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Chris said: >Here's a method I learned in tabla lessons, which helps me hear and >"internalize" some of these polyrhythms: > >I'll use your example -- 5 : 2 -- > >1. Use your hands to count the 5: Clap on the 1, then strike your fingers >of one hand , (alternately), on the palm of your other hand to count the 2 >through 5. > > >Do this slowly for a bit, at a steady pace, until you don't have to think >about it. > >Now the other side of the polyrhythm will be done with your voice: >Choose >a repeating note/word sequence, with one sound per count (of the 5). For >example, the traditional 5 count tabla note sequence goes: >TA KAY TA KEE TA. > In college I took a class in West African music performance. (Taught by C.K. Ladzekpo at UC Berkeley) What is interesting is that he taught polyrhythms in a similar way, using voice and clapping. It says something about human nature that different cultures happened upon similar methods for effective teaching, doesn't it? In order to pass the class, one thing we had to do was clap the basic gonkugui (sp?) bell pattern, which is a four beat, three vs four polyrhythmic pattern that underlies much of the traditional music from Ghana. While clapping this, we had to count 2 bars each of every possible eighth and triplet beat division of the 4 beat bar. So: whole notes, half notes, half note triplets, quarter notes, triplet quarters, eighth notes, triplet eighths, sixteenths, and sextuplets. It took me the whole semester to be able to do this at all, and I still wasn't very good. I started that class thinking that I knew something about rhythm since I had been playing music for a long time. I was humbled very quickly! In a good way though. I learned that I knew almost nothing about rhythms, other than the very basic structures in western music. It pushed me, and showed me how important a rhythmic language is to expression in music. Gave me just enough tools to get started learning more. One thing that western listeners often miss in rhythmically based music is that emotions are expressed through the rhythm patterns themselves, rather than in harmony. Cross rhythms and syncopation are used to generate tension, which is resolved with more "consonant" rhythms falling on regular beat intervals. Different rhythmic patterns are used compositionally to represent different emotional feels, in much the way western music tends to use particular harmonic progressions to impart emotion. A while back there was a thread involving tension and resolution, where someone was talking about how looping doesn't have tensions and resolutions and therefore represents a form of music beyond what can be explained by standard western music theory. I'm not sure I totally agree with such a statement (which I probably have totally wrong here), since it seemed to be focused on harmonic tension. But it made me think about the ways tension and resolution do occur in repetitive and looped music. Since looping enforces the regular occurance of events in the loop, rhythm seems to be much more important, at least for me. One thing that happens in West African music, and I imagine elsewhere, is that tense polyrhythms will occur in one part of the pattern and resolve into even rhythms in another part. So you might have several instruments pulling against each other while playing a complicated cross rhythm over beats 1, 2, and 3, and all come together on the beat for 4 and 1. This tension-release pattern will repeat for that section of the song, and the next section of the song will have a different repeating pattern. This sort of thing works really well in looping, since it is easy to add a lot of odd rhythms in one part of the loop while another part is nice and even. You can even slowly begin emphasizing one part over the other with multiple overdub passes. So each pass might include a percussive note played on the same beat each time, reinforcing the feeling that everything comes together at that point. Or each pass may include a different part of polyrhythm, making it more complex and tense with each pass. Undo lets you remove the emphasis again. Another thing that I have found to be very interesting about looping is that a very non-rhythmic event, by virtue of being repeated in a regular interval, becomes rhythmic! Naturally I discovered this by accident, because I totally blew something I was trying to play, but let it loop anyhow. By itself, it was rhythmically horrible, but as a loop, it became a fantastically weird rhythm. It produces a great kind of tension, because you have a terrible time predicting where it happens in the loop yet it always happens in that same spot! I've done this a lot since, both accidentally and intentionally, and it makes a great effect. kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@annihilist.com | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html http://www.annihilist.com/ | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com