Moving Through the Open Room Arranging Emptiness
0. (“The pervasiveness of penology…”)
On the Clave
Having spent time enough with Omar to learn how to breath better and hear
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or pace or gap
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I here perform some works from memory to see how it finds sounds and feels
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with the clave, which I sense acts as a dowser like the triad branch we use to find water, as I imagine it trembling at the end where the fork joins the word “clave”
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and so the thing, which is two sticks one hits together
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in fact derives from *klau– meaning “hook, crook” (Proto-Indo-European root) and “crooked or forked branch” (used as a bar or bolt in primitive structures
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though one may imagine too for finding a water source).
The word “close” comes from it.
The clave’s more common meaning, and its musical application, is “key,” like the central stone in an arch (keystone, or what holds arch up), and in a group of musicians is used to keep time.
Here I am mostly playing the son clave.
I am accompanied on paperboard by Matthew Morse what passes through an arch that does not exist.
Many thanks to Bruce Weber who hosted the Hudsonics performances; and to David Schell of Green Kill.
Onward!