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 < [email protected]> 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > Musicians mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/musicians-sharedweight.net >
