Dear Reader,
A friend of mine asked me to write an article about my experience so far as a person who both plays and dances salsa. I have had some difficulty doing this because while there are some aspects of it that are tremendously rewarding, there are also parts that are painfully frustrating as well. The frustrating parts are hard for me to write about constructively. The other problem I have is that explaining some of my thoughts requires quite a lot of musical jargon, which I cannot expect the average reader to understand, just as I would not understand most jargon related to any subject other than music.
Regarding the point of my frustrations, I will try to deal with that by setting the record straight, rather than simply ranting about things that I don’t like, which those of you who know me have found that I often do; and regarding the musical jargon, I’ll simply have to do my best to keep it to a minimum.
I will start with the positive.
By playing, I can inspire you with such energy that you will actually get up and move! All I have to do is play my part and the part of the bass line, and I have created something that will give you, the dancer, a fun experience. For me, the realization that I can inspire someone else to move without even so much as knowing that person’s name or what they look like, and without even seeing him or her, has been tremendously empowering, especially because I have the background of a classical musician. I am sure that most of you are aware that dancing in front of the stage isn’t typical behavior at the average classical concert. The confidence that I have in myself throughout many aspects of my life has become greater and more secure because of this usefulness that I have found I have.
Besides that, I seem to create something of a link between the dancers and the musicians. I have been told by people that they themselves have felt more inspired to dance because they knew that it was me, a dancer, and particularly someone that they know, at the keyboard. I’d like to think that my acquaintance with them gets them to listen a little bit harder to the music that the band is making for them, and I’ll bet that sometimes it actually does. This is a service to the dancers, but more importantly it is a service to the band, which sometimes seems to be rather forgotten in the midst of all of the twirls and dips on the dance floor.
Naturally, in order to learn how to play a certain style of music, a person must at the same time learn how that style of music works, or rather, how it is put together, and what liberties can and cannot be taken within the style in order to achieve the sound that he or she wants. I am no different, and in hanging out with all of these players of salsa and other Latin styles of music, while I am no mistress of the style, I have accumulated a quite functional general understanding of how salsa works. Because of that I am even more able to appreciate a good sounding band, or a good sounding song, an interesting groove or an original variation.
On the other hand, (here comes the negative part) understanding and feeling all of this new information makes me into a very picky listener. I have recordings which I used to listen to daily; they were my favorite bands; but now I don’t listen to those recordings anymore because those people are just doing the same thing that everyone else has already done. (That’s why there is often a rather interesting mix of music at the dance that I run. Sometimes I just can’t stand it and I have to play something that sounds creative and original. Some people would rather I didn’t do that......) The point is that it’s really easy for me to get bored listening to a lot of the more modern popular style of salsa music. Those musicians on the recordings I don’t like can play me into the ground, but I still get bored.
And here we finally come to the meat of my letter, which is, unfortunately, a complaint, and I haven’t figured out any way to disguise it, so I guess that I’ll just have to rant. This is where I would like to set the record straight as I mentioned before. The following may be taken as words of advice if you like. They are specifically directed to those who are open to them. Here we go.
There seem to be two different types of people around who talk about the construction of salsa music. They are: those who think that they know what they’re talking about, and those who actually do. Unfortunately, the first group greatly outnumbers the second. That isn’t to say that you can’t find someone who truly understands the subject, but rather, that those people are rare.
I have heard many bizarre statements from all levels of dancers about salsa music. Here I will list a few of my favorites and my responses to them.
"There are eight beats in a measure."
Wrong. There are four beats in a measure (or "bar" as some people call it), there are eight beats in an eight-count. An eight-count is how long it takes to complete one entire basic salsa step. Some musicians, including myself, feel two beats in a measure, or four counts in a basic rather than eight. One and two make the first count, three and four make the second, five and six make the third, and seven and eight make the fourth. Two beats in a measure can be justified, four is the correct number, but in salsa, there are never eight beats in a measure.
"Salsa music doesn’t really have a bass."
Give me a break. Someone really did say that and it was quoted in Seattle’s daily news paper too. Go look. Of course Salsa has a bass, it’s just more rhythmically complicated than usual, and harder to hear. In fact, the guy who is often called one of the fathers of salsa is Israel "Cachao" Lopez, who played..... guess what instrument he played. You can’t have salsa without a bass. I really have tried too, and it doesn’t work. It sounds just a stupid as any other kind of dance music would sound without a bass.
Here’s my favorite.
"You should be dancing more on the clave." Variation: "You should be dancing more with the clave."
This brings up the whole issue of Latin music jargon and what to do with it. It’s ridiculous to tell someone to dance ON the clave. It’s even somewhat pretentious, if not useless, to tell someone to dance WITH the clave, although for very different reasons.
In order to discuss the subject of clave, one must understand that clave is not just a rhythm, but rather an entire organizational method in music. It exists in the music, and is crucial to the sound of it, even when no one can actually hear it at all. Even if clave is thought of simply as rhythm, one must understand that there are many different types of clave. There is Latin music with six beats in a measure that has just as strong and important a clave rhythm as any in salsa. Even within the music that we call salsa, which is a conglomeration of a bunch of more specific styles, there are two main clave rhythms; not just one. These two rhythms vary only slightly, but to an experienced and/or trained listener, they change the sound and style of the music noticeably.
