The claves
The Claves
Claves are an instrument of percussion music played in idiophone ancient aboriginal music of Australia, under other names. The claves appear to Cuba to the XVIth century, on the docks of the port of Havana. Clashed in pace of work, they become in the XVIIth century a percussion instrument, claves (a mixture of words clavar and llaves).
![]() Pair of claves |
Ankles (llaves in Spanish) that are nailed (clavar in Spanish) to attach the pieces of the ship are of wood quality and hard (ACAN Jique, guayacan, jucaro, ...), quiebrahacha 20 cm long.
The clave held in the right hand by one of the ends (macho = male) in smashing pace the other placed in the left hand ( hembra = female). The sound is very dry and very strong.
The pressure exerted by the fingers, the way to round off the palm, and of course the force of impact, influence the tone and power of its sound. It may also be stamped hembra cheek and cons of using the mouth as a resonator.
The rhythm played claves called clave.
(Source: wikipedia.org - copyright authors - article under GFDL)
Glossary
Hembra et Macho
The rythm
The rhythm is in music, which determines the duration of notes to each other. The rhythm, melody, tempo and nuance are the four main facts to characterize a given musical phrase.
Tone
In western music, the word means a tone scale music belonging to the tonal system.
- Caught in a broad sense, the word "tone" can refer to the tonal system as a whole.
- The word can also take the direction of height, its fundamental to some instruments.
- The word tone can be used as a synonym for tone.
A tone is defined as the set of intervals, melodic and harmonic as well, between hierarchical levels of a given scale compared to its fundamental level, called tonic. A tone is characterized by both the tonic and its mode.
Each key is constructed from the diatonic scale.
The tone is also a means to locate a musical instrument in relation to C reference.
The flute, violin or piano are in C, that is to say that when the C is played, it really means to do. The B-flat trumpet sounded really flat so when playing a do. The horn (in F) is heard when playing an F do.
The tone is very important because it will allow transposition and transcription of partitions in C in tones of instruments with different pitches.
Some instruments and their tone:
- Ut: Piano, strings, flutes and piccolo, oboe, bassoon, C trumpet, trombone, tuba, bass tuba.
- D flat: the old piccolos.
- Re: Trumpet in D.
- Eb: alto saxophone and baritone, small bugle, horn in E flat, alto (small tuba), clarinet, bass tuba.
- F: Cor.
- Sol: Trumpet in G.
- The: Oboe d'amore, the trumpet.
- Bb: soprano saxophone, tenor tuba (euphonium and baritone), B-flat trumpet, flugelhorn, clarinet, bass tuba (bombardon).