being Brazilian, the rhythm that came to mind when i saw the title was the Bossa Nova clave even though I didn’t know it had that name. And that Bossa Rumba clave is a bit familiar, so i might have heard it somewhere...
If you play a son 3 2 clave around 80 bpm, and place 808 kick beats on the clave, with some steady 16th note hi hats, and snare on the downbeats you get a trap/hip hop beat.
A big reason why the bossa nova clave might behave differently from the others in terms of triplet feel is because both son and rumba come from Cuba, and bossa nova comes from Brazil. Totally different musical traditions
Great video. The only thing I think you missed is how clave can be flipped from 3:2 to 2:3 with a 7 bar phrase which happens pretty regularly in my experience.
Clave doesn't mean key, like what you use to open a door, that would be llave🗝. Clave can mean key as in the you are playing in the key of C🎼. It can also be the solution to a code or problem. Or it can be something that illuminates the solution (this item is key in understanding...).
I don't think a quarter note metronome was necessary but I couldn't get a feel for the second and third rhythms at all and was really expecting to hear some music to give context.
All I hear when that son clave pattern plays is Psalm 8 - my mum made her own tune to that biblical psalm which also included clapping in that pattern. Man, it's been a long time since we were in church.
Hey @12tone Im new to your channel. I found out about it yesterday and have watched like 12 videos so far. I love the channel and im learning alot not only about theory and famous music but also art in general and my own music as well. May I suggest a few "Understanding " videos of Opeth? Like "Understanding Benighted" or "Understanding Drapery Falls" Etc. I think it'd be great! :) Anyways I love the channel Keep it up dude.
Jethro Tull's song "Living in the Past" uses the clave instrument and it does sound very syncopated and similar to this rhythm, but it's in 5/4 time. How can that work? Even to this day decades later I have trouble playing along (making mouth noises).
also before the latin jazz craze no one talked about the clave because it was expected every timba ,bongo or timbal player new also the music arranger had to write on clave or the riffs and chart were not played. If you research all the great big bands, the small combos had great latin drumers.
You could argue that the first three notes of that Clave are the most popular in the world, since so many pop songs use that as well as Dancehall, rap and hip-hop at Cetera at Cetera
great video! I've noticed the cuban tresillo rhythm all across pop music, particularly in the past decade, and I wonder if there's any consensus regarding how it went from cuban music to a staple of 2010s pop?
I would guess it has to do with certain "Latin pop" artists becoming popular and using the reggaeton beat in their music ("Gasolina" is a good example). That's most likely where it originates from. Then again, you can definitely find this rhythm in older pop and rock music too - it's just not as explicit in the music.
vitorgas1 Yeah, or Motorbreath by Metallica. It's actually all over punk (influenced) music - just check out the "D beat". Actually, the "Charleston rhythm" that's used a lot in jazz is also pretty close to tresillo.
"You will hear two humble wooden sticks playing one of the nost important rhythms in music, which sounds like this: *Click click click clickclick click click click*" My brain: MC MIKEY!
Don't forget the Freestyle Music (aka Latin Hip-Hop) Clave! Examples: "Tears" by Rockell - ua-cam.com/video/AAIiKoYylAo/v-deo.html "Diana" by Collage. - ua-cam.com/video/FkqUyvEupyE/v-deo.html
Some additional thoughts:
1) At 0:54, I don't mean to imply that only academics get to record history, and we do have some oral histories passed down that fill in some of the gaps left by scholars of the time. It's just that oral histories, while very important, aren't necessarily the best for reconstructing precise timelines because specific dates and event orders aren't always the sorts of things that get passed on. We do know a fair bit about the cultural role of the clave and its ancestors during its early days in the Americas, it's just that, as far as I can find, we don't have any definite recreations of the specific patterns they played and we don't know for sure what changes it went through as it was passed from generation to generation. Unless, and this is a very real possibility, I just straight-up missed some paper that successfully reconstructed it. I tried to keep that possibility in mind, but I did look (including on Google Scholar) and couldn't find anything.
2) I didn't dive much into the details of the African origin because that's a whole video on its own (One I'd like to make at some point, but may be tricky given how far it is from my area of expertise) but if you want to know more about that, I'd recommend looking up Standard Bell Patterns or Bembe rhythms.
