Yambu Palitos for Son clave

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Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby bongosnotbombs » Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:04 pm

I know Yambu Havana style can be played using Son clave.

When I studied with Carlos Aldama he taught yambu using rumba clave
and a certain palitos like the top example

The palitos Carlos taught me doesn't seem to got with Son clave, it seems made for Rumba clave.

and the way I learned clave/palitos Yambu Matanzas style is like the bottom example


So I was wondering which palitos is played with the Son clave style yambu? Gary Greenbergs book puts the same style of palitos that is used with matanzas yambu with the Son clave havana yambu. Is that the usual?
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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby Derbeno » Wed Mar 25, 2009 2:19 am

I uploaded this one for you, as it happens I am working on exactly the same thing at the moment. Check it out.

The Cuban chaps down here are quite adamant that Yambu should only be played in Son clave. I will mention the Rumba clave concept to them.

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w187 ... t=Kata.flv
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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby Thomas Altmann » Wed Mar 25, 2009 2:32 am

While I'm open to learn some explicit rules - if there are any - from Rumba experts, my take is that Son clave was the norm with the early form of Yambú, with cajones; so if you wish to play Yambú really traditional, you pick up on that.

You could play Son clave with either of both cáscara patterns, if you wanted to go traditional. Likewise, you may use Rumba clave with any cáscara pattern. It depends on your artistic intention. The only cáscara pattern that I would never combine with Son clave is:

||: xx.xxx.x|x.x.xx.x :||

The reason is probably that this pattern is never used for Yambú, but exclusively with Guaguancó.

The cáscara pattern in your first example is a variation that I would not have deemed to be standard for Rumba at all; so thanks for sharing that. Aldama is certainly a credible source.

While I regard the cáscara in your second example as more common standard for any type of 4/4 Rumba, the clave pattern is a typical variation that resembles the combination of the standard Rumba clave with the pulse. This alone is (as far as I know) a regular cáscara pattern for Columbia, played with two sticks independently in that instance (and with more of a 6/8 feel). Played on the claves, however, it is a pattern I used to associate with Havana-style Guaguancó (until now).

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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby windhorse » Wed Mar 25, 2009 3:40 am

Derbino's playing the one I've heard played more often.
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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby bongosnotbombs » Wed Mar 25, 2009 4:10 am

Well that's funny, because Derbeno is playing the palito pattern that Thomas says he would never
play with Son clave.

Isn't that how it goes sometimes?

I took Carlos's class for about a year, and I never ever played Son clave there, even though we played Yambu a lot.

I have Carlos's instructional cd "Rumba Clave" that he sells at his class as my source, and he combines the yambu palitos I have written with rumba clave. In addition to my experience in the class.

I must say, artistically I prefer Carlos Aldamas clave and palito pattern, it is more sparse and I like how it opens up the slower yambu.
This kind of contrasts the Havana style of yambu that I know for tumbadoras, as it is more full or "busy" compared to the Matanzas yambu that I know.

(before David Penalosa comes in with there is no 2/3 clave in rumba, etc :) ,
on Carlos' cd it is not "2/3" clave as we know it, it is 3/2 clave, the 2/3 is a kind of mistake derived
from the manner Carlos instructs clave, he counts it Un Dos, Un Dos Tres, there is no doubt the first "Dos" is the bombo)
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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby Derbeno » Wed Mar 25, 2009 8:12 am

BTW guys that was not me playing. It is an extract from the Javier Campos Martinez dvd. I put it on my photobucket page and will remove it, for obvious reasons, once this thread has ran it's course.
Photobucket with a private account keeps it quite contained and does not open it to the whole world like youtube does.
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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby guarachon63 » Wed Mar 25, 2009 2:37 pm

Thomas wrote:
While I'm open to learn some explicit rules - if there are any - from Rumba experts, my take is that Son clave was the norm with the early form of Yambú, with cajones; so if you wish to play Yambú really traditional, you pick up on that.


I agree, and would even go so far as to say son clave was, if not the norm, then quite common in early guaguancó as well.

I have no concrete proof to support it, but my suspicion is that rumba playing was fairly non-standardized until the advent of recordings and large-scale formalized instruction began, relatively recently.

Before, I imagine rumberos who got together regularly in one place played rumba one way, those in another slightly differently, and so on. And if it all sounded good nobody worried too much about it. Remember we are talking about guys playing on drawers, codfish boxes, tack-head congas tuned over a fire, whatever was available.

