Clave: The African Roots of Salsa

By Christopher Washburne

This article originally appeared in the Fall 1995 issue of Kalinda!, the newsletter of the Kalinda Project at the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

Christopher Washburne is a trombonist and a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, where he is writing a dissertation on salsa music

Salsa is a Latin musical style that incorporates a variety of influences. Originating in Cuba and Puerto Rico and emerging from the musical climate of New York City in the 1950s, it has found popularity throughout the Americas and the other Caribbean islands as well as in Europe and Japan. Salsa has its roots in Cuban popular and folkloric music and is enhanced by jazz textures.

The name salsa, literally meaning "sauce," has been in use since the late 1960s, popularized by New York's Fania Records as a "catchy" marketing label. Salsa is often thought of as Latin essence, just as the word "soul" has been a description for black American essence (Baron 1977, 217).

In Spanish, "clave" literally means key, clef, code, or keystone. Fernando Ortiz ([1935] 1984, 9) believes that it is derived from "clavija," meaning wooden peg, reflecting the appearance of the instrument that plays the clave rhythm, called claves. Claves are two wooden sticks that are struck together to produce a high piercing sound. If no clave player is present in a salsa band, timbale players will often attach a hollowed-out, hard plastic, open-ended box to their cowbell stand and strike it with their sticks to produce a clave sound.

In Latin music terminology, the word "clave" refers not only to these instruments but also to the specific rhythmic patterns they play and the underlying rules that govern these patterns. Concerning these rules, Amira and Cornelius (1992, 23) choose the analogy of a "keystone-the wedge shaped stone placed at the top of an arch which locks all the other stones in place" to describe the function of the clave in relation to all of the other parts in the music. All musical and dance components in salsa performance are governed by the clave rhythm. In some way, they must correspond at all times to the clave rhythmic pattern. Amira and Cornelius (1992, 23) continue: "Clave is a two measure pattern in which each measure is diametrically opposed. The two measures are not at odds, but rather, they are balanced opposites, like positive and negative, expansive and contractive, or the poles of a magnet. As the pattern is repeated, and alteration from one polarity to the other takes place creating pulse and rhythmic drive. Were the pattern to be suddenly reversed, the [momentum within the] rhythm would be destroyed."

The Clave Concept
The clave found in salsa, also known as "son clave" is notated in Example 4 (see page 3). How a song begins determines which measure of the clave will be played first. The phrasing of the melody is the determining factor, that is, where the accented rhythms of the melody occur. This is referred to as either 3-2 or 2-3, meaning either the measure with the three strokes is played first with the two-stroke measure following, or the two stroke is played first followed by the three-stroke measure. According to tradition, once a song begins, the clave does not change its measure order. For instance, there could never be a 3-2-2-3 clave sequence.

Once the song has begun, the clave pattern functions like the continuous bell patterns found in West African musical traditions by providing a rhythmic formula that serves as the foundation. As Roberta Singer (1982,168) states, "Clave is a rhythmic time line that . . . functions as a rhythmic organizing principle for the entire ensemble." The rhythm may be overtly played or implied. Competent musicians in salsa must develop a "clave sense" similar to Richard Waterman's "metronome sense," where a subjective pulse is felt by the participants which may not be overtly heard but functions as an ordering principle (Waterman 1952).

This declaration effectively illustrates the broad range of the clave concept and some of its descriptive uses. More importantly, it reaffirms the African roots of the rhythm.

The following evolutionary theory1 concerning the clave rhythm's origins, which may explain why Africa and its hereditary nature are mentioned in the Clave publication, is based on three assumptions.

1. When the 700,000 African slaves arrived in Cuba during the 1770s, they did not forget the bell patterns from the traditional music of their past but rather incorporated them into music making in their new surroundings.

2. The pan-West African bell pattern shown in Example 1, or something similar, existed during the 1700s.2

This assumption is based on the pattern's prevalence today among many different African peoples covering an expansive area.

3. As new practices emerged from the combining of various African peoples in the New Worlds, new performance styles arose.

As the Clave inscription suggests, the performance of clave is a living and breathing tradition shaped by the performance practice of individuals. Each musician contributes to the proliferation and evolution of the tradition by his or her own subtle variations of feel and nuance. Over time, a subtle peculiarity or feel may become the standard, replacing an older practice.

Rumba Styles
Rumba is a style of music originating from African slaves and their descendants living in Cuba. Some of the oldest recorded Cuban rumba styles, such as rumba columbia originating from the small towns of the island's interior, are performed with a 12/8 feel, similar to musics where the bell pattern in Example 1 is performed. However, in rumba columbia the bell pattern or clave is slightly different from the West African bell pattern. Instead of consisting of seven strokes, the rumba columbia clave contains only five. (See example 2)



In some Haitian musical styles, the rumba columbia pattern started on the third stroke instead. The reason for this reduction from seven strokes to five may never be known since it occurred before recording technology was available. It may have started with an individual variation or was the result of the fusing of two or more African styles.

Another later style of rumba, guaguancó, emerged from urban areas in a quasi 4/4 feel instead of 12/8. The duple meter feel may have been the result of the influence of marching bands and other Spanish styles often heard in the larger cities throughout the 1700s. The clave used in guaguancó appears to be an adaptation of the clave rhythm found in rumba columbia to fit the new metric feel (see example 3.) This pattern is most often referred to as rumba clave. The next step of the evolution came from a simplification of styles. The son clave, used in salsa, displaces the final stroke of the three-stroke measure of the rumba clave by one eight note.