Clave is key but not in the sense of door key... Its like "esential" key as door key is llave... But clave is used like... "la clave para la felicidad es vivir en ignorancia" (the key of happiness is to live in ignorance)
Try to check Brazilian funk (kondzilla is the biggest music channel of this kinda music) it’s literally based on this rhythm and if you ask any Brazilian nowadays they will really call it “funks rhythm”
Would you please do "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley? I'd like to know why the melody haunts me. :-) Thanks for sharing your insights!
Cool video as always! I’ve been wondering where I can find resources to study ethnomusicology/history of ancient music, particularly the rhythms of Africa and how they’ve evolved. A video on that would be awesome
gingercore69 is correct; "clave" means key as in "critical/essential/fundamental" (the key to some skill or a key fact), as in code (a secret key for encryption, or a door lock code or credit card PIN), and as in keystone; in musical context it also means clef and of course the wooden sticks. It does not mean a key you'd stick in a lock (that would be "llave"), nor does it mean a key you'd press (piano or QWERTY, in both cases it would be called "tecla"). Interestingly, it can mean key as in C major, but we'd more often call that "tono" or "tonalidad", and a key signature can be either "armadura de tonalidad" or "armadura de clave".
I wish the clicks in your Intro would have played the Clave rhythm... at least in this episode😂
my thought exactly
If you hear the first note as being the second 8th note of the bar, and each note as a dotted eight, it's an inverted (2:3) Bossa Clave.
@@alxjones what if I don't
@@ace-smith then its just some clicks
I think there may be another reason the son clave rhythm is so catchy: implied polyrhythm. The first 3 notes sound very similar to triplets, while the last two strongly imply duple time. The rhythmic ratio is close to 3:2, which is also the ratio between the roots of a dominant and tonic in just intonation. Basically the "polyrhythm" resolves by the end of the phrase just like a dominant would resolve to a tonic.
Was just thinking about that. I noticed my self nodding to the "2" part of it
@@THuang-lt1ob This is a very interesting point.
this was probably the first and last time for your whole life, in which you said Bo Diddley 3 times in 5 seconds
Oh, you'd be surprised...
I wonder how often Bo Diddley sings Bo Diddley on his album Bo Diddley, since it has the songs Diddley Daddy, Bo Diddley and Hey! Bo Diddley on it ...
Just don't do it into a mirror, or Bo Diddley will appear.
@@ianr.1225 I was just about to make this joke
@@stefan1024 Calm down, Ned Flanders.
My cuban family almost always claps to the rhythm of the son clave to all music. Happy birthday, son clave.
That's better than some of my family clapping on the 1 and 3
@@peterinnes6853 here people clap every beat xD
The 2:3 clave is used in guajira, another popular cuban rhythm wich is built upon that clave. Also, the son clave is also known as candombe in south america, in countries like uruguay and argentina, mostly uruguay where african rhythms are very popular like murga an other genres. Candombe is primarily the name we use for the son clave in argentina and uruguay.
I like to imagine the first guy that brought the clave to a jam session. Frank's got his goat intestine lyre, Richard's rockin the pan flute, Gus has his tambourine...and frickin Bob brought two sticks that he found. Great video!
I think one important element you didn't point out explicitly here is that of tension and release. The first 2 notes build tension to the 3rd note which is then held slightly longer than the others, giving a sense of hanging over a cliff waiting to drop. Then the 4th note anticipates and emphasises the sense of arriving back to the 5th note which solidly rests on the back beat. It's like a rhythmic parallel to a chord progression with a cadence at the end. In fact, all rhythm is very much like this. The downbeat is the tonic and rhythms either emphasize or contrast that tonic throughout a piece.
I know mixing a 3 - 2 clave with a 2 - 3 clave is braking the rules, but it does allow us to create a fractal clave. You see, you can play the 3 note bar of the song clave at half speed under a 3 - 2 clave and it fits well, and you cna just as well fit the 2 bar part of a clave under a 2 - 3 clave. Going a few layers deep you can create a fractal cave beat. Which is interesting.
