Re: Static Loops, Quantized Sequences and Music that Breathes

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

What a great feedback from Andy on Rick's post! I just have to quote  
it all below because it's so right on! I'd like to chime in and say  
that I really liked it the first time I heard drummer Charlie Watts  
playing at a slightly different tempo then Brian Jones and the boys  
in the band. It felt awesome in an almost creepy way to hear two  
different tempi instantly clashing. The coolest thing is that Charlie  
Watts doesn't immediately change his tempo in this situation, but  
keeps on bashing the drums at the "wrong" tempo while slowly  
adjusting to go into playing a little "too fast" for a while until he  
catches up and the entire band once again glues together into the  
usual rock 'n roll machine.

For some years during the eighties I played guitar in a row of reggae  
bands and this was an awesomely educating  experience in rhythm. As  
usual I was deported to playing "ornamentation lead guitar" rather  
freely, but my biggest kick was to listen to, and learn from, the  
rhythm guitarist. This guy could really drift around the "tempo root"  
in a beautiful way. He just played "chop!  ---  (long silence) ----  
chop!" etc. He had that fine Charlie Watts kind of sense for placing  
free floating tempo around the tempo root, rather than being obsessed  
by "playing tight" (ouch... I've had terrible experiences trying to  
cooperate with people that see music as "tight" vs "wrong"). Another  
funny thing I noticed is that whenever he smoked grass he completely  
lost this his delicate sense of timing (although himself, he thought  
he was playing great then ;-)

I also like it in programmed synth based techno music when you twist  
knobs on the synths while they play sequenced stuff, so the attack of  
a synth sound might become slower, thus causing this entire musical  
section to slowly drift into a gradually slower tempo as the synth  
sound attack becomes slower and slower (this happening while other  
synth sequences keep playing at the original tempo). I experienced  
this phenomenon when starting to work with MIDI sequencing in the  
late eighties but not until hearing Alex Paterssons superb sequencing  
on the Orb's first release (The Ever Pulsating Brain In The Center Of  
The Universe... or whatever the title was) I finally understood that  
this is actually the same musical phenomenon as when Charlie Watts  
plays drums... or Ry Coder guitar, to mention another of my old  
"elastic tempo interpretation" heroes.

This thing with "elastic tempo", as in multiple drifting tempi, is  
also the reason for my big crush on the OS X modular sequencing  
application Numerology. I think I'll stop here before the Off Topic  
Intelligence guys come to bring me in...

per



>> At the same time,  rigidity is the first inherent problem of  
>> trying to learn how to play to
>> clicks.

On 16 aug 2007, at 10.13, andy butler wrote:

> I agree with Rick that it's possible to add life to rigid tempos,
> and indeed, that's a very relevant point for looping.
>
> ..but
>
> I think there's that magic moment when two or more
> players find a "clock" between them.
> I wouldn't care if the music staggered a bit on the way to finding  
> that.
> Doesn't happen often(most players seem to have their own clock  
> which they like to adhere to.)
> ..and never happens with a click
>
>> are
>> xenophobic when it comes to the concept.
>> If you can't find the exercises,   I'll repost them.  Just let me  
>> know if you are interested
>
> well, I already got those from Rick,
> but always good to see them again :-)
>
> My finding was that, when drumming, it does indeed sound bad when  
> you put in a jump in the timing to compensate for drift, makes the  
> drummer sