From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
Date: Sun Jan 25 2004 - 21:01:13 GMT
Dear forum,
Here is an explanation of the clave taken from, Cuban fire p.37-8 by Isabelle
Leymarie:
Popular Cuban music and its offshoots are based on the clave. This
deceptively simple two-bar pattern of African origin can in fact prove disconcerting,
bewildering even, to non-Latinos or even to musicians grounded in the jazz
mainstream. According to Patato Valdes: "The clave can neither be given nor be
bought. One is born with it, it is a question of feeling." There exist several
variations of the clave, according to the type of rhythm played. The most common,
in the son and in salsa, is the so-called "2/3" one.
The clave, of which there are still other examples in use, remains steady
throughout a musical piece. It is maintained by two claves - wooden sticks struck
together: one "male" (macho - the one which strikes), the other "female"
(hembra), held in the cupped left hand. The Venezuelan bandleader Edmundo Ros
stated that "for the laymen, the claves can appear as the simplest of all
Latin-American instruments. However, the one who plays it is, undoubtedly, the most
important member of the band. The perfection of the performance depends on him:
his timing must be perfect and he must produce a crisp. clear and penetrating
sound, heard above the rest of the outfit." As Tito Puente exclaimed: "It's
amazing what those two little sticks can do!"
If claves are not used, the clave is internalised by the musicians and
remains implicit. If it is not respected, the rhythm becomes turned around (one says
fuera de clave), and the overall equilibrium of the band, contingent upon the
subtle overlapping of all the instruments - each with a clearly defined roll
- is destroyed.
Note these phrases:
"The clave can neither be given nor be bought. One is born with it, it is a
question of feeling."
However, the one who plays it is, undoubtedly, the most important member of
the band.
The perfection of the performance depends on him...
If it is not respected ... ... the overall equilibrium of the band ... ... is
destroyed.
When the clave is maintained the quality of the performance approaches
perfection, and is most beautiful. The MoQ has a vocabulary for describing this
process: SQ-SQ tension and coherence.
The static patterns in tension comprising this band have Intellectual,
social, biological and inorganic components - each contributing towards the coherent
state of the quality of the performance. The inorganic and biological are
relatively obvious - resonant material instrumentation and sexual display. The
social is largely ritual - the African origins of rhythm and ritual may be
closely related with the evolution of intellect as manipulation of patterned
behaviour in drumming and singing? The sophistication of polyrhythmic musical
patterns held in severe coherence requires a degree of intellectual manipulation far
beyond any other life form on Earth.
There are no subjects and objects at the point of perfection, as the process
becomes an exceptional coherent state or 'sweet spot:' patterns are motivated
into new coherent states by DQ, and the new states are a move towards ever
greater coherence with DQ.
All art - the art of the drummer, mathematician, painter, sculptor, teacher,
speaker, emerges from this source - the unconceptualised nothingness of DQ.
That is, intelligence precedes all conceptual patterns, and is evident all the
time if one attends to it.
Mark
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
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