And here's a rather rough demo: ua-cam.com/video/ZtAdTRgia2I/v-deo.html
Interesting! Although, experimenting a bit, I think you can do the same thing without flipping: I just programmed up a 5-level fractal 3-2 son clave and I think it sounds pretty good.
Does sound interesting.
I would LOVE to see more Latin music theory!!
Afro-Latin music theory if you will, but yes
I just like studying African and Afro-Disaporian music. It's amazing and I love my people 💘
For the ones interested in Latin American music based on clave, I'd suggest you to look for the Brazilian funk. It's rythm similar to the reaggaton, but have plenty influence from rap.
There are a lot of different sub-genres, so I'll suggest some of the most famous and/or important for the genre's history:
Furacão 2000
Claudinho e Buchecha
Anitta
Baile da gaiola
MC kevin
Isaac Nicacio 🔥🔑
Eu ri pra caralho quando ele começou a escrever o ritmo clássico do funk carioca lol
Tava pensando antes de ver o vídeo "Vai ser um ritmo complexo pra caralho" e o maluco toca um funkão kkkkk
One of my favourite genres from a language I don't know it's so raw
it's not only cuban; this is so typical in Uruguay, it can be heard anywhere. It's part of the candombe, our african heritage. It would be nice that you did a little research on out candombe ^^
Something's wrong. I only heard Darude - Sandstorm at 5:13. Send help.
goddamn it, now i can't unhear it
hmm I heard Shape Of You
Why oh why did you have to say that, now I can't get it out of my head
I hear Pokemon
6:00: That sounds similar to the pulse of a West African Afrobeat pulse.
Great video! At 5:44 though I think you mean “compound meter” rather than “triple meter”. A “triple” meter would be a meter with three prevailing beats, such as 3/4, 3/8 or 9/8. 😊
The tresillo rhythm or first half of the son clave at 5:10 is also the core of French west Indian zouk music, which emerged in the 1980s and has since become popular in West and central African music too.
In Afro-Uruguayan music, the clave is used as a starting rhythm for young drummers during the yearly parade of "Llamadas" or "Calls". The young drummers use the clave to "call" or invoke the spirits of the drummers of old.
Here's a fun clave rhythm patter you can try and play.
Start with the Son Clave for one bar, then flow straight into the Rumba Clave for a bar.
Finally flow straight into the Bossa Nova Clave for a bar and for the fourth and final bar, play a samba clave.
If you can smoothly loop this cycle, you've mastered the clave!
Why? No one plays like that. You are just throwing claves from totally different cultures together.
Switching the claves happens in music. It's typically a result of odd bar phrasing, like 5 measures of 3-2. Doing this causes the next phrase to be 2-3.
Another thing that's really hip about the clave in Cuban music is the theory of the clave and how it influences the harmony.
The original origin is Africa. The same rhythm is originally from Africa and it’s African Music still used today. If you want to find how these are played in music especially Afro Beat, Reggae, Dancehall, Soca Trinidad and Afro Dance Music, go to the original source, Africa. It’s the same pattern and rhythm Afro-Latinos use across Latin America to introduce the African Culture. View videos from Africa on this ancient musical instrument.
I like how even a lot of house music uses those tresillo claves just with a kick beat on every quarter note. Shows how great these rhythms are for dancing.
As a non-music major, I’m glad that we finally got a video topic about the one music I know something about. Taking years of African drumming classes with a Togolese ethnomusicologist who’s also a Master Drummer has finally paid off lol
One thing I believe about clave: it's a powerful force; so powerful that even when not literally played, you feel it...... implied or up front in the mix, it literally forces a physical response. I often begin composing with a clave pattern in a sequencer (MIDI in DAW), using that as a grid for the bass part. What I'd really like to learn is song forms, when what hand percussion plays its patterns, etc. because more out of respect for the music than anything it's like learning to speak another language..... wanna sound close, anyway:)
I've also heard a definition of clave related to "code", and "grid".
"GARY! Don't. Stop. Shacking it!"
