ABSTRACT
Imagine a score of drummers playing loud dance music at a festival in a village some-where in sub-Saharan Africa. If the musician playing the timeline is to fulll the role of a conductor and time-keeper, then all the drummers, including those playing far from each other and separated by other drummers, and especially the soloists who will improvise during their ights of fancy, must be able to hear the timeline, so that when they depart on their rhythmic improvisational adventures, they can nd their way back to home base. For this reason, the instruments that play the timeline are designed so as to produce a sound that cuts through the intense booming of all those drums. Traditionally, these instruments consist of either two sticks, 20-30 cm in length, made of a very hard wood such as ebony, that are clicked together, or a metallic object usually made of iron, such as a bell that is struck with another piece of metal or stick of wood. Sometimes, a pair of axe-blades are chinked together.* In Afro-Cuban music, the wooden sticks are called claves. Clave is the Spanish word for key or code. e charcoal drawing in Figure 4.1 illustrates a typical pair of wooden claves.
