Chan Chan — Compay Segundo (1997)

Why this song

Listen to the first twenty seconds and you already know what comes next. Four chords, one bar each, then back to the start. They do not change once in the whole song.

That makes it one of the easiest songs in the world to join in with, and one of the hardest to play well. Anyone can hold the chords. Getting the rhythm right is a different job.

So if the harmony never moves, what makes the song go forward? That is the question this page answers.

Historical context

Compay Segundo's real name was Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz, born in Cuba in 1907. He wrote Chan Chan in 1984, aged 76. He said he did not compose it: he dreamt it. He woke up with four notes in his head and gave them words taken from a story he was told as a child.

The song existed for twelve years before it became famous. He first recorded it in 1985. In 1989 he recorded it again in Santiago de Cuba with Eliades Ochoa and the Cuarteto Patria, and they played it at the Casa de la Trova there. People liked it. It did not leave Cuba.

What got it out was a paperwork failure. In March 1996, the British producer Nick Gold and the American guitarist Ry Cooder had arranged for two musicians from Mali to record in Havana with Cuban players. The visas for the Malians never arrived. With the studio booked and the days paid for, they changed the plan: a son record with whoever was already there.

They went looking for older musicians who had not recorded in years. Compay Segundo was 88. The pianist Rubén González, 76, had retired after 1987. The singer Ibrahim Ferrer had retired in 1991.

They recorded fourteen songs in six days, on the 1950s equipment still standing in the EGREM studios. The record came out in 1997, was called Buena Vista Social Club, and has sold over eight million copies.

Musical characteristics

Start with your hands, not with the words.

Count to eight, slowly and always at the same speed. Five strokes fit inside those eight beats: three in the first four, two in the last four. And the first three are not evenly spaced — the middle one arrives late, between two and three. Clap it until it comes out on its own.

What you have just played is the clave. It is the pattern that organises time in almost all Cuban music. Everything else — bass, tres, voice — is placed in relation to it. The two wooden sticks that play it are also called claves: one rests in a cupped hand, the other strikes.

Foto: Freddythehat, dominio público, vía Wikimedia Commons

Now the bass, which is where the surprise is. In almost all the music you listen to, the bass lands on beat one: the chord changes and it is there, marking it. Not in son. The bass skips beat one. It comes in just after beat two, and again on beat four.

A note that lands where you do not expect it, off the strong beat, is a syncopation. The son bass line is made almost entirely of syncopations, and it has its own name: tumbao. That is why the song pulls forward without speeding up.

The class chart has four chords: Em – G – Am – B7, one bar each. The verse and the chorus use exactly the same loop. The only thing that changes between them is who is singing: one person, or everybody.

The bright metallic sound running over the top is not a guitar. It is a Cuban tres. It is smaller than a guitar and has six strings, but grouped in twos: three pairs. Both strings of a pair are plucked together, and in two of the three pairs one is high and one is low. That is why every note comes out double, with a brightness no ordinary guitar has.

Foto: dblackadder, CC BY-SA 2.0, vía Wikimedia Commons

The form is easy to follow: intro, two verses, chorus, another verse, a solo, chorus, a bridge, verse and chorus. The chorus names four real towns, all of them in Holguín province in eastern Cuba: Alto Cedro, Marcané, Cueto and Mayarí. You can trace the journey on a map.

Hard facts: E minor, 4/4, 4:16. The class chart says 174 BPM, but that number counts the subdivision; the pulse you tap with your foot is half of it, around 87.

One warning about the key: the chart is in E minor so it can be played with what we have, but the 1997 recording sounds a tone lower, in D minor (Dm – F – Gm – A7). Play along with the video and it will not fit.

Trivia and curiosities

• The best-selling world music album in history exists because two Malian musicians did not get their visas in time. What was planned was never recorded at all.

• "Compay Segundo" is not a name, it is a job. Compay means mate or godfather, and segundo means second voice — the one that harmonises underneath the tune. On this recording the man who wrote the song does not sing the melody. He sings below it. Eliades Ochoa takes the lead.

• Compay Segundo built himself an instrument, a cross between a Spanish guitar and a Cuban tres, and called it the armónico. It is what he is holding in the photo at the top of this page.

• He recorded this at 88 and spent the last years of his life touring half the world. He died in 2003, aged 95. The international career started at 89.

• Ry Cooder called Chan Chan the Buena Vista's calling card. It is the first track on the record, and it is the one that sold it.

Classroom activities

• Play: the loop Em – G – Am – B7, one bar per chord. Ukuleles and electric guitar hold the chords. The bass tries the tumbao: nothing on beat one, one note just after beat two, another on beat four. The drums keep the pulse, no fills. It will feel wrong at first, and that is exactly the point.

• Clave by hand: half the class plays, the other half claps the five strokes. Swap after two minutes. You know it is working when nobody needs to look at the person next to them.

• Analyse: a closed question. Verse and chorus use the same four chords in the same order. So how do you know the section has changed? Write it in one sentence, about what you hear, not about what this page says.

• Create: the chorus lists four towns in a row, a real journey. Make your own with four places from around here, over the same four-chord loop. This connects with ¿Cuándo empieza una melodía a decir de dónde eres?.

Key vocabulary

• Son — son cubano: el género cubano de cuerdas y percusión del que sale esta canción
• Clave — la clave: los cinco golpes en ocho tiempos que organizan el tiempo
• Syncopation — síncopa
• Tumbao — tumbao: la línea de bajo del son, que se salta el primer tiempo
• Tres — el tres cubano, la guitarra de tres pares de cuerdas

Resources

In Year 3 — this song is used in ¿Cómo se guarda algo que solo existe mientras suena? and ¿Cuándo empieza una melodía a decir de dónde eres?, from the theory and history book.

Official video — from the World Circuit label channel.

Live at Carnegie Hall, New York, 1998 — the same musicians, one year after the record.

Ukulele tutorial — Karma Guitar. Chords and the son strumming pattern, which is the hard part.

Guitar tutorial — El Salón de Guitarra, ten minutes, taken slowly.

Bass tutorial — Yousician, tab on screen and the line cut back to the basics.

Drums — Daniel Ponce. Not a tutorial for this song: it is how the son rhythm moves onto a drum kit, which is what you need here.

What a Cuban tres is — Michael McClintock plays this same song on a tres, with a close view of the instrument.

The clave, explained — Yilian, with her hands and counting out loud.

• Tab — on Songsterr, with electric bass, electric guitar, congas and maracas tracks: https://www.songsterr.com/a/wsa/buena-vista-social-club-chan-chan-tab-s446852
• Cover image — Compay Segundo con su armónico, en la sala Suristán de Madrid (1999). Foto: Sceptikón, CC BY-SA 4.0, vía Wikimedia Commons