Yess
Came to the comments looking for this. Had to scroll more than ai thought. :(
There’s this rhythm using the son clave is also used all the time, particularly in country music. You hear it in songs like Thomas Rhett’s “It Goes Like This”
Was sad the intro wasn't a son clave, just kidding love you're videos!
I considered it...
Great video, I am very curious about this subject, although as a brazilian I think 'Bossa-nova clave' is more like a purely academic term, because bossa nova syncopation is more diverse, as it is more based on the many syncopations made with the brazilian 'tamborim' (not to be confused with tambourine, which we call 'pandeiro') and other instruments from many kinds of samba.
Also, I like audiobooks
If anyone is curious, there's a salsa song called Para Qué Volver which changes from 3:2 to 2:3 mid song. Pretty interesting.
which second?
So eye opening, really. Is there any book you can recommend for learning this rhythmic patterns?
The Rhythm Code
absolutely fascinating! turns out I've been using that trisillio pattern since I started making music, I just didn't realize what it was called before. you've given me so much more to work with!
For a 4/4 rhythm there are 100 distinguishable rhythms with two, three or four hits over 8 positions. These include a few rhythms that are simply shifted versions of each other we could say that there are 25 "basic" patterns, but these do tend to feel different.
These are constructed by choosing any pair from 10 basic rhythmic building blocks of 1 or 2 hits over four positions. In general, more complicated rhythms can be created by stringing together these 10 simple patterns and then simply ornamenting (or occasionally simplifying).
The point I'm driving at is that the fundamentals of rhythms are quite simple, they can be mastered to a mere 50-100 practice sessions. The rest is instrument-specific technique for percussion instruments.
Pretty good intro. Misses 2 crucial understandings . The clave not only marks time, but identifies a front and a back side to the rhythm. ie question/ answer, call and response. This facilitates parts talking to each other, that is what clave is the key to. Players know which side their part speaks on ,and where it leaves space for another part to speak in. This among other things allows creates a foundation for improv. For Dance- and it IS for dance -clave accents both where feet move,and where hips move.
A couple related ideas for future videos:
-tumbao rhythm! What is it, why does it work, and how does it fit into a latin rhythm feel.
-more about tresillo and how it has moved into other genres - for example, the ubiquitous acoustic guitar pattern (1 2+ +4+) is, I believe, derived from the tresillo.
Thanks for the fun+interesting content!
Last Wednesday I was terribly bored at work, and decided to look up some music theory. I don't have a smart phone, so about the only resource I have is cached wikipedia pages, because those are stored on Google servers, and Google is the only webpage I have access to besides the ones necessary for work.
At one point I find the term 'cell' used in relation to music. I look up that page, and one example was the tresillo. So I looked up that page as well. As images are not cached, and wikipedia uses images for music notation, I only had the words to rely upon. I was very confused as to what the difference was.
After work, I forgot completely about it because it happened during work and so as soon as I clock out, poof, gone.
And now there's this lovely video which clearly explained the tresillo to me.
Long story short, thank you, and stop perusing my browsing history, you sick bastard!
Maybe it's just me, but I'm having a hard time getting an actual feel for these rhythms by only hearing the clicks/notes without them playing against an even metronome. I don't know if this was intentionally left out as the clave's purpose seems to be to "replace" a regular metronome, but I only really got the rhythms after figuring out the quarter note tempo and counting 1234 to myself while the clave was playing. Apart from that, great information as always!
I'm the same way don't worry. Its the kind of thing that once you have the groove internalized, it can then replace a metronome. but yes, without a metronome or reference of a starting beat or up beat, it can be felt in tons of ways so it makes sense if you happen to not hear it the same as you would once you have a reference.
What has helped me the most is accenting the last eighth note of the second measure. Usually you can hear the bass playing it as a leading tone (I'm not referring to the note pitch, just the feeling it gives you) for the start of the next measure. Actually, the 2 notes of the son clave on the second measure are the most important to get a good sense of the whole rhythm. You could say they are important like the 1st beat of popular Western music. But the bass trick can help a lot!
Me too
Yeah, that's because you'll hear the first three notes as "quarter" notes since they're all dotted and the same length. As a result, until you know how to "feel" it, hearing it twice in a row isn't enough to really "vibe" it and try digesting it.