I say this because are so many recorded examples of odd deviations from "standard" rumba, especially from the early days, for it to be otherwise. Not only the classic "cruzao" style (playing the tres/dos on the first two notes of clave), which is now considered a cardinal sin among most rumberos, but the drums are tuned to unusal intervals, even the high and low tones of the drums reversed, all sorts of "crazy" things. Listen closely to those old records by Mongo, Alberto Zayas, Patato y Totico, you will hear all this stuff.

I think someone posted here once a recording of a columbia sung over a guaguancó. Last year I witnessed Ricardo Santa Cruz start doing this at a rumba and then get kind of pissed off when the drummers suddenly switched to a columbia pattern.

There is even a recent recording of a yambú by Coro Folklorico that starts in son clave and ends up in rumba clave ("Mi Yambú" on the "...en un solar habanero" album). Does this "mistake" ruin the recording? Not at all, I think it's beautiful. Now, if I were to make a rumba album, would I allow something like that? I doubt it. There are some things only mayores can get away with. :wink:

I think most of the time it really comes down to just general agreement among the people you are playing with at the moment. If all the guys are insisting on hearing yambú with son clave, it's probably more fun to just oblige them than to try to convince them otherwise. :D
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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby Tonio » Wed Mar 25, 2009 6:30 pm

Great thread folks :D

This kind of ties in with the "sharing transcripes" thread LOL.

As far as clave- personally I was taught to use rumba clave with Yambu, and the appropriate palitos with variations.
But son clave with any rumba was a no-no.

My position with that other thread is related in that any instruction is biased to a degree by the instructors personal and /or creative inflection. Possibly a traditional or inspirational endevour.

Many "artists" whether by modernism or pioneering forthought can influence the clave. Some pioneers change the clave, just to do it, whether its a intrigiuing juxtoposition for creating something new, or out of lazyness to get out of a clash.

I'd like to hear David's take on this issue also.

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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby Thomas Altmann » Wed Mar 25, 2009 8:39 pm

Guys, I was way off when I said that this cáscara pattern is only played in Guaguancó and never with Son clave:

||: xx.xxx.x|x.x.xx.x :||

Listening to this beautiful version by the Conjunto Folklórico of the Yambú "Ave Maria Morena", they are doing just this: playing the above cáscara in combination with Son clave. I wonder whether Carlos Aldama himself was not participating in the recording. And they play so d a r n s l o w ! ! ! The quintero magnificently manages to keep the energy up, and the singing is just so beautiful! I heard that it was Trinidad Torregrosa there singing. Of course they were using cajones.

The same coro is used un the track "Yambu" on the Carlos Embale record "Conjunto Guaguancó". Conga drums were used on this number, the standard cáscara pattern is played in conjunction with Rumba clave. The tempo is considerably faster, but the piece is explicitly labeled a Yambu on the back of the cover. After all, the deciding factor in classifying a Rumba is the dance, which in turn dictates the tempo and feel of the music.

"Ave Maria Morena" can also be found as a traditional Yambú (with cajones and Son clave) on the CD "La Rumba es Cubana - Su Historia" by Gregorio Hernández "Goyo". Here they play what I called the "standard cáscara pattern" along with Son clave:

||: x.xx.x.x|x.x.xx.x :||

That's the rhythm I would use without thinking too much in advance.

On the CD "Real Rumba" I found the Matanzas-type accompaniment that Geordie was talking about: "Tasajero" by the group Afrocuba de Matanzas.

So we have pretty open categories here, just as Barry said. Actually Rumba is rumba: party, booze and high spirits. If you don't have a stereo equipment with the hottest new CDs, you take some drums; if you don't have drums, you take boxes, bottles and spoons. If you don't have these, you take whatever you are stumbling over. I don't know enough about the history of the genre to speculate at which point Rumba has become that noble, classical and lo más sublime para el alma divertir, and I am not sure whether this was a development to appreciate or to regret. It is definitely an art, that much is clear; it has always been an art form. But fencing Rumba into strict rules and stylistic limitations could deprive this art of its essence. Remember that the basis had once been rather raw and simple. It is a fun thing.

Knowing that, and having a basic understanding of the music, I would take it easy if somebody admonished me not to play this in Yambú or that in Guaguancó, only because they don't play like this in the pueblo x or the barrio y, hand the drum to the next player and meanwhile get me another can of beer.

