Feeling the Shadow
- Jun 12
- 9 min read
Updated: Jun 22
The Rhythm that Conquered the World
Show me. Don’t tell me. Let me decide.
It’s a cardinal rule in the arts. Bring observers close to events, objects, images, language, movement and sounds. Let them decide the meaning. Enduring art is tinged with ambiguity and full of doubt. Art observes. But, it never answers the question at hand or critics of its style. The observer needs intellectual and emotional space to find a way through the ambiguity, cope with doubt and sort out what the art means – if anything.
Art puts the observer on a quest to understand whatever the subject of the art may be. The choices made by the observer arise from a mix of experience and exposure to all forms of art. Culture plays a major role. So does the human drive to belong to a group. As in, I cannot like art that my group doesn’t like. Choices made by an observer do much to elucidate the character of that observer. But, that line of inquiry belongs to another essay at a future time. For now, the focus is on art and specifically on the rhythm of music.
If you and I made separate lists of ten musical compositions that each of us think are profound, influential and enduring, no doubt the content of those lists would be different. It’s very likely there would be no overlap at all. You and I surely perceive art in different ways. Yet at a gut level our selections would be highly influenced by the pulse of the music and the rhythm that dances on top of the pulse.
We hum the melody. We luxuriate in the harmony. We revel in the timbre. (The French word – pronounced tambar - means “color”. It describes the character or quality musical sound. It’s what makes a concert pitch “A” played on a flute sound different than a concert pitch “A” played on a Fender Telecaster, or a two-button Castagnari accordion). The one quality of the musical selections on our lists would have in common is the way each of us FEELS the music we care about. At a visceral level we feel music through its rhythm and pulse. Of course we feel music through melody and harmony. But the responses to those qualities of music are emotional and intellectual. Neither a grand melody nor a lush harmony will get your toe tapping.
The pulse of music is what drives toe tapping. Throughout a musical section the pulse is steady. The rhythm literally dances on top of the pulse. At times the rhythm reinforces the pulse. At times it challenges the pulse for authority. Rhythms answer to the pulse and are repetitive. That repetition may be extremely complex, as is the percussion music of West Africa or the tala from an Indian raga. That repetition may be simple, as in bluegrass, oldtime, Celtic and pop music. The technical term musicians use to describe a repetitive rhythm is “ostinato”. If that sounds vaguely like obstinate, you get it. The Italian word ostinato translates to stubborn in English.
Stubborn rhythms are memorable. Things that are memorable are engaging. Think of the rhythm of a waltz. Can you keep from swaying when you hear a waltz - maybe just a little bit? The waltz commands your attention because of the ostinato of the rhythm. The earliest documentation of waltz dates to 1580 in the Bavarian town of Augsburg. French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne described this peasant dance in appreciative words. Other writers around the same time described the swaying, flowing, sliding dance in unflattering terms such as “the godless weller or spinner.” Aristocratic society wanted nothing to do with this dance of the lower classes in which people of the opposite gender actually embraced in public. Just like physics, art advances one funeral at a time. By 1780, the waltz was all the rage in Vienna. The dance form made it to England a few decades later. The waltz came to America in the early decades of the 19th century. All the while, in every place, the waltz flourished while the upper classes and preachers railed endlessly against the art form.
Now let me introduce you to an ostinato rhythm that is at least seven hundred years old and has influenced artists including the Buena Vista Social Club, Taylor Swift, The Rolling Stones, Buddy Holly, Rihanna, The Grateful Dead, Elvis Presley, Adele, U2, Bruce Springsteen, The Who, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Lana Del Ray, Leonard Bernstein, Elvis Costello, David Bowie. The list of influential artists who have employed various versions of this special ostinato rhythm in their music is as endless as the appreciation their fans display when they hear this rhythm.