You have to practice the clave to really "feel" it. If you're just counting "1,2,3,4" then you'll have a hard time really placing the clave.
I would suggest starting with an eighth note version. Say aloud all of the parts and clap those that are quoted.
"1"-and 2-"and" 3-and "4"-and 1-and "2"-and "3"-and 4-and
When you can groove that, then you can speed it up and transfer it to sixteenth note subdivision.
"1"-e-and-"a" 2-e -"and"-a 3-e-"and"-a "4"-e-and-a
Hopefully that helps!
Yeah, context for these rhythms would've made this a lot easier to follow.
I am a classical musician of Yorùbá West African origin. The clave is definitely African, commonly used in a lot of the music. Check out many Yorùbá music and you will find the clave prominent. Thanks for your video lesson
The clave was an unknown instrument in Africa 1800 the son and rumba clave music was introduce in the African continent by the Cubans music 1930
@@jesusbujans9646 Thank you for the response, we were definitely thinking past each other. I was talking about the clave best, not the sticks.
Uruguayan Candombe has the son clave as its base.
It's really interesting how Candombe is an African word
Your rumba clave it’s used in Brazilian music. You can hear it a lot in Bahian music. Timbalada plays that often. Also the Bossa Nova clave, maybe that’s the name Western music have it. But it’s samba. That pattern comes from a tamborim, played in the samba schools. It’s a variation of a telecoteco. That’s why Bossa nova guitarist. Play the tamborim (clave) and surdo (bass) simultaneously with their right hand. Great video btw, really enjoyed it. And great details on the illustrations
Fabulous, thank you..... Been finding clave in the strangest places, like 'Suddenly Last Summer' by the Motels? My body automatically starts dancing to it even before I even know what's happening, I'm dancing around Trader Joe's - a'ho, Clave. But people do that at Trader Joe's. Thanks again, love your videos.
but i ain't got rhythm :(
What about playing *rubato* then?
I would argue that utilizing rubato *well* takes a greater sense of rhythm.
@@saam6768 True...
who could ask for anything less?
Buddy, you've got rhythm to spare
Who would have thought hitting 2 sticks together was so technical. Great job explaining.
If you will really think about it, you will see that standard 2-3 3-2 claves are just rhythmical pentatonics, it becomes especially clear if you will look at claves in 12/8 versions. And a standard bell pattern is just a c major scale reflected rhythmically
meaning 12/8 = 12 notes in the octave and vice versa the octave is treated as one rhythmical cycle (one bar)
Thats interesting because the quite new genre "afro trap" uses this pattern as snare or clap, e. g. MHD - Afro Trap pt. 3
For those looking for a mainstream example, the opening rhythm of Shape of You (Ed Sheeran) uses the tresillo, and most reggaeton songs use that same tresillo rhythm as part of the drum beat.
Most pop music today uses a form of tresillo where it's actually actually at a pretty fast tempo but the first snare is shifted back by one 8th note. It's very annoying to hear it to me for its association with those types of songs though
There is a lot more info about the clave as well as what it means to be ‘in clave’. Both Ed Uribe and Rebeca Mauleon have excellent books expanding on clave and all the other aspects of afro cuban rhythm.
Another great video :) would love to explore more world music and rhythms, if you're taking suggestions!
One song that heavily implements the son clave is New Fangled Preacher Man from the musical Purlie. (The verses are pretty much just the clave and some lyrics.) Which is supposed to be a slave song and based on who made the musical and when, was likely directly inspired by them
4:20: Have a listen to South African House music from about 2013 to now. These claves show their roots in Africa as they all sound very common to our dabce music's rhythmic rudiments.
Nice product placement. You actually made it relevant to the topic of the channel.
I think the bossa rhumba clave ist used a lot in modern electronic dance music (minimal, house, techno). Even more of these dotted eighths you can find in Knower's "Overtime".
