[thedivahrrrself]

For music geeks!

I was watching Music Voyager yesterday, and it was in Hollywood, FL, of all places, covering a festival to celebrate the anniversary of the arrival of Ponce de Leon. Hollywood looks beautiful, and they are having a bit of an artistic renaissance from the looks of it.

They covered this great flamenco singer/guitar player/killer percussionist, and he was talking about collaborating with Cuban musicians. He said this was interesting because Afro-Cuban music uses a rhythmic system called clave, which goes in two-measure patterns, as opposed to the system classical musicians are used to with predictable emphasis every 1 measure and 4 measure phrases. This immediately interested me, and upon listening and drumming out a few of the beats, I was crazy fascinated!

So basically, it's like writing music in 8/4 time, which gives you some room to play with your rhythm and vary it without worrying about the every measure emphasis (on the upbeat of 1 &3 that is so popular, for instance).

If you take this even further on the melodic side, not having the 4-measure phrasing means some chord patterns can be a lot more complex and less predictable.

OK, so I just had to geek out on that for a minute. Because it totally explained why my brain has just attached itself to Cuban music for the last year or so.... the patterns are so unique and intricate, and now I know why