The History of Claves

Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Aaron Bland on behalf of Expert Village and I'm going to talk to you a little bit today about the claves. Probably the oldest instrument known to man. It's basically two sticks designed to be hit together. This is an Afro-Cuban instrument that comes out of Brazil. It's an idiophone, there's your vocabulary word for the day. It's a percussion instrument made out of the instrument itself vibrating. It's not a membranophone like a drum where it has a membrane where the drumhead vibrates. It's actually the kind of wood; it's a hard wood, a loud wood that gives you a chirping or clicking sound when they're struck together. These are used in drum circles. They're used in Latin American music because of their cutting sound. You could have a drum circle with a hundred drummers playing and, if you've got a set of these, everybody in that drum circle is going to be able to hear the pulse or the rhythm that's being played on the claves. Another word for that pulse or that rhythm or that feel is the word clave, which refers to the feel of the music. The translation of clave translates into clef or key, like the key signature of a song, telling you is it going to played in the key of G. Well, in Latin music, especially the percussive end of it, the key was the feel of the song, the rhythmic feel or how you danced to it. Just an interesting piece of knowledge you can digest for a little bit. Stay tuned.

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