That triplet rythm is arguably even more fundamental than the cuban clave. It's found in genres all over the world, and the whole Southamerica is no exception. Here in Argentina we have it in rhythms such as Milonga campera and Rasguido doble. Also, composer Astor Piazzola used it A LOT. Check it out, it's a cannot-miss.
hi, i spoke a litle bit english (sorry).. great explanation of "claves afro-latinas", thanks.. note that son, rumba, bossa music notation are in 2/2 (because the bounce sensation and melody sincopation and phrases). There are many music's genders in america (mexico and below) based in ternary rhythms (triplets like) with interesting and complex "claves".. thanks for the info and video.. ;)
1:58 That is a solid quarter note there. Like, I never thought there could be just a *quarter note* until you drew that one (or wrote? I'm not sure...). Great job!
Also the video was great too!
Nice doodles and video. Thanks.
So, my band director was talking to the precision section of our ensemble. She was talking about the person playing the clave, and naturally precision was ignoring her. She then yells at them and tells the person playing the clave to listen. Then simultaneously everyone in precision looked at each other and said “WhAT iS a CLaVe”. She then stopped the rehearsal for the song we were doing and moved on. Now whenever she brings up the clave she has to specifically describe it and it’s characteristics. This is why I take pride in being a wind player.
Really great video, as usual! Maybe the 6/8 Clave is missing. It's a quite usual rhythm in afro cuban music and it has its so nice "ternary" flavor :). Thank you for all you give on UA-cam.
For u to have an idea how the clave is influent: there is brazilian funk, and... every single song is based on slight variations on the same beat, in which u can hear the clave on it
There is a Costa Rican book thats exemplifies some afrolatin rhythms.
It's called "Compendio de Percusión Afrolatina" (Afrolatin percussion compilation).
There have the most common rhythms and their relation with the clave.
Key in Spanish is llave, right?
Yes, or clave. Depends what it's the key to. The key to your house is a llave. The key to your wifi router is a clave. They must have a common root, since we have 'clau' for key in Catalan, 'clé' (or 'clef') in French, etc.
You can see that all these words are related. I don't know how or when modern Spanish 'llave' deviated from the others.
It seems that 'llave' is always a physical key, like the one for your house or your car, whereas 'clave' is a 'key' as in a code or password. If you were trying to crack a cypher to read a coded message, you would need a 'clave' not a 'llave.
@@frmcf You could ask for the wifi clave but most people use the term contraseña.
Lopez Hamilton, but the video is about 'clave' not 'contraseña' ;)
Richard Christie, always Scotch! Never Irish, never bourbon, haven't tried Japanese, but would love to.
This is the first of your videos I've watched, but I love your unaccountable elephants!
rebellephants!
friggin' awesome content
Everytime I watch one of your videos e get new ideas to compose! These videos are amazing. Thank you!
I recommend to check out the Danzón 2 or 8 of Arturo Márquez to see one exemple of these rythms in classical music
What this video taught me is that the 5/4 "clave" is technically not actually a clave rhythm, as it's only four notes covering one bar of five as opposed to five notes spanning two bars of four. It does, however have the split time feel (two dotted quarter notes followed by two straight quarter notes), so I'm guessing that's why it's called a clave?
Being Brazilian, the rhythm that came to mind when i saw the title was the Bossa Nova clave even though I didn’t know it had that name. And that Bossa Rumba clave is a bit familiar, so i might have heard it somewhere...
If you play a son 3 2 clave around 80 bpm, and place 808 kick beats on the clave, with some steady 16th note hi hats, and snare on the downbeats you get a trap/hip hop beat.
A big reason why the bossa nova clave might behave differently from the others in terms of triplet feel is because both son and rumba come from Cuba, and bossa nova comes from Brazil. Totally different musical traditions
and here we have funk carioca, that cames from miami bass and other regional tradditions, and still uses the son clave
Great video. The only thing I think you missed is how clave can be flipped from 3:2 to 2:3 with a 7 bar phrase which happens pretty regularly in my experience.
????this never happens during a single song!!!
also the clave usually written in cut time.
Clave doesn't mean key, like what you use to open a door, that would be llave🗝.
Clave can mean key as in the you are playing in the key of C🎼. It can also be the solution to a code or problem. Or it can be something that illuminates the solution (this item is key in understanding...).
Thanks for Wonderful lecture !!! thanks. amazing
When it played, the Furret Walk song started playing in my head
I don't think a quarter note metronome was necessary but I couldn't get a feel for the second and third rhythms at all and was really expecting to hear some music to give context.
