Bell Pattern

A few years I learned a rhythm called the bell pattern. It's a rhythm that's heard a lot in Afro-Cuban music. When I first learned it, it was a semi-complicated pattern that over time I became comfortable with. Janet loves to throw it into a lot of her music, and it's a fun and driving rhythm. But I knew that the bell pattern has a lot of importance in Cuban music and is an essential time-keeper for more complicated patterns. I knew it was a part, like clave, that are the shoulders upon which whole worlds of music rest on. The bell is in fact a variation of clave. 

In my percussion class, I am finally learning how important bell is, and I am so thankful for the head start I got on learning it. Now that I am learning patterns within the context of bell, I feel that there is a new and gigantic world of rhythm that I am being introduced to. I think it's great and amazing. I am so loving that class. But what I love the most is that things are slowly making connections in my head. I love that I am building upon all the knowledge and experience I already have under my belt, but in a way that makes me feel like I am beginning to really understand things. Yes I have this one factoid down, and this other factoid, but now they are starting to link up and make sense. It's like when you're putting together a jigsaw puzzle from disparate pieces and very slowly a larger image starts to take shape, and all of a sudden you see that different colors and shapes actually have a logic and place. But boy oh boy, is this a big puzzle. I haven't even finished putting all the edges together yet. There is still a whole lot of filling in I need to do.