Salsa

Man, I would love to be able to say something sensible here, but I feel I am totally unqualified. Who is offering him/herself as a guest columnist?

Salsa music

Salsa music is not based on a backbeat, such as a lot of dance music, but rather on a rhythmic concept called the clave. Just to confuse you, there is a rhythm instrument called claves, which consists of two wooden sticks that you hit together. Sometimes claves are used to play the clave, but keep the distinction in mind.

Clave is a 2-bar, 8-beat rhythm pattern that is repeated throughout a piece of salsa music. One bar is called the two-side, the other the three-side. In the two-side beats 2 and 3 are used, in the three-side beats 1, (2)&, and 4. Depending on which comes first, a piece of music is said to be based on a 2/3 clave or a 3/2 clave. There is actually a relation between the two halves of the clave, and binary rhythms in other music: one side of the clave is the weak side and the other the strong side. Thus, there is the same tension/release structure we have seen in other forms of dance music.

The bass in salsa music often plays a rhythm, called tumbao, that is based on the three side of the clave. That is, the bass does not play a two-bar pattern based on the two-side and the three-side, but rather it keeps repeating the three-side. Example; Usted by Alfredo de la Fe. Play. The rhythm is of course not always played so clearly; you can hear that after a few repetitions the bass player in this example starts to embellish on the basic rhythm, but the essence remains the three-side of the clave.

Dancers used to rhythmically simpler music are often thrown by this rhythm, since there is no heavy accent on beat 1. In other words, you are supposed to take your first step, starting the dance even, on a beat that is not clearly marked. This is true, and you will have to learn to deal with it. Still, knowing how this bass rhythm works can often be the key to finding beat one.

Salsa dancing

This file is part of "Feel The Beat", a musicology course for dancers, by Victor Eijkhout (victor at eijkhout dot net), who appreciates being sent additions or corrections on the material in this course. Copyright 2000/1 Victor Eijkhout.

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URL: http://www.eijkhout.net/ftb/text_files/Salsa.html

Last modified on: Sunday, May 6, 2001.