The 123-123-12 rhythm appears in Middle Eastern, Balkan, and African music; I would more than suspect that its occurrence in contra dance music has come mainly via the African route, both via the slave influence in Appalachian music and via the hippy/funky influence in modern contra.

The klezmer/Romanian 123-123-12 has a different inflection to it - a different articulation - the late great Balkan dance/int'l folk dance teacher Dick Crum called it a "Get your Papers Here" rhythm - more of a 2;1,2;1,2 articulation than a 3;3;2 articulation.

...Unless the rhythm you're thinking of is the rock-n-roll boom-chuckboom-boomchuck - in which case we're back to the African influence...

- Yaron


On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 3:31 AM, Erik Hoffman via Musicians <musicians@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Hi Max & All,

Interesting that you learned the 3-3-2 rhythm as Klezmer.

- Klezmer rhythm (123-123-12)


So many of the people I've studied from say the 3-3-2 came from Africa. It has invaded many other genres. When I first learned about it (other than the clave), it came at me three times in one year:
   * A bunch of fiddle bowings used in Old-Time Appalachian tunes (highly slave influenced)
   * A doumbek rhythm (an Arabic drum)
   * In hamboning--body rhythm with African roots, from when slaves had their drums taken away.
__

Erik Hoffman
Oakland, CA


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