Remember the difference between a measure (bar) and an eight-count? That is important here. The clave takes an eight-count, or one complete basic step, or two measures, to cycle through. In one bar, or one half of the basic, the clave has a rhythm with three notes in it, and in the other half of the basic, or the other bar, the clave has a rhythm with two notes in it. (For a more detailed explanation see "The Salsa Guide Book" by Rebecca Mauleon, Sher Music Company, Copyright 1993. Available from the publisher and many large booksellers such as Amazon.com) These two bars alternate over and over again until the song is finished. Can you imagine dancing a salsa where the first half of the basic had three steps and the second had two? Good luck. You might be able to make it work but it wouldn’t be a salsa basic. But it gets even more complicated. Any of these clave rhythms can be flipped over so that the first bar has two notes and the second bar has three. The trick is figuring out which way fits the music that you’re listening to: two-three, or three-two, which gets so complicated that I’m not going to go into it here. That is why it’s useless to tell someone to dance on the clave. If a person tells you to dance on the clave, then that person is either plain ignorant, or profoundly confused.
Telling someone to dance with the clave is a different thing entirely. It is possible to dance with the clave, but only if you are able to figure out which direction it is going, three-two, or two-three. It takes trained and talented musicians hours and hours of practice, over the course of months, if they’re lucky, to be able to do that easily. It takes people who are not trained musicians, much longer than that, not because they are stupid or un-talented, but because a detailed, complete explanation of clave without a good understanding of how rhythm works, is almost impossible. People who are untrained in music certainly can feel clave, but it takes even more time spent listening.
Fortunately, You don’t really need to know how clave works in order to dance well. (My musical colleagues are going to kill me.) Instead you just need a good sense of the pulse of the music. You know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 ad infinitum. If you get that, and you pay attention to it, then you’re all set. (By the way, a good sense of pulse is something that is relatively easy to teach, it just takes a while. Ask any competent music teacher you like. They do it every day.) You can dance on the one, or the two or three, and even on the four if you feel like practicing a bit more than usual. (I highly recommend the four, it feels kind of funky.) So if someone says to you that you should dance more "with" the clave, what they probably mean is that you need to pick a beat to dance on and stick with it. Don’t switch in the middle of a song. Or rather, count all eight beats during each basic. Don’t skip any and don’t add any extra.
Here is why this whole use of the word irritates me so much: I submit that a person who uses the phrase "Dance with the clave" in stead of simply "Don’t Skip any beats and don’t add anything extra" or "Pick a beat and stick with it" is doing two things. First of all, he or she is being counterproductive by using a word that it is extremely likely the listener doesn’t fully understand, (which is independent of the fact that the speaker probably doesn’t really understand it either) and it is very likely that the speaker in this situation is using an exotic word to make him or herself sound educated or experienced, When, if he or she really were educated or experienced, then he or she wouldn’t need to make an effort to sound like it. It is also possible that the speaker was simply misinformed, which is mostly blameless, and which I hope this letter will help to correct.
The reason that I’m telling you all of this is so that you will be a more discriminating salsa dancer, and particularly a more discriminating listener, (while listening to music or to people who like to hear themselves talk.) If you hear someone using Latin music jargon, such as clave, tumbao, chekere etc., and that person is not a musician, be careful what you believe. It is possible that the person you are listening to is right, but it is likely that they are not. You might even consider being careful of the musicians. We’re not fool-proof and this is a complicated subject. In fact, I would be delighted to hear that someone had actually gone to trouble to check my facts.
All of this confusion and misunderstanding is, I suppose, a direct result of the fact that there are so many dancers who don’t bother to really hear the music that we musicians play for them. These people have all the time in the world to devote to learning spins and dips and fancy patterns, but they don’t bother to try to understand what it is that is supposed to be the ground work for all of their movement. It is discouraging to see so many people doing neck dips and triple spins, while switching randomly between the one and the three. Conversely, there are many musicians who play salsa, which is obviously dance music, without bothering to learn how to dance to it. That’s not to say that I think they all need to learn how to turn cartwheels with their partner on the dance floor, but rather that it would help them simply to know what dancers like to hear in the music, not to mention that it would promote some kind of communication between the dancers and the musicians of this genre.
All of this talk about people not understanding the music becomes much more personal when I am the one who is playing it. Is what we do up there on the stage so unimportant to so many people? I spend hours and hours and hours working in front of my keyboard, and we spend our evenings and weekends in rehearsal, and then people pay ten bucks to come and ignore us?
I feel like ending this letter on a positive note, so that’s what I’m going to do.
When I’m playing this stuff, and the dancers are dancing and all the percussionists are playing and the trumpet player is taking his solo, and I get to play a big, loud, engulfing groove, and I’m not worried about a cue that I usually miss coming up in five seconds, I have honestly never in my life had such a calm sense of joy as that which I feel when I am playing for a crowd of dancers. Some people say that it can be like being high, but I disagree. For me, it is a much clearer, more focused feeling. I can’t wait to see what it feels like when I get to be any good at it.
Cheers,
Jeryl
