RE: Maybe why Avante-garde looping in US...

[Warren Sirota <wsirota@wsdesigns.com>]

Awesome post, Rick. It's nice to have such a cogent summary of the Indian
system - I'm moving this one into the "Keepers" folder.

Best wishes,
Warren Sirota


> -----Original Message-----
> From: loop.pool [mailto:looppool@cruzio.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 7:40 PM
> To: LOOPERS DELIGHT (posting)
> Subject: Re: Maybe why Avante-garde looping in US...
> 
> 
> Kevin wrote:
> "You can actually get the hang of odd meter really fast if 
> you don't count 
> in
> numbers but in syllables, which takes advantage of our speech 
> centers.  Just about all European odd meters can be broken 
> down into groups of two and 
> three
> beats.  For the two beats say "Taki" and for the three beats 
> say "Gamela". 
> So
> for two seven beat patterns:
> 
> Taki-Taki-Gamela, Taki-Taki-Gamela,...
> or
> Gamela-Taki-Taki, Gamela-Taki-Taki,...
> 
> ********
> personally, I think it is a good idea to keep the syllables 
> more closely 
> together (until you are working with
> the onomotopoetic syllables of specific drums in the Indian or other 
> traditions).
> 
> I honestly think having tried many different counting systems 
> that you can 
> trip your tongue up going
> from a T sound to a G sound at very high speed  but it's all good.
> 
> Amplifying on this concept a little:
> 
> The Indians use these  four subdivision:
> >
> Ta-ki   (pronounced Taw kih)                                  
>       TWO
> 1  2
> >
> Ta-ki-ta   (pronounced Taw kih tuh)                              THREE
> 1  2  3
> >
> Ta-ki-di-mi (pronounced Taw kih dee mee)                   FOUR
> 1  2  3  4
> >
> Ta-ki-di-na-tom  (pronounced Taw kih dee nah tom)      FIVE
> 1  2  3  4  5
> 
> Interestingly, they stop at the threshold that Western 
> psychologists in the 
> latter 20th century  discovered.:   the number 5 .
> From what I've heard,  human beings can keep five things in 
> their heads, 
> concieved of as separate things but that the minute we get
> to larger numbers we are forced to begin grouping into 
> smaller increments. 
> The Indians have known this intrinsically for hundreds of years.
> 
> The emphasis always being on the 'Ta' or first syllable
> 
> 
> In this way you can make a practise matrix of any time 
> signature you want to 
> take on and just sing the syllables
> 
> for example:
> 
>                 2 + 2 + 3           or      Ta ki Ta ki Ta ki tuh
>                 2  + 3 + 2                   Ta ki Ta ki ta Ta ki
>                 3  + 2 + 2                   Ta ki ta Ta ki Ta ki
> 
> 7/8  =       3 + 4                          Ta ki ta Ta ki di mi
>                 4 + 3                          Ta ki di mi Ta ki ta
> 
>                 5 + 2                           Ta ki di na tom Ta ki
>                 2 + 5                           Ta ki Ta ki di na tom
> 
> 
> Sing these combinations over and over, making sure that ever 
> syllable takes 
> exactly the same amount of time.
> There are more sophisticated games to play with this material 
> and you can 
> syncopate or leave out notes internal to each
> phrasing but this will give you all the basic phrasing 
> possilities of each 
> odd time signature you want to play in.
> 
> Warning:   If you are playing, say the first excercise above 
> as an ostinato 
> that your whole band is playing..................
> it will really throw people if you use any of the other phrases 
> simultaneously so you will need to check it out and
> also practise it with them if you plan on doing it live.     
> One long band 
> practise or two playing different time signatures against
> each other will usually do the trick to learn how to do this 
> (but you have 
> to have relatively sophisticated musicians with a good
> internal sense of time and also, more importantly,  their 
> willingness to go 
> along with these games that sound like gibberish
> until you get to know them better. 
>