Listening Practice
The general guidelines are to:

• learn, understand, and practice the exercises to any of the "son clave only" tracks;
• utilise the "son clave over tumbao moderno" tracks as an intermediary stage should you find an exercise hard to grasp;
• practice to salsa music once you're confident you understand and can perform the exercise well.

Have a number of salsa songs with played clave on hand, so that you can master these tutorial exercises in a real-world context: connect your ears to your feet.
 

Rhythm Principles
Previously we explored the nature of a rhythm on its own. We are now at the stage where we can explore how rhythms interact with one another using salsa's three fundamental streams: the son clave, the pulse and the dance rhythm. As your command of rhythm improves, so will your sensitivity to implied clave, and your appreciation for the role a dancer plays in establishing the feel of salsa.

This is as real as it gets - the raw essence of salsa, stripped of all its accoutrements. It's all about relationships; between one salsa rhythm and another, and you are one of salsa's rhythms.

Dancing to Clave

Exercise 5.1
Performing salsa dance rhythm to clave, acquired mode

Practice your salsa walk and your newly-interpreted salsa basics using a "son clave over tumbao moderno" track. In the earlier tutorials we relied on the tumbao moderno to dance in time, and now we want to transfer that to the clave instead.

Think of it as a set of balance scales tilted heavily toward the tumbao moderno in one weighing pan, with the clave rhythm in the other pan. We want to shift the weight of emphasis in the opposite direction to have the scales tilted in favour of the clave instead.

We can do this gradually by concentrating more and more on the clave, and less and less on the tumbao moderno; paying just enough attention to the conga to keep in time. I find that clapping my hands to clave helps. Eventually you should be able to dance to a "son clave only" track.

Exercise 5.2
Dancing pulse to clave, acquired mode

From dancing salsa steps to clave, all it takes is a minor modification to be able to dance pulse to clave as well. Using a "son clave over tumbao moderno" track, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and mark salsa dance rhythm on the spot:

left - right - left - (open tones), right - left - right - (open tones)

Place more emphasis on the steps coinciding with the pulse:

left - right - left - (open tones), right - left - right - (open tones)

Change it to a pulse walk:

left - (slap) - right - (open tones), left - (slap) - right - (open tones)

Note: this is the reverse of how we assembled the salsa dance rhythm in "The Percussionist Dancer" tutorial.

Now start listening for the clave rhythm, deriving your timing from it until you can walk pulse and clap clave simultaneously.

Exercise 5.3
Dancing pulse to clave, learned mode

If you'd prefer to learn how to dance to clave using a count, then you'll need to familiarise yourself with the "Learning to Play Clave" exercise in Extras of the "son clave & the clave rhythm stream" tutorial.

This is the same exercise but with an additional alternating tap of the foot on pulse:

Figure 5.1. Playing son clave and pulse to a count
 

Develop the exercise by:

• lightening the ghost strokes until you're no longer playing them;
• then clapping clave;
• lifting up your feet up and placing them down again to simulate taking a step (instead of tapping);
• standing up and walking the pulse whilst playing clave.

Exercise 5.4
Performing salsa dance rhythm to clave, learned mode

Once you can step to pulse and clap to clave, create the salsa dance rhythm to clave using the same progression as in Exercises 3.4 through 3.6 of "The Percussionist Dancer".

Exercise 5.5
Alternate between the salsa dance pattern and the pulse steps, one clave phrase of each. I recommend you try the Side-To-Side basic and the salsa walks first.

This practice helps you appreciate the salsa dance rhythm and the pulse as separate rhythms, contrary to the common perception that pulse is simply a subset of the dance rhythm. It points out the effect of rhythmic dissipation - how the strong percussive feel of the pulse is reduced through the insertion of a step in-between, with a concomitant increase in flow.

Exercise 5.5.1
As above, but instead of using a whole clave phrase when dancing pulse, try an odd number of bars.

This exercise is set deliberately to throw you out of clave orientation, and for you to explore what you need to do to reorient yourself. Another variant of this exercise is to choose to dance just three of the four pulse steps in the space of a single clave phrase.

The Ultimate Clave Exercise
is such a definitive milestone of rhythmic ability that it gets its own heading.

1. Establish the clave rhythm stream through the clapping of your hands.
2. Perform the salsa dance rhythm and the pulse in alternation.
3. Test yourself by throwing yourself out of orientation and regaining it.
4. Do all of this without the use of a rhythm track.

