A bit of numerological salsa fun
August 13th, 2011 | 
Author: As some of you may know, my initial degree was in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. In high school, I was a bit of a math geek, and to this day, I still enjoy mathematical puzzles.
I was thinking about salsa a few years ago, wondering about what made it so different from other western styles of music. I believe, in great part, that comes from the syncopation of the underlying clave.
And I started to play around mathematically…
Below is a standard 2/3 Clave:
| 2 | 3 | 5 | and | 8 |
Below is a standard 3/2 Clave:
| 1 | and | 4 | 6 | 7 |
Superimpose both:
| 2 | 3 | 5 | and | 8 | |||||||||||
| 1 | and | 4 | 6 | 7 | |||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | and | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | and | 7 | 8 |
Does this seem familiar? Offset the last line by 2 counts (move the ‘and’ two beats):
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | and | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | and |
Yup! That’s a cha-cha-cha rythm!
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