It is believed that clave was born out of 6/8 rhythms. When you hear Afro-Cuban music, listen closely to its underlying 6/8 feel, and check out how the rhythm section seems to weave in and out between the 4/4 and 6/8 feels seamlessly and with some elasticity.
Two forms of the clave used today are the son clave (Examples 1 and 2) and the rumba clave (Examples 3 and 4). As you can see, both forms can be played in either of two variations: Examples 1 and 3 show what is known as the 3:2 variation (with three accents in the first bar and two accents in the second bar), while Examples 2 and 4 show the 2:3 variation. All Afro-Cuban percussion patterns, piano montuños, bass tumbaos, melodies, and improvised riffs must adhere to whichever clave is being used in a particular piece. Since the clave is a two-bar pattern, composers and arrangers add or subtract a measure at the end of a section if they want to reverse the clave from 3:2 to 2:3 within a song.
Son is one of the traditional forms of Afro-Cuban from which contemporary forms have evolved. This music is written around clave, so it’s important for us bass players to understand and feel clave in order to make this music swing!
The tumbao (repeated bass pattern) that we play does not change with the clave. The bass pattern used in son is played on beat one, the “and” of two, and beat four, which is tied to the following measure’s beat one. Most of the time the bass doesn’t play the downbeat; in fact, it may play the downbeat only on the tune’s first bar! After that, beat four is always tied to beat one of the next measure; therefore, the band needs to play the next chord on beat four as opposed to the downbeat. Those of us who have played R&B, jazz, rock, and pop are used to playing on beat one, so this can get a little confusing!
Set your metronome at a comfortable tempo and start walking on beats one and three. Now try playing Ex. 5. Once you are comfortable with it, move on to Examples 6 and 7. We are going to look at playing through changes in the next lesson. In the meantime, try to get your hands on some Afro-Cuban music, and go salsa dancing!