It’s not really “for nothing.” Eventually, through more exposure to the music, some students will be able to distinguish where the clave is, even if it is not explicitly played in the song.

Students cannot hear the clave.Įssentially, students learned all this stuff about clave for nothing. Then the instructor plays a song (say it is “Me dicen Cuba” by Havana D’Primera) and…well, no one is playing the clave in the song.

So the instructor bangs the sticks together, and steps in time to the clave. That is, how to find where the 1-count (of the dancer) is in the clave pattern (depending on whether it is a 3:2 or 2:3 clave), so that they can keep a steady beat throughout the song, as the clave pattern itself remains equally steady. And they use the clave to essentially teach people how to keep a beat. Indeed, clave is the instrument used by pretty much every Cuban dance instructor who incorporates musicality into their lessons. Now, you might be wondering about the title. If you feel that you understand the difference, then by all means keep reading.

If all of this is confusing to you, I strongly recommend that you read that piece first (click here) and then come back and read this one. It really boiled down to this: there is really just one clave pattern, when you listen to it in a loop, the 3-side being the beginning but most Cuban musicians nowadays choose to begin the musical phrase of the song on the 2-side, so that the 1 count of the dancer happens to be on the 2-side of the clave therefore, if we were to dance to the clave where our 1 count is on the 3-side-that is, going with the normal clave pattern-we would be going against where the song is actually saying the 1 count is (in this case, the 2-side). Some months ago, I wrote a quite extensive article explaining the differences between what people refer to as the “2:3 clave” and the “3:2 clave”.

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