The Clave Police

Souljacker

Souljacker

Silver Member
Ever notice these guys in the comments sections of latin drumming youtube videos? :D

They'll typically pull up foreign drummers if they feel they are not playing a samba/afro cuban rhythm the way they feel it should be authentically played.

But I've seen them do this on videos from Steve Gadd, Nate Morton and the likes who sound great on the kit.

Does it really matter how authentic it is if the groove sounds great, and are they a bit too nit picky about the whole thing?
 
I think it matters if you're playing traditional music. If you're using latin feels or influence in another style of music I say as long as it sounds good, it's good. I've never noticed those kinds of comments. Any time I read comments I immediately regret it so I stay the hell away as much as possible.
 
Souljacker said:
Ever notice these guys in the comments sections of latin drumming youtube videos? :D

They'll typically pull up foreign drummers if they feel they are not playing a samba/afro cuban rhythm the way they feel it should be authentically played.
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Samba is a Brazilian style, and doesn't use clave... clave is a Cuban/Salsa thing...

But I've seen them do this on videos from Steve Gadd, Nate Morton and the likes who sound great on the kit.

Does it really matter how authentic it is if the groove sounds great, and are they a bit too nit picky about the whole thing?
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A lot of music using a "Latin" feel, is not clave-based-- they may be doing a Brazilian style, or a quasi-Salsa generic Latin Jazz thing that is sort of Latin-flavored, but is not based on clave rhythmically; in that case it's stupid to criticize someone for not playing clave, because playing clave was never the point. If the music is actually clave-based, then it does matter if the drummer is wrong. Sort of like if you were hired to play a classic rock gig and played the snare drum on 1 and 3 all night. That would be wrong. But I think it's also fairly understood that there are a lot of great American drummers who may not be 100% correct in how they play clave, and I don't suppose Gadd catches a lot of grief about it with people he plays with. You, I, and a lot of semi-famous drummers need to have our stuff together if we're going to play that kind of music, though.
 
toddbishop said:
Samba is a Brazilian style, and doesn't use clave... clave is a Cuban/Salsa thing...



A lot of music using a "Latin" feel, is not clave-based-- they may be doing a Brazilian style, or a quasi-Salsa generic Latin Jazz thing that is sort of Latin-flavored, but is not based on clave rhythmically; in that case it's stupid to criticize someone for not playing clave, because playing clave was never the point. If the music is actually clave-based, then it does matter if the drummer is wrong. Sort of like if you were hired to play a classic rock gig and played the snare drum on 1 and 3 all night. That would be wrong. But I think it's also fairly understood that there are a lot of great American drummers who may not be 100% correct in how they play clave, and I don't suppose Gadd catches a lot of grief about it with people he plays with. You, I, and a lot of semi-famous drummers need to have our stuff together if we're going to play that kind of music, though.
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Sorry about the lack of clarity there. I borrowed the term clave police from another drummer i know of who is the first person i heard using it. He's a top class jazz and latin drummer himself. I probably saw it on a video of him playing afro Cuban actually now i think of it. I mean it as a general term to apply to any drummer from a latin country criticizing the authenticity of those varying styles when played by drummers from usa, japan, Europe etc
 
I got pulled over once and they gave me a warning for doing a samba in a 80 bpm zone. But I'm all right now, if fact it's a gas.
 
In every genre of every art form, there are always traditionalists who get bent out of shape when someone does something different. I do think the clave police are amongst the worst offenders in this regard. I have a pair of claves and I bang them together however I want to, for my own enjoyment. I don't even have a permit.

If someone claims to be an expert and gives out wrong information, yes, certainly they should be called out and corrected. However, if you're just listening to music, how can you possibly say an artist is "wrong"?

They should be happy their instrument is finding new audiences and new styles.
 
Bobrush said:
In every genre of every art form, there are always traditionalists who get bent out of shape when someone does something different. I do think the clave police are amongst the worst offenders in this regard. I have a pair of claves and I bang them together however I want to, for my own enjoyment. I don't even have a permit.

If someone claims to be an expert and gives out wrong information, yes, certainly they should be called out and corrected. However, if you're just listening to music, how can you possibly say an artist is "wrong"?

They should be happy their instrument is finding new audiences and new styles.
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Claves the instrument is not the same thing as clave the rhythmic concept.

Since the music really belongs to another culture, and to the people who have put in the many years of effort it takes to master it, you don't really get to decide what's creatively acceptable within it. That's just a fact of life with any discipline-- there are standards. You have to have some knowledge of the thing as it is currently practiced for your "creative" playing to be accepted, and to have any meaning.

