
Create engaging rhythms by combining montunos, claves, tumbaos, and more.
Chops: Intermediate
Theory: Beginner
Lesson Overview:
ā¢ Understand the difference between a forward clave and a reverse clave.
ā¢ Develop a better sense of phrasing over Latin rhythms.
ā¢ Create rhythmically interesting parts over short vamps.
Click here to download a printable PDF of this lesson's notation.
The history of Cuban music is shaped through the passion of the people and musicians. Understanding their rich language of rhythms and harmony on any instrument, let alone guitar, is both a deep ocean to explore and an island of soul. Many great musicians grow up immersed in the style and culture. However, even if you learn just from listening and playing you can internalize the sense of groove and pocket, and it will come out in your listening, playing, and writing. I played in a Latin band called Umbalaye for several years in Los Angeles under the guidance of my friend and bandleader Jose Espinosa. I hope to share some of what I learned with you here.
First, a little history. Afro-Cuban music was created when African slaves arrived in Cuba, where the two cultures met, and the richness of Spanish harmony blended with the African rhythms to create what we call salsa music. Afro-Cuban music has had a vast influence globally through Puerto Rico, Miami, New York, and through such South American countries as Panama, Columbia, and Venezuela. These cultures each had their own interpretations that often influenced each other. In the 1930s, Afro-Cuban music had a major impact on jazz, and since then, salsa has profoundly influenced pop music, blues, soul, and even rock styles.
This is soulful dance music thatās focused on the rhythm section and interlocking parts, so letās check out the various aspects of the basic feels. The most essential aspect of salsa is the rhythmic pattern known as the clave. The musicologist Alejo Carpentier described the clave as āthe feeling of polyrhythm submitted to the unity of tempo.ā There are a few ways to play clave but weāll focus on the forward clave (also known as a 3-2) and the reverse clave (2-3). The numbers refer to how many āhitsā are in each measure. In a forward clave, there are three in the first and two in the second. Obviously, flip that order around for a reverse clave. In Ex. 1 you can see a simple forward clave rhythm over a GmāC7āFmāBb7 progression. In Ex. 2 I use the same progression over a reverse clave.
Click here for Ex. 1
Click here for Ex. 2
Understanding how to phrase over each kind of clave is essential to locking into the band. While the drums and percussion are usually playing different interlocking parts, the bass plays a melodic part called the tumbao, which serves a big role in accenting clave rhythms. Letās check out a few basic tumbao patterns over a forward clave. Weāll play in octaves to make a fuller sound above the bass. Feel free to attack those notes with a pick and fingers, just fingers, or strike the strings that are fretted while the left hand dampens all the others. Ex. 3 is a basic pattern with a bit of space on every other bar. Ex. 4 adds a bit of energy on the even bars and specifically hits beat 3 of the second and fourth measures.
Click here for Ex. 3
Click here for Ex. 4
Ex. 5 adds a bit of chromaticism stepping down to the Fm chord. Another common rhythmic style is to accent beat 4 and anticipate each chord as shown in Ex. 6. This style is the basis of most Afro-Cuban bass lines and found in a variety of feels such as guaguancĆ³, guaracha, rumba, mambo, and bomba.
Click here for Ex. 5
Click here for Ex. 6
Ex. 7 is a more dense rhythmic exploration of that same idea.
Click here for Ex. 7
By contrast, letās explore some tumbao patterns over a reverse clave. Ex. 8 will show you a basic pattern using octaves. Ex. 9 adds variations to those rhythms by preceding each bar by a quarter-note.
Click here for Ex. 8
Click here for Ex. 9
Next, letās check out some basic montunos. A montuno is a repeated phrase, usually two to four measures long, and is a key element of salsa and Afro-Cuban music. While thereās a vast vocabulary of montunos, letās explore a basic pattern (Ex. 10) thatās a forward claveāfirst played in single notes, then in octaves, and finally in tenths.
Click here for Ex. 10
Now letās check out a different montuno for a reverse clave (Ex. 11). Again, weāll play this in single notes, then octaves, and finally in tenths.
Click here for Ex. 11
Afro-Cuban music will continue to spread and inspire future generations. For top listening suggestions, check out Irakere, Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, and Ray Barretto as starters. I encourage you to dig for more music to absorb, and to develop an appreciation for other styles, cultures, and genres. Experiment and invent variations on what you hear. Listening, playing, and experience will be your guide.
Framus Hootenanny Re-Issue Guitars: John Lennonās Favorite Reimagined | PG Plays
Join PG contributor Tom Butwin as he explores all-new versions of the Framus Hootenanny 12-string and 6-string acousticsāmade famous by John Lennon and now available with modern upgrades. From vintage-inspired tone to unique features, these guitars are built to spark creativity.
