We receive TONS of questions from Salseros and Salseras around the world.  These answers can benefit everyone, so we've decided to post these Q&As for all our viewers.  Got a question for Ana or Joel Masacote?  Email us at: infomasacote@gmail.com

Recognizing the Clave Change
Posted 3/18/09

I really enjoyed your instructional DVD and was glad I bought it along with Ana's styling DVD after attending her great workshop at the SF Salsa Congress...What I didn't understand after viewing your DVD is the following:

How would a dancer recognize the clave change while she's social dancing as Ana demo'd on your DVD? Stated differently, if I didn't know the music, and I was just social dancing, how would I know that the clave just went from 3/2 to 2/3 so that my dancing should be adjusted accordingly?

-- Thx!  Nancy

Hi Nancy,

I'm really happy you enjoyed the dvd!  It takes a lot of practice with it and the music to fully have everything click with your dance, but just keep at it and it would come.  To answer your...question:

When you're listening to the music, the first thing that you would always look for is the downbeat (the 1).  Keep following the downbeat throughout the music and if the music is written with a change in it, you will noticed that whenever it does change it will feel like the downbeat is now on 5.  Whenever that happens where you feel like the downbeat of the music is landing on the 5 count of your basic, you should switch so that you are be back on the 1 in relation to the downbeat.  Use the same exercise that I have on the dvd (that shows how the music changes around the clave) and do the exercise with the music and you should understand it a little better.

Perfect song to try it with is "Bilongo".  You can find it on Carlos Cascante's CD "Recuerdos".  Now remember, when you're thinking about phrases or stanzas, what switches the feel of the clave is when a phrase that consists of 8 musician bars are turned into an odd bar phrase.  Not all odd bar phrases have only 7 bars in that phrase.  Some of them have 5 bars or 9 bars. As long as it is an odd bar phrase, it will switch the feel of the clave because clave consisst of 2 bars.

Best Regards,

Joel

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