Souljacker said:
I mean it as a general term to apply to any drummer from a latin country criticizing the authenticity of those varying styles when played by drummers from usa, japan, Europe etc
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Sure-- my feeling is that the people who get most hung up on policing correctness are usually the mediocre talents, amateurs, students, or non-players. But it is their culture, so it's kind of their prerogative, isn't it? I don't worry about the unfairness of it, I just try to get it right.
 
toddbishop said:
Sure-- my feeling is that the people who get most hung up on policing correctness are usually the mediocre talents, amateurs, students, or non-players. But it is their culture, so it's kind of their prerogative, isn't it? I don't worry about the unfairness of it, I just try to get it right.
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Often times drummers play salsa, samba, techno etc grooves, but it is fairly obvious, they aren't into it, and are half hearted, about it, and you can hear it. I don't see any problem in pointing out that they aren't into it enough to want to actually play the groove, and to let other people know that they are misrepresenting said genre.
 
Funny you should post this thread. All night last night at rehearsal, our front man kept saying "Man, I got this song I want you to hear. The drummer breaks out this Samba beat. I think it's Samba. I 'dunno." So I listened to it. And he says "it's a Samba groove right?"

I had to tell him I had no idea. What makes a Samba groove? What makes any groove authentic to a specific genre? I mean, you can crash at the start of a fill instead of the end, and you pretty much have an instant Reggae-ish groove.
 
The afro/latin/carib percussion pedagogy used to be very traditional. I don't know about the current status.

But in a traditional setting percussionists started very young and on the claves playing son clave for many many weeks and/or months, or even several years. Then they were advanced to another percussion instrument such as cowbell or shakers , guiro, cabasa etc... climbing their way up through the ranks and onto the various membranophones until they settled into their primary percussion instrument.

In light of these traditions I understand why some are very possessive and protective of these traditional, tried & true ways of nurturing future percussionists.
 
"Maybe" it doesn't matter. "Maybe" they're being too nit-picky.

I went to college, and the phenomenon is there too about jazz. So the best answer is "It depends" because it'll be based on what you're going for and what you're trying to present.

And for the college crowd, that's where it's at. As I got older, I got less intense about how things were supposed to be, and just let things ride and have fun because ultimately that's what it's all about. But if I were going to audition for somebody like Tania Maria or Tito Puente, I am going to get my traditional stuff together to attempt to be on the same level so when they say something, I know what they want. If I'm playing Jobim tunes with some mates at the VFW hall, then I'll do whatever to keep those guys dancing.

It does annoy me when I hear that kind of talk though, but these days I just let it slide. No point having TWO a-holes in one place ;)
 
These Latin patterns and grooves, show up some of the oddest places. I was listening to "Break on Through" by the Doors the other day. It was one of my favorites maybe fifteen years ago, but having study some Samba, I thought, like hey that's a dead ringer for the repinique cascara and surdo parts. I started listening to some of their other stuff with a new perspective. The organ still is overdone though.
 
SmoothOperator said:
These Latin patterns and grooves, show up some of the oddest places. I was listening to "Break on Through" by the Doors the other day. It was one of my favorites maybe fifteen years ago, but having study some Samba, I thought, like hey that's a dead ringer for the repinique cascara and surdo parts. I started listening to some of their other stuff with a new perspective. The organ still is overdone though.
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I always had that down as a bossa nova.
 
My take on it is this: if you're going to play something traditional or try and play with music that is in clave, play in clave. If you get offended because someone points out you're not playing in clave and destroying the form of the music, you can only blame yourself for not taking the time to learn the music correctly.
 
Isn't the idea of playing something exactly as it was historically played sort of a misnomer from the start?

If we are talking clave should we not use a drumset at all, and instead have multiple percussionist playing "traditional instruments"? that means none of that new industrial engineered stuff we become accustomed to.

Of course you should do you best to understand and be able to play traditional stuff - but there is no Original Stuff. Everything is derivative of something else, anything not unique to a single village is gumbo. Are the Yoruba people in Africa complaining about how their traditional rhythms were bastardized in the diaspora?

I say lighten up to the clave police and their stinkin' badges.... We don't need no stinkin' badges.
 
Griffman said:
Isn't the idea of playing something exactly as it was historically played sort of a misnomer from the start?

If we are talking clave should we not use a drumset at all, and instead have multiple percussionist playing "traditional instruments"? that means none of that new industrial engineered stuff we become accustomed to.

Of course you should do you best to understand and be able to play traditional stuff - but there is no Original Stuff. Everything is derivative of something else, anything not unique to a single village is gumbo. Are the Yoruba people in Africa complaining about how their traditional rhythms were bastardized in the diaspora?

I say lighten up to the clave police and their stinkin' badges.... We don't need no stinkin' badges.
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The overlap between many of the modern compositions and traditional percussion arrangements is actually pretty interesting. Many modern compositions using samples, include arrangements of percussion instruments often including a clave of some sort, since they aren't limited by a fixed number of limbs.

I think clave is more important when playing with other percussionists, because it is a way for the percussionists to lock into a tightly knit groove without walking on each other, if you aren't interested in that it shouldn't matter to you.
 
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