Neil Youngās ā70s hits are some of the most recognizable radio rock jams of all time. But Neilās guitar playing continued to grow over the ensuing decades, as he traversed styles from blues to country to electronic to rockabilly and beyond, eventually developing one of the most tonally decadent, fully formed improvisational voices in the entire guitar universe.
Neil Youngās ā70s hits are some of the most recognizable radio rock jams of all time. But Neilās guitar playing continued to grow over the ensuing decades, as he traversed styles from blues to country to electronic to rockabilly and beyond, eventually developing one of the most tonally decadent, fully formed improvisational voices in the entire guitar universe.
Like any discography thatās been growing over the course of more than half a century, it can be hard to decode Youngās work. And with such an adventurous spirit, it could be easy to make some missteps and miss out on his best guitar works. In this episode, Nick guides Jason through some of his heroās finest moments.
More news from Neil always seems to be on the horizon, so hereās your chance to catch up.
This episode is sponsored by Gibson.
This Japan-made Guyatone brings back memories of hitchinā rides around the U.S.
This oddball vintage Guyatone has a streak of Jack Kerouacās adventurous, thumbing spirit.
The other day, I saw something I hadnāt noticed in quite some time. Driving home from work, I saw an interesting-looking fellow hitchhiking. When I was a kid, āhitchersā seemed much more common, but, then again, the world didnāt seem as dangerous as today. Heck, I can remember hitching to my uncleās cabin in Bradford, Pennsylvaniaāhome of Zippo lightersāand riding almost 200 miles while I sat in a spare tire in the open bed of a pickup truck! Yes, safety wasnāt a big concern for kids back in the day.
So, as Iām prone to do, I started digging around hitchhiking culture and stories. Surprisingly, there are organized groups that embrace the hitching life, but the practice remains on the fringe in the U.S. Back in the 1950s, writer Jack Kerouac wrote the novel On the Road, which celebrated hitchhiking and exposed readers to the thrill of maverick travel. Heck, even Mike Dugan (the guitarist in all my videos) hitched his way to California in the 1960s. But seeing that fellow on the side of the road also sparked another image in my brain: Yep, it always comes back to guitars.
Let me present to you a guitar thatās ready to go hitching: the Guyatone LG-180T, hailing from 1966. The āthumbs-upā headstock and the big āthumbā on the upper bout always made me think of thumbing a ride, and I bought and sold this guitar so long ago that I had forgotten about it, until I saw that hitchhiking dude. Guyatone was an interesting Japanese company because they were primarily an electronics company, and most of their guitars had their wooden parts produced by other factories. In the case of the LG-180T, the bodies were made by Yamaha in Hamamatsu, Japan. At that time, Yamaha was arguably making the finest Japanese guitars, and the wood on this Guyatone model is outstanding. We donāt often see Guyatone-branded guitars here in the U.S., but a lot of players recognize the early ā60s label Kentāa brand name used by an American importer for Guyatone guitars.
With a bit of imagination, the LG-180Tās āthumbs upā headstock seems to be looking for a roadside ride.
Kent guitars were extremely popular from the early ā60s until around 1966. The U.S. importer B&J fed the American need for electric guitars with several nice Kent models, but when the Guyatone contract ended, so did most of the Kent guitars. After that, Guyatone primarily sold guitars in Japan, so this example is a rare model in the U.S.
āUnless you are a master at guitar setups, this would be a difficult player.ā
This headstock is either the ugliest or the coolest of the Guyatone designs. I canāt decide which. I will say, no other Japanese guitar company ever put out anything like this. You have to give the Guyatone designers a thumbs up for trying to stand out in the crowd! Guyatone decided to forgo an adjustable truss rod in this model, opting instead for a light alloy non-adjustable core to reinforce the neck. Speaking of the neck, this instrument features the most odd-feeling neck. Itās very thin but has a deep shoulder (if that makes any sense). Totally strange!
Another strange feature is the bridge, which offers very little adjustment because of the three large saddles, which sort of rock back and forth with the tremolo. Itās a shame because these pickups sound great! Theyāre very crisp and have plenty of zing, but unless you are a master at guitar set-ups, this would be a difficult player.
This could be why the LG-180T only appeared in the 1966 and 1967 catalogs. After that, it disappeared along with all the other Yamaha-made Guyatone electrics. By 1969, Guyatone had gone bankrupt for the first time, and thus ended guitar production for a few decades. At least we were blessed with some wacky guitar designs we can marvel at while remembering the days when you could play in the back end of an explosive 1973 AMC Gremlin while your mom raced around town. Two thumbs up for surviving our childhoods! PG
There's a lot of musical gold inside the scales.
Intermediate
Intermediate
ā¢ Develop a deeper improvisational vocabulary.