This is the last word in 'bring your own clave' exercises. If you can do all this i.e. the changes in clave orientation, dancing and switching between different rhythms, all whilst maintaining a relentless clave stream, you can be sure your salsa timing's pretty much bullet-proof.
 

Rhythmic anticipation
happens when a beat is played before the listener expects it. A cyclic instance of rhythmic anticipation occurs when the son clave rhythm stream interacts with the pulse stream.

The regularity of the pulse, emphasised by elements in the music and the dance rhythm itself, causes a dancer's internal metronome to predict the temporal location of the upcoming pulse beat.

Figure 5.2. Point of rhythmic anticipation
 

When the clave rhythm stream is played with the pulse, the bombó occurs just before the pulse beat, causing the listener to feel as if he or she had incorrectly predicted the pulse beat as late. This psychoacoustic phenomenon creates a feeling of rhythmic tension on the 3-sides of the clave rhythm stream.

The clave rhythm stream's true nature is thus exposed as, 'a feeling alternating between tension (on the 3-side), and stability (on the 2-side).'

…tension | stability | tension | stability | tension | stability | tension…

At last we can understand the clave rhythm stream itself as a pulse stream of rhythmic tension cycling once every eight beats. Rhythmic tension is a phenomenon well recognised by Afro-Cuban percussionists, who refer non-pejoratively to the 3-side as "fuerte" (strong) and the 2-side as "débil" (weak).

And thus far, we have learned just how important it is that a dancer be able to discern clave location and orientation. So, having the same sensitivity to implied clave that a salsa musician has would be a handy little skill for a dancer.

Unfortunately, figuring out the orientation of clave is never foolproof, and even seasoned musicians get it wrong. The matter is made more complex by writers whom, like Arsenio Rodriguez, playfully try to confound the listener; or those who simply have a cavalier attitude to clave. The most practical way is to take a ''best guess-best fit' approach, which becomes more reliable the more skilled you become with rhythm:

• Locate the pulse stream
  It's a simple, internally regular pattern, and so it should be easier to find. Once you've located it, and since you know the position of clave relative to pulse, you've reduced the random chance of locating the clave stream to 1 in 4.
   
• Identify the boundaries of the musical phrase relative to the pulse.
  The beginning of each phrase should coincide with a pulse beat and be two bars long (i.e. contain four pulse beats). Identifying the eight beat phrase reduces the random chance of locating the clave stream to 1 in 2. It's now just a matter of orientation.
   
• Determine clave orientation
  I like to use the 'pocket analogy':
  Imagine there are five pockets in each phrase of music corresponding to where the clave strokes could be played, but we don't yet know whether these pockets are arranged in 2-3 or 3-2.
   
  So we take a shot, gamble on an orientation, and listen...
   
  If we're right, at least one or more of these pockets will be filled with accents from one or more instruments. If we're not sure, then we try it the other way. The pockets most likely to be filled are the first clave beat on the 2-side and the bombó, followed by the ponche.
   
  If you're really sharp, you can listen to the five pockets in a single bar for an instrument accent (principles explained in "Navigating Salsa: Clave as Rhythmic Compass"), and use the five pockets in the following bar for confirmation.
   
• Corroborate clave orientation
  Sometimes you're sure that you've got it right, sometimes you're not. At times like the latter, deduction just isn't enough. Set logic to one side, and feel for when the music pushes you earlier than expected. You'll recognise this as probably the point of rhythmic tension.

There are things that can help you to reduce the odds and get it right nearly every time. Some instrument patterns like the cáscara played on timbales are phrased, you can tell clave orientation from it. Others like the tumbao moderno, are the same every bar but have variations that are phrased to clave. That part of the story is picked up in Stage II, and more information on the instrument patterns themselves are available in the 'For Players' section.
 

Dancing a Percussive Counterpoint
You now have the skills you need to be able to produce the feel of salsa's tension and stability, simply by dancing counterpoint to what you hear. For example:

• when you hear the bongó bell beating out the pulse, all you have to do is think in clave and phrase your movements to your thoughts;
• when you feel the clave rhythm strongly, you know that you should stress pulse in your dance pattern.
   

CODA
So you've made it. Having successfully navigated these tutorials, you've finally reached the State of Independence as regards salsa rhythm. You can now recognise yourself as an autonomous dance unit, capable of embodying all three of salsa's fundamental rhythms.

If you've found these tutorials valuable, then I ask that you help others do so too, by emailing me with comments on the sections and concepts that you think could be more clearly explained.

May your new-found skills bring you years of enjoyment.