The oldest known reference to the rhythm is found in the Kitāb al-Adwār manuscript written in 1296 CE in Baghdad by the scholar Safi al-Din al-Urmawi. Safi al-Din wrote his treatise toward the end of what historians call The Lost Enlightenment – the high point of Persian and Arab cultures. The Mongol invasion in 1258 sacked Baghdad and initiated the decline of the centuries-long Islamic Golden Age. During that Golden Age, scholars like Safi al-Din often contributed major findings in multiple fields of study. Omar Khayyam (1048-1131 in Persia, modern day Iran) is remembered for his seventy-five quatrain poem, The Rubaiyat. But, his day job was to be a scholar in mathematics, philosophy, astronomy.
The Kitāb al-Adwār manuscript discusses a musical form called samal - a traditional Arab music form. Al-thaquil is one of several types of samal. The term translates to ponderous or heavy. This seven-century old manuscript gives precise instructions on how the al-thaquil rhythm is to played. In the 21st century, the rhythm is called by different names but the playing technique is identical to the one described by Safi al-Din al-Urmawi seven centuries ago The al-thquil rhythm is a cross-cultural force that musicologists casually refer to as the rhythm that conquered the world.
Contemporary musicians call this timeless rhythm 3-2 Son Clave. In Spanish, clave means either key or clue. In fact, that is exactly what Son Clave does. It gives musicians and dancers the key to understanding the music – something more profound than the pulse of the music. Clave is also the name of a pair of hardwood dowels used to beat out the rhythm. These small dowels, often made of rosewood, produce a penetrating sound that can cut through the sound level of a large band. North American musicians call the timeless son clave ostinato the “Bo Diddley” beat or rhythm.
The R&B artist Bo Diddley recorded Hey, Bo Diddley in 1955. It rocketed to the top of the charts and put him on the very popular, very staid TV program, The Ed Sullivan Show. The producers instructed him to perform one song - a cover version of Tennessee Ernie Ford’s popular song 16 Tons. Bo Diddley didn’t follow instructions. He played Hey, Bo Diddley and one other song. The infraction resulted in a permanent ban from performing on the popular show. But no one, not even the powerful Ed Sullivan, could contain Bo Diddley or son clave. It took only about five minutes on TV, for Bo Diddley to smash together rhythm-and-blues with rock-n-roll for a nation-wide audience. His performance injected pop culture with the rhythmic vaccine of son clave. The effects appear to have been permanent.
Take a break from reading. Listen to the al-thaquil, 3-2 Son Clave or Bo Diddley rhythm.
Hey, Bo Diddley | Not Fade Away | Faith |
Bo Diddley performing his eponymous rhythm in 1970 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLcYuuljrD4 | Buddy Holly & The Crickets Released in 1957 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fQrvvlZ6YI&list=RD3fQrvvlZ6YI&start_radio=1 |
Black Horse and the Cherry Tree | Drop it Like It’s Hot | KT Tunstall Explains her use of the Bo Diddley Rhythm |
As you heard, the clave rhythm is simple. Here’s what it looks like in a time sequence.
Or in standard musical notation
3 beats in one unit of time (a measure). Followed by 2 beats in one unit of time (a measure)
This rhythm is called “3-2 Clave”. Three strikes of rhythm followed by two strikes of rhythm.
This is 3-2 Clave by itself played on rosewood claves.
This is 3-2 Clave riding onto of the pulse or beat of the music played on a kick drum. The interaction or conflict between the beat and the son clave is what makes this rhythm irrepressible.
The pulse supporting son clave has four, strong beats counts in each of the two measures. (Plus weak beats between the strong beats making eight beats per measure) But, although the three strikes in the first measure are evenly spaced in time, they challenge the primacy of the pulse. We feel the rhythm as though the pulse was 3 not 4. This places the son clave rhythm in conflict with the four-count pulse that runs throughout the piece. The pulse vs. rhythm conflict builds tension in the music. The second measure continues the pulse of 4 beats. Here the rhythm dutifully strikes on beats 2 and 3 of the measure. The son clave pattern makes the listener wonder: is this a four beat tune or a three beat tune? The first measure of the son clave rhythm makes you think – something isn’t right, this is going to fall apart. The second measure makes you think – relax, it’s okay. We’re back on the beat.
