Clave Drum Beats
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Learn How To Play The Clave Latin Drum Beat!
The word clave means key, which is the foundation to most afro cuban style music. 3-2 clave or forward clave and 2-3, or reverse clave, are the two types of clave beats. The first thing I should mention is that the word is pronounced cla-vay. I've heard many people say "Yeah, I know how to play the clay-ves." Well, maybe they can play them, but they can't pronounce them!
Clave is the name of both the rhythm and the instrument used to play that rhythm. The instrument consists of two sticks. The proper way to hold them is very different from the way you would hold a drumstick. If you hold the claves as you would drumsticks and bang them together you will get a very dull uninteresting sound. The sound we are after resonates more. To hold the claves, first create a cup in your hand as though you are holding water and don't want to spill it. Place one of the claves in that cub and tight up just enough to keep the clave from falling out if you turn your hand over. Hold the other like a drumstick, but looser, and bang the two sticks together. You should get a nice resonate sound that rings out much more clearly than when you held them like drumsticks. When you hit them together be sure to strike the resting clave in the middle. If you hit it on one of the edges it is liable to fly out of your hand and hit your or a band mate.
At this point it is interesting to note the two sticks have different pitches. If you switch the sticks you will notice that one has a slightly higher pitch than the other. When you buy claves be sure to get a good set. I use LP claves, they sound nice and are not too heavy and not too light. There are three types of clave, the son clave, the rumba clave, and the 6/8 afro-cuban clave. You may also hear the terms brazilian clave and bossa nova clave, but those two exist outside of traditional cuban music.
The downloadable sheet music will show you how each of the rhythms we discussed are played.
Learn how to play the bossa nova drum beat in the next drum lesson.
