I'm going to demonstrate for you an African Six Eight Clave. It?s called an African six eight clave cause it comes from Africa and it?s played in six eight time so it?s going to have a triplet feel. Its also called an African two three clave because you're going to find its going to sound like two notes followed by three notes much like the Son clave and the Rumba clave that we've talked about. But it?s either written out in six eight time or it?s written out with triplets. Here's that pattern. And you can break it down numerically too for those of you who don't read music by groups of notes. We're going to play on the first of two notes, the first of three notes, the first of two, the first of two and the first of three. Here it is counted that way. One two, one two three, one two, one two, one two three, one two, one two three, one two, one two, one two three. There it was played twice. Up to speed its going to sound like this, one two, one two three, one two, one two, one two three, one two, one two, one two three, one two, one two, one two three, one two, one two, one two three . Here's that same pattern again played even faster without the counts. And you can kind of hear up to speed the two followed by the three notes. By itself, especially to an American ear, its kind of hard to figure out exactly what's going on with that clave, but like this and all of the other claves they're designed to be played syncopated with other rhythmic parts. So there's your African six eight.
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