First, here’s what habanera 1 looks like:
Habanera 2 is this (there should be a 2/4 time signature here too):
I’ve looked for sound clips of these rhythms but so far haven’t found any.
I’ve explained these rhythms before but they are so important in tango and milonga music I’ll do it again. In hab. 1 the syncopation happens on the second note, it occurs off the beat. In hab. 2 the syncopation happens on the second and third notes, which are played off the beat. The first three notes are most important and often only the first two are played in tango and milonga music.
I’ll ignore the pair of eighth notes on the second beat for now. Hab. 2 is really just a variation of hab. 1. Instead of a longer held note (a dotted eighth) there is a sixteenth note and an eighth note, taking up the same number of sub-beats as the dotted eighth in hab. 1. Here’s why: a dot increases the note value by half. An eighth note gets half a beat in 2/4 and the dot adds another sixteenth. (1/8 + .5 * 1/8 = 1/8 + 1/16 = 3/16). So a dotted eighth will get 3/16 of a beat. The second note in hab. 1 is a sixteenth, making a total of 4/16, or 1 full beat when the two note values are combined. (There are 16 sixteenth notes (16/16) in a bar of 4/4. That is how the fractional values (1/4, 1/8, 1/16…) are determined. So 4 of them (4/16) equals one quarter note, ie, one beat). Hab. 2 has 1/16 + 1/8 + 1/16. Adding these we get 4/16. Again, one full beat. And the last note of the three is a sixteenth (1/16), same with hab. 1.
I’ve explained how to count the habanera rhythms before:
Subdivide each beat into 4, in 2/4: Count quickly 1234, 1234 in your head or out loud. Clap or tap on 1__4, 1_3_. That is hab. 1. Hab. 2: Count quickly 1234, 1234. Clap on 1 2_4, 1_3_. Both these rhythms should sound familiar to you; you have heard them in tango and milonga music very often.
