Rhythmic breaks or unison hits played by the whole band, often interrupting the flow to create surprise and tension. These are choreographed and add drama, excitement, and syncopation.
Interruptive role: The bloque is a sudden, tightly coordinated rhythmic break. It disrupts the ongoing groove (tumbao, coro, or guías).
Cue for change: Right after the bloque, the band often launches into a new “gear” (a new rhythmic feel, coro, or pianotumbao). In this sense, the bloque is an announcement: it marks the transition to what comes next.
A form of obligado: the bloque is the typical timba form of an obligado, a fixed arranged passage that everyone plays together.
Timba is the music this site is dedicated to exploring. It emerged as a distinct genre in the late 1980s and crystallized in the early 1990s — born in a moment of social crisis, built on the full accumulated history of Cuban music, and still evolving today.
The claves are two round sticks of hardwood. Struck together, they give a high, sharp click that cuts through the whole band. On the claves you play the clave rhythm, the pattern that Cuban music is built on.
The piano is the harmonic and rhythmic heart of Cuban popular music. In timba, it is one of the most demanding and expressive instruments in the ensemble.
A tumbao is a rhythmic and melodic pattern that is repeated over and over, usually in a cycle of two, four or eight bars. Piano, bass, tres, guitar and percussion each have their own tumbao; together they make up the groove a song rests on.
A break is a short rhythmic figure played by (part of) the band that interrupts a running gear or links two gears together. Kevin Moore calls such a figure an efecto; other names are bloque, break, punches and cierre.
A fixed, arranged passage that the whole band, or a group of instruments, plays exactly together. "Obligado" literally means "obligatory": everyone plays the same accents, with no room for improvisation.
