Deriving harmony from Salsa music and disparate dance movement: Mambo - Modern - Afro Cuban - Latin Jazz - Hip Hop - Tango - Ballroom - Ballet - Swing - Jazz
Claves: Translated is "the key," it's Salsa's basic tool, a pair of smooth wooden cylindrical blocks which, when banged together, fill the air with a clear, bell-like tone. The clave rhythm has two-measures consisting of three percussive strokes in one measure, followed by a measure with two strokes. Some melodies begin with the measure with two strokes. Other melodies begin with the three-stroke measure. Thus some melodies are based on the three-two form of the clave; others, on the two-three form.Cuban soldiers carried claves in their pockets during the 1898 War of Independence with Spain, ready to accompany guitarists' songs.
Marimbula: The first bass notes in Cuban son songs were blown from a hole in the side of the big round earthenware bottles used to store cooking oil. The more powerful marimbula, with its marvellous, deep, earthy voice, replaced these. The marimbula is a cedar wood box with metal tongues bolted to one side and a sound-hole cut above the prongs. It derives from the thumb pianos known as mbiras and sanzas, found all over Africa, and can be slung around the player's neck like a cigarette girl's tray, or sat on while the musician plucks the prongs with a leather thong. It was eventually replaced by the more versatile double bass.
Guiro: The other legacy of the Caribbean Indians, these rhythmic 'scrapers' add a regular hissing, scratchy pulse to many styles of Latin music. Their shapes and sizes vary, from the Cuban guiro, made of shiny, serrated, long, woody, gourds and scratched with a stick, to the Dominican guayo, a pointed metal cylinder designed to grate vegetables but transformed into an upbeat timepiece when vigorously scraped with a metal stick or Afro haircomb in merengue groups.
Bongo: Developed in Eastern Cuba's first son groups, the uniquely Cuban bongo drums are made of cedar wood to give a bright, light, pinging sound. The two drum heads are of different sizes - the larger, deeper macho and the smaller, higher hembra. Sounds are drawn through the changing angles and weights of fingers, nails and hands - like a masseur working the skin.
Maracas: The ancient legacy of the Caribbean Indians, these small, round, dried gourds with handles attached are a greatly underestimated instrument. When shaken by a virtuoso, the seeds or pellets inside smash against the head in a single sharp note, as precise as any electronic pulse.
Conga: The most commonplace drum in music other than salsa. It was originally a single, large, portable instrument played in carnival parades and religious ceremonies. Modern versions work in 'sets' or 'nests' of up to six differently tuned drums, each requiring a different technique to coax its voice. Congas signify Africa; they were first introduced to the dancehall in the 1940's by Cuban guitarist Arsenio Rodriguez, and were a shocking reminder of the African presence.
Bata: Until 1930, when the composer Gilberto Valdes wrote a piece involving them, bata drums appeared only in the private ceremonies of the Afro-Cuban santeria religion. They are talking drums which 'sing' the esoteric songs of the ancient Yoruba languages of the slaves. Some are hundreds of years old, protected in temples like holy relics and played only by the babalao (priest) who feeds them and sings their ancient chants.
Cencerro: Metal cowbells were originally welded together in pairs. When hit with a stick or by a pedal attached to the timbales kit, today's single cattle bells yield two distinctive metallic tones - a high note near the handle and a deeper note from the open bell. 'Pacheco bells', invented by salsa icon Johnny Pacheco in the 1960's, are scored with a groove across the surface to give extra tones.
Timbales: This descendant of the round-bottomed kettle drum (tympani) brought by Italian opera companies to Cuba in the nineteenth century was adopted by military brass bands and commandeered by the charanga orchestras which played danzons. As they became more portable the techniques got richer. Their crisp, metallic tone is a perfect foil for the sweeter fiddles-and-flute leads which dominate the charanga sound. Tito Puente explains its function: 'The timbales marks the breaks and fills in with a different sound from the other percussion - sharper, higher pitched, metallic. It carries the basic beat, the timing, and of course is used for solos too.'
Pandereta: A frame drum tambourine with no jangles - brought to the Caribbean by the Spanish and Canary Islanders who inherited it from the Arab musicians - is central in the Puerto Rican plena style where it traditionally accompanies the guitar and vocalists.
Of course, nearly every instrument has been used at one time or another in Salsa. Important instruments in salsa include: piano, accordion, trumpet, trombone, saxaphone, bass, synthesizer, flute, violin, guitar, tres (Cuban guitar), cuatro (Puerto Rican guitar), chekere, agogo, and the xylophone.
The salsa orchestra has its origins in the wandering guitar and percussion trios who played the first popular 'son' songs in turn-of-the-century Cuba. these have evolved into today's formidable show bands in which percussion is center stage, with the horns, bass and piano fanning out around them and the singers up front. Click here to get all the Latin music you'll ever need.
Salsa instruments often work in blocks: the cowbell paired with congas; bass (electric or double) with piano. Rhythm is the heart of the music. Most percussion instruments - congas, bongos, tamboras, batas - are played in pairs or have twin heads, allowing players to converse not only with each other but also between their left and right hands. Songs unfold in a series of conversations and ad-libbed solos, most typically in a solo-and-chorus, call-and-response structure descended from African song. This is most obvious between the singer and the band, but also takes place between soloing instruments. In partnerships based on years of working together, it's like watching lifelong tango partners in full flight.
Threaded through salsa is the fundamental rhythm called clave. Children clap its 1-2-3, 1-2 pattern almost before they can speak. Feelings run high on the subject.'Clave is your basic rhythm pattern,' declares Joe Cuba. 'If you're off clave, you're off rhythm.' He cites the formidable pianist Eddie Palmieri: 'Eddie's left hand is always in clave, it gives him his base, then his right hand can jump all over the world.' Cuban trumpeter Jesus Alemany is adamant, 'Clave is the vertebra of my musical feeling, the crucial way that the bass line, percussion and chorus, and of course, the dance itself, link together.' The biggest sin for such purists is to play out of clave, though that has never bothered mavericks like Willie Colon who started breaking the rules in the 1970's. Cutting-edge musicians all over Latin America are today mixing rap rhymes and electronic beats into the clave patterns.
Latin percussion can be baffling to outsiders. These instruments often perform rhythm, harmony and melody all at once. Pianists are percussionists; conga players play melodies.Percussion sections can operate like an orchestra; a single drummer can play both rhythms and tunes.
Each musician appears to play to a different rhythm with no connection to the rest, though in fact they are instinctively, precisely related. The main problem facing newcomers to salsa is how to disentangle the seemingly impenetrable cross-rhythms, and then - how to start dancing. With much listening, however, the rhythms become clear and more exciting. 3