Sorry if this is too much of a novice question on my parts, but what's the logic behind notating this rhythm in 2/4 signature rather than 4/4?
Thanks! I needed this lesson since the term popped up in a few places
I think I've never been so mesmerized by hearing different variations of "klicking" sounds for 8 minutes.
It’s got the rhythm I desire. Sets the metronome on fire. I want Clave!
Have you ever done a video on polyrhythm?
Hey, I wrote a song with that bossa rumba clave and didn’t even know it. We can check that off the list!
All I hear when that son clave pattern plays is Psalm 8 - my mum made her own tune to that biblical psalm which also included clapping in that pattern. Man, it's been a long time since we were in church.
came back to this video to remember the name "tresillo" 😅 Awesome job!
I read the thumbnail as "The Cave" and thought you were doing a Mumford & Sons breakdown. Hahahaha
Hey @12tone
Im new to your channel. I found out about it yesterday and have watched like 12 videos so far.
I love the channel and im learning alot not only about theory and famous music but also art in general and my own music as well.
May I suggest a few "Understanding " videos of Opeth?
Like "Understanding Benighted" or "Understanding Drapery Falls"
Etc.
I think it'd be great!
:)
Anyways
I love the channel
Keep it up dude.
Jethro Tull's song "Living in the Past" uses the clave instrument and it does sound very syncopated and similar to this rhythm, but it's in 5/4 time. How can that work? Even to this day decades later I have trouble playing along (making mouth noises).
This is an AMAZING video!! Thank you!
also before the latin jazz craze no one talked about the clave because it was expected every timba ,bongo or timbal player new also the music arranger had to write on clave or the riffs and chart were not played. If you research all the great big bands, the small combos had great latin drumers.
You could argue that the first three notes of that Clave are the most popular in the world, since so many pop songs use that as well as Dancehall, rap and hip-hop at Cetera at Cetera
great video! I've noticed the cuban tresillo rhythm all across pop music, particularly in the past decade, and I wonder if there's any consensus regarding how it went from cuban music to a staple of 2010s pop?
it's not only cuban, as the video explained, it came from african diaspora so it is common eveeywhere from the US to brazil
I would guess it has to do with certain "Latin pop" artists becoming popular and using the reggaeton beat in their music ("Gasolina" is a good example). That's most likely where it originates from. Then again, you can definitely find this rhythm in older pop and rock music too - it's just not as explicit in the music.
@@MaggaraMarine simpathy for the devil, for example
vitorgas1
Yeah, or Motorbreath by Metallica. It's actually all over punk (influenced) music - just check out the "D beat". Actually, the "Charleston rhythm" that's used a lot in jazz is also pretty close to tresillo.
Here's my quick simplified guess. Dancehall >Reggaetone>Modern Pop.
You should do a Dave Matthew's song. I've always loved the complexity behind them.
Do you giveaway or sell the sheets you use to write out the episode?
I didn't know some of these were claves. Especially the Bossa Nova clave and the Tresillo.
"You will hear two humble wooden sticks playing one of the nost important rhythms in music, which sounds like this:
*Click click click clickclick click click click*"
My brain: MC MIKEY!
Are there any sources you would recommend that have a list of all the Claves? Or an exhaustive list as possible?
Bersuit Vergarabat - Murguita del Sur starts up with Clave and builds upon that to make a beautiful song!
The Bossa Nova always sounded not quite there to me, but when you changed it to the 2:3 version it sounded so right lol. So weird..
Clave is Hint or a pin. I like your doodles. Thanks
THIS IS JUST AMAZING VIDEO - THANK YOU! I don't have to even open your channel to subscribe!
Great video! Could you make a vídeo about brazilian funk music? I believe "Bum Bum Tam Tam" is a great song to analyse!
Don't forget the Freestyle Music (aka Latin Hip-Hop) Clave! Examples:
"Tears" by Rockell - ua-cam.com/video/AAIiKoYylAo/v-deo.html
"Diana" by Collage. - ua-cam.com/video/FkqUyvEupyE/v-deo.html