(averill) to learn music is to do something akin to learning a language (pagano) that's it. now try it. (averill) and very often, as kids learn music, they're taught the grammar, the rules, the syntax of the musical language. they learn this by rote. [drumbeats] do it slowly. (averill) eventually, the idea is that they can then bring something of their own style, something of their own spirit to the music and transform it-- make it something personal. take the example of jazz musicians who study solos of previous jazz greats who learn to reproduce those solos note by note. then they're able to take their own solos to begin to do something brilliant and creative and imaginative. (redman) i usually say that i'm self-taught because i never had a real private instructor as a saxophonist. but my teachers i consider to be the great musicians from the past and the great musicians from the present. i've learned from listening to the records. i consider sonny rollins one of my greatest teachers even though i've never met the man. so the way i've learned is by listening and by playing

(averill) in rumba, you have a clave. the clave pattern is the key to the rhythmic structure of the ensemble. in rumba guaguanco the clave sounds like this: [claps] the first side, if you divide this pattern in half, has three beats. and the second half has two beats. and this is an asymmetric pattern and its asymmetry is critical to the sound of the entire ensemble. the musicians have to take this key and relate their drumbeats to this fundamental pattern th structures the entire musical ensemble. african musics and afro-caribbean music have had a profound influence on pop musics throughout the world... notably in the development of the rhythm section. african-american musicians, who were marching in the early brass bands in new orleans used bass drums, snare drums, cymbals-- put them together into a repeating rhythmic unit. and later on, when this music moves indoors, musicians put these together into a single set--the drum set. [band playing dixieland] the drum set and the bass are called the rhythm unit in a band and