The genius of the pattern is its repetitive ambiguity that is reset after each span of sixteen beats. This ambiguous, repetitive ostinato sparked a love affair between listeners and claves that has lingered for more the seven centuries across Europe, Africa, Latin America, South America, the Caribbean and North America.
Two more unusual points about the rhythm. It can be played in reverse. Then it becomes a 2-3 Clave.
2-3 Son Clave
It’s also possible to shift the 3rd strike of the son clave by one time unit to create the rumba clave. The origin of “rumba” lies in northern Cuba where it first meant “party”. Today “Rumba” is used to describe a variety of dances.
Rumba Clave
Embedded in all rhythms we experience are “shadow rhythms” Those are the rhythms we don’t feel or hear, but rather sense. Our brains insert shadow rhythms to sort out the conflict between the pulse and the rhythm of music thereby stabilizing the music while inducing tension. Think of a shadow rhythm as a time keeper who is neither seen nor heard but acts to fit unconstrained rhythms on top of the unyielding beat.
In his seminal paper The Rhythm that Conquered the World: What Makes a “Good” Rhythm Good? Godfried T. Toussaint of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University makes this vital point:
“Some musicologists therefore believe that shadow rhythms are physiologically and psychologically relevant to the proper study and understanding of rhythm. Indeed, some go as far as to claim that motion and motor action are essential for a satisfactory explanation of rhythm.”
Using somewhat less academic language: if music doesn’t cause you to move in some physical or psychological way, either you aren’t listening or the music is terrible.
Watch a drummer. Each time the drum stick reaches the apex of its arch, you are seeing the shadow rhythm.
The subtitle of Toussaint’s paper is: Dedicated to the memory of Bo Diddley. Every North American music lover owes thanks to Bo Diddley for putting son clave into the main stream of American pop music. Read Toussaint’s paper at this link: https://www-cgrl.cs.mcgill.ca/~godfried/publications/Percussive-Notes-Web.pdf
By now you must think I’m making far to much noise about a simple drum beat. But that simple drum beat has conquered the world. It keeps pleasing listeners, energizing dancers and stimulating composers. You may love it. You may loath it. No matter what it’s called - son clave, al-thaquil, kpanlogo, or the Bo Diddley Rhythm – the elegant and engaging simplicity of this 3 – 2 ostinato continues to drive creativity and delivery joy around the globe.
If I can’t persuade you, perhaps America’s greatest songwriter can. In 1937 Irving Berlin consoled his protege Cole Porter about Porter’s intense dislike of a song he had written for the MGM film Rosalie. Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, rejected Porter’s original song and demanded a replacement. Porter complied but told Berlin that he had written the replacement song in “hate” and he still “hated” the song. Porter may have hated the song, but the market loved it. The song was a huge hit with the public. Berlin said to Porter:
"Listen kid, take my advice, never hate a song that has sold half a million copies"
I’m with Irving Berlin. Get past your search for the familiar, the stable, the predictable. Allow the rhythmic complexity of all good and enduring music wash over you. Feel the shadow! Get down with Safi al-Din and Bo Diddley. They’ve been selling hit music for seven centuries. They’ll probably be selling son clave to your great-grandchildren.
Footnote: If you want to understand the extraordinary period of human history in Central Asia that gave rise to Safi al-Din and his many intellectual peers, read:
Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age From The Arab Conquest To Tamerlane
By Frederick S. Starr
This extraordinary text examines the Islamic Golden Era. Many of the advances in mathematics, science, philosophy and art made in Central Asia during that period eventually fueled the effort in western Europe to extract its culture from the Dark Ages. It took several bloody Crusades for the West to comprehend how backward its culture was.
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