ā¢ Combine pentatonic scales to create new colors.
ā¢ Understand the beauty of diatonic harmony.Improvising over one chord for long stretches of time can be a musician's best friend or worst nightmare. With no harmonic variation, we are left to generate interest through our lines, phrasing, and creativity. When I started learning to improvise, a minor 7 chord and a Dorian mode were the only sounds that I wanted to hear at the time. I found it tremendously helpful to have the harmony stay in one spot while I mined for new ideas to play. Playing over a static chord was crucial in developing my sense of time and phrasing.
The following is the first improvisational device I ever came across. I want to say I got it from a Frank Gambale book. The idea is that there are three minor pentatonic scales "hiding" in any given major scale. If we're in the key of C (CāDāEāFāGāAāB) we can pluck out the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. If we frame them over a Dm7 chord, they give us different five-note combinations of the D Dorian mode. In short, we are building minor pentatonic scales off the 2, 3, and 6 of the C major scale.
Viewing this through the lens of D minor (a sibling of C major and the tonal center for this lesson), D minor pentatonic gives us the 1āb3ā4ā5āb7, E minor pentatonic gives us 2ā4ā5ā6ā1, and A minor pentatonic gives us 5āb7ā1ā2ā4. This means you can use your favorite pentatonic licks in three different locations and there are three different sounds we can tap into from the same structure.
If you smashed all of them together, you would get the D Dorian scale (DāEĀĀāFāGāAāBāC) with notes in common between the D, E, and A minor pentatonic scales. Ex. 1 uses all three scales, so you can hear the different colors each one creates over the chord.
Ex. 1
Ex. 2 is how I improvise with them, usually weaving in and out using different positional shapes.
Ex. 2
The next idea is one I stole from a guitarist who often came into a music store I worked at. On the surface, it's very easy: Just take two triads (in our example it will be Dm and C) and ping-pong between them. The D minor triad (DāFāA) gives us 1āb3ā5, which is very much rooted in the chord, and the C major triad (CāEāG) gives us the b7ā9ā4, which is much floatier. Also, if you smash these two triads together, you get 1ā2āb3ā4ā5āb7, which is a minor pentatonic scale with an added 2 (or 9). Eric Johnson uses this sound all the time. Ex. 3 is the lick I stole years ago.
Ex. 3
Ex. 4 is how I would improvise with this concept. Many different fingerings work with these, so experiment until you find a layout that's comfortable for your own playing.
Ex. 4
If two triads work, why not seven? This next approach will take all the triads in the key of C (CāDmāEmāFāGāAmāBdim) and use them over a Dm7 chord (Ex. 5). Each triad highlights different three-note combinations from the Dorian scale, and all of them sound different. Triads are clear structures that sound strong to our ears, and they can generate nice linear interest when played over one chord. Once again, all of this is 100% inside the scale. Ex. 5 is how each triad sounds over the track, and Ex. 6 is my attempt to improvise with them.
Ex. 5
Ex. 6
If we could find all these possibilities with triads, it's logical to make the structure a little bigger and take a similar approach with 7 chords, or in this case, arpeggios. Naturally, all the diatonic chords will work, but I'll limit this next idea to just Dm7, Fmaj7, Am7, and Cmaj7. I love this approach because as you move further away from the Dm7 shape, each new structure takes out a chord tone and replaces it with an extension. I notice that I usually come up with different lines when I'm thinking about different chord shapes, and this approach is a decent way to facilitate that. Ex. 7 is a good way to get these under your fingers. Just ascend one shape, shift into the next shape on the highest string, then descend and shift to the next on the lowest string.
Ex. 7
Ex. 8 is my improvisation using all four shapes and sounds, but I lean pretty heavily on the Am7.
Ex. 8
This last concept has kept me busy on the fretboard for the last five years or so. Check it out: You can take any idea that works over Dm7 and move the other diatonic chords. The result is six variations of your original lick. In Ex. 9 I play a line that is 4ā1āb3Āā5 over Dm7 and then walk it through the other chords in the key. These notes are still in the key of C, but it sounds drastically different from playing a scale.
Ex. 9
In Ex. 10, I try to think about the shapes from the previous example, but I break up the note order in a random but fun way. The ending line is random but felt good, so I left it in.
Ex. 10
While all these concepts have been presented over a minor chord, you can just as easily apply them to any chord quality, and they work just as well in harmonic or melodic minor. Rewarding sounds are available right inside the harmony, and I am still discovering new ideas through these concepts after many years.
Though the above ideas won't necessarily be appropriate for every style or situation, they will work in quite a few. Developing any approach to the point that it becomes a natural extension of your playing takes considerable work and patience, so just enjoy the process, experiment, and let your ear guide you to the sounds you like. Even over just one chord, there is always something new to find.