Now, you might be wondering about the title.
If you feel that you understand the difference, then by all means keep reading.
If all of this is confusing to you, I strongly recommend that you read that piece first (click here) and then come back and read this one. It really boiled down to this: there is really just one clave pattern, when you listen to it in a loop, the 3-side being the beginning but most Cuban musicians nowadays choose to begin the musical phrase of the song on the 2-side, so that the 1 count of the dancer happens to be on the 2-side of the clave therefore, if we were to dance to the clave where our 1 count is on the 3-side-that is, going with the normal clave pattern-we would be going against where the song is actually saying the 1 count is (in this case, the 2-side). Some months ago, I wrote a quite extensive article explaining the differences between what people refer to as the “2:3 clave” and the “3:2 clave”.
