Música
Unlocking the Mysterious Key To Cuban Music
By José Conde
My first attempts at singing Cuban songs where met with resounding disapproval by the Latin music purists in my band who scolded me repeatedly to sing “en la clave”. I was a little offended at first; after all I have Cuban blood.
I thought I knew what clave was and could clap the 2-3 or reversed 3-2 rhythmic pattern flawlessly, and I knew that clave was the focal point, the key or “llave”, which moves most Cuban music. But simply knowing a musical concept is not understanding or feeling it, as I later realized. So, the band continued complaining, “You have to feel the clave when you sing”. I was intimidated by the awesome mystique which Latin musicians give to the clave. It was like Ben Kanobi telling an anxious Luke Skywalker to “feel the power of The Force.”
The sacred exercise that I was given in order to cross the threshold was to practice singing Cuban Son, Guajira or Guaguancó songs while clapping the appropriate clave underneath. At the beginning, it was very difficult to stay in time with the clapping or to keep a steady clave “ostinato” with my singing. However, I eventually achieved the tricky synchronization. The band stopped complaining and we went on to gig together for a year and a half before I left Boston.
After many years of practice, performance, composition and arranging in and around different clave rhythms, I have defeated all those old intimidations and become something of a clave master. Though, for you dancers and aspiring Latin musicians, or the curious, clave remains an enigma worth looking into further.
In Castilian Spanish the word clave has several non-musical meanings, all of which denote something central or key. Clave is the obscure code which unravels a secret language. It is the gist or main idea of a broad work or works; the use of the word clave as the “keystone” comes from architecture, the vital foundation on which a wall, a system, an agreement, or a song is built. Destroy what is clave, and everything it supports will collapse. Hence, we see why “musicians swear by the importance of clave.”
As a musical term, the Spanish originally used clave to denote key signature, which puts a written piece or line in harmonic context, defining the tonal center and basic scale formula and gives music its basic underlying emotional color. My guess is that Spanish musicians in Cuba, observing the music of African slaves, noticed the bell patterns at the core of the music and followed verbal logic, calling it “clave.” Naturally it fused into the music that grew from the island over time and clave became the key signature of rhythm in Cuban music.
By 1534 there were already about a thousand Africans on the Spanish Island colony of Cuba. Joining them were the last of the native “Taino” and the first waves of Spanish settlers. These were the seeds of a historic musical legacy. The Taino, who unfortunately did not survive Spanish encroachment, left us their “güiro” and “maraca” instruments, which are still Cuban music staples, also used in Salsa, “Jibaro” music of Puerto Rico, “Merengue”, etcetera.
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La Clave
The Spanish brought to Cuba a western classical harmonic vocabulary spiced with Gypsy and Middle Eastern sounds and instruments. They brought guitars and lutes and a subtle tradition of everyday romance expressed in folk songs. Later, along with Dahomey. Carabali, Conga, and Yoruba African slaves brought their rituals, religions, songs, and clave, which infused an African language of drums and rhythm into the Cuban cultural mix.One of the most influential rituals practiced freely by the new Cuban Africans was called “Comparsa.” Originally, these were religious rituals in honor of various deities. A Comparsa, also called Conga, is a line of percussionists, singers, and costumed dancers who symbolize either a deity or a character in a story.
White high society officially slandered the rituals as primitive and brutish, even after the end of slavery, but the African music was too provocative to the Spanish blood. Comparsas distributed African rhythms from the streets, to the collective unconscious of Cuba, conquering the heart and soul, and the feet.
Musicologist Elena Perez Sanjuro explains the impact of the “Comparsa”; “The ambiance formed by those dancing groups with colorful costumes filled the Cuban with enthusiasm, who feels in his veins those rhythms he’s heard since the crib.”
This influence inspired popular music and folk composers in Cuba and gave birth to Cuban Clave rhythm, which conceptually evolved from the bell patterns at the heart of African music. Adapted to Cuban music, the central rhythmic figure became more subtle and refined, stated instead with a metal bell by the short, thick hardwood sticks aptly named claves. In African music, the bell pattern blurs the actual beat whereas in Cuban music and the derivative salsa, clave creates a more discernable groove to the Western ear. This makes dancing a little easier.
Throughout the development of Cuban music, from Comparsa to Danzón, Son to today’s Salsa, clave has been the focal point for the dancer and the musician. So remember, “Juega, pero siempre adentro de la clave”.
The author is a singer, songwriter and bandleader of the Cuban Roots Group Jose Conde Y Ola Fresca. For info about the author and his music please visit www.joseconde.com