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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby davidpenalosa » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:59 pm

Hi folks,
The 1997 two-volume illustrated encyclopedia of Cuban musical instruments (“Instrumentos de la Música Folclórico-Popular de Cuba”) put out by the Center for the Investigation of Cuban Music (Centro de Investigación de la Música Cubana) calls the composite pattern of rumba + the main beats “clave Matanzas”:

|| X - - X X - - X | X - X - X - - - || clave Matanzas

They call what we refer to as “son clave”—“clave Habana”:

|| X - - X - - X - | - - X - X - - - || clave Habana

The first Cuban folkloric rumba recording using claves was the 1955 record “Festival in Havana” (featuring Carlos Embale). They used “clave Habana” (son clave) for yambu, guaguancó and columbia. The first recording of Matanzas folkloric rumba using claves was the 1956 record “Guaguanco”, featuring Los Muñequitos (“Conjunto Guaguanco Matancero”). The Muñequitos played the “clave Matanzas” pattern on claves.

Today “clave Matanzas” is still used in yambu in Matanzas and “clave Habana” is still used in yambu in Havana.
-David
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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby pavloconga » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:20 pm

Derbeno wrote:
The Cuban chaps down here are quite adamant that Yambu should only be played in Son clave. I will mention the Rumba clave concept to them.

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w187 ... t=Kata.flv


Hi Derbeno,
I'd say it probably depends on who you talk to.
When I was in Cuba I studied with Guillerme Lopez-Clemente from the Conjunto Folklorico as well as Mario "Chavalonga" Dreke (R.I.P.) and his people.
I only ever heard these rumberos play Yambu with 'rumba' clave (that's not say it 'shouldn't' be played with Son).

Just my 2 congas worth...
Pavlo
Last edited by pavloconga on Fri Mar 27, 2009 6:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby ABAKUA » Fri Mar 27, 2009 12:15 am

In a discussion with Anga on this topic, he explained to me that the original elders originally played yambu & even guaguanco in son clave, later it was recognised that guaguanco was to be in rumba clave as was yambu. However yambu is still playable in son clave in parts of Cuba, personally and I agree with him on this one also, I prefer it in rumba clave as did Anga, it just sounds wrong to me in son clave.
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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby davidpenalosa » Fri Mar 27, 2009 1:32 am

It's clear that the most archetypal pattern in the early guaguanco was what we call today "son clave". When the segundo played its two notes on the three-side, the two lower drums made their melody on clave's first three strokes of son clave. The quinto lock (or ride) is based on a displaced "son clave" motif.I am unable to post graphics here, but if somebody can do that for me, I'll email them a chart of what I'm talking about so it can be posted.
-David
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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave- On behalf of David Peñalosa

Postby Derbeno » Fri Mar 27, 2009 10:11 pm

The below, including the tracks, is posted on behalf of David

Quinto Lock (Ride) as Displaced "Clave" Motif

Each line has the quinto phrase on top and clave (“x” noteheads) at the bottom. The round noteheads are the quinto’s open tones and the triangle noteheads are slaps.
1. The theoretic form. Notice that the quinto strokes are a displaced “clave” beginning on 1e. The following variations are the same motif with strokes removed.

2. Three half-time cross-beats (each slap is grouped in six pulses)

3. Three cross-beats (each tone is grouped in three pulses)

4. The bare minimum version of the lock mode: slap-open-slap on 1e, 2a and 3a. This pattern can be alternated with open-slap-open sounded on the same pulses: slap-open-slap, open-slap-open, etc.

The link below contains three mp3 recordings:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=b928 ... 0a1ae8665a

These recordings reveal guaguancó when it was in a state of flux during the mid-1950s.

• “Era una gran senora” (1955) by Alberto Zayas uses “clave Havana” (son clave). The segundo begins on the three-side. Check out the segundo variation at 0:10. This is a typical variation for this part, but when played in this relation to clave its “clave logic” is apparent. Obviously when the pattern was reversed, the variations were also reversed. Interestingly, the segundo changes to the two-side at 0:18 and remains there for the rest of the song. One more thing—I apologize for the skip at 0:11. My vinyl record is quite old and worn.

• “Donde estabas anoche” (1955) by Ignacio Piñero and Carlos Embale begins with “clave guaguancó” (rumba clave) and then after three cycles, switches to “clave Havana” (son clave) at 0:08.

• “la bandera de mi tierra.” (1956) by Los Muñequitos de Matanzas uses “clave Matanzas”.

Here are the charts

Image
Last edited by Derbeno on Sat Mar 28, 2009 6:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Yambu Palitos for Son clave

Postby bongosnotbombs » Sat Mar 28, 2009 3:20 am

You guys couldn't post the charts?
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