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Re: Maybe why Avante-garde looping in US...
Joe Rut wrote:
"With rare exception, hip hop vocal rhythms are all subdivisions of
standard
4/4 phrasing, and while very musically pleasing (to some, myself
included) I would not put them in the same category of rhythmic complexity
as balkan music where the bars constantly change beat length (4/4, 3/
4, 7/8, 5/8, 2/4, 12/8etc.)."
Then you missed my earlier point, Joe. I've met many a middleeastern
and balkan musician who did not understand
the underlying principles of hip hop rhythms in 4/4. The complexity
is intrinsic to the music.
Again, I site a Timbaland production of Missy
Elliot.....................there is incredible complexity in some of those
rhythms in
4/4 and it takes a very sophisticated drummer to duplicate something like
that live.
What follows is a long winded but hopefully illucidating example of my
point:
When I was first learning Samba as a bone head rock and soul drummer, I
went to my teacher, Russ Tincher and
said, "I've practised and practised these rhythms and although I can play
them, they don't feel very good or soulful".
I'll never forgot what he told me:
"Rick can you play rock and roll?"
<yes, of course I can play rock and roll>
"Can you play rock and roll in your sleep?"
< of course, I can>
"Samba, Rick, is the rock and roll of Brazil. These guys play the same
set of rhythms over and over and over the way you played rock and roll
over
and over and over"
He said, "If you want to be able to play Samba well, I would advise that
ever where you go that you play the Samba foot pattern
over and over...............if you are standing in
line......................taking a bus.......................watching
television...........make your feet move constantly in that pattern over
and
over."
I took his advice and low and behold, I became a pretty good Samba player
after a couple of months.
The point is that Balkan musicians have the same neurophysiological
limitations that we do in 'North America'.
They are not intrinsically more sophisticated rhythmically than we are.
They just play rhythms that are in odd time signatures
and have been doing it since they were little boys (no unconcious sexism
here, women just don't play the drums in that culture)
Additionally, the folk musics of the Balkan countries are very, very
simple outside of the fact that they are not in 4/4. They repeat
endlessly........................When I first got excited about playing
music like that I was shocked to find that I would get really bored
playing for dancers because the rhythms were (and needed to be) very
repetitive and also go on for much longer than we are used
to in Western dance clubs.
The rhythmic variety of a typical hip hop gig was far more interesting
from
a rhythmatists' standpoint, imnsho
Joe also wrote:
"I would not consider improvising over a solid 4/4 beat, where the "one"
is
rarely in question to be particularly
sophisticated (opinion alert)."
Ahhhhh, let me show you some classical Indian subdivision and
polythrhythmic improvisatory exercises that will make you take that
opinion
back
**********
By the way, if soloing over 7/8 seems daunting write me off list and I'll
show you some really simple exercises
to get free in that rhythmic space........................you'll see that
it
is actually no more complicated than playing in 4/4..............you just
haven't done it since you were a kid like they have there.
One piece of advice if people find anything
difficult..................burn
a CD with the feel in a song that you are not getting and play the song
over
and over and over in your car......................every day
...............every time you are in your car...............in two or
three
days
you'll get it, I promise you. That's how I learned the authentic
Batucada feel of street Samba. I put Bateria Nota 6 on a both
sides of a cassette and played it over and over for an entire
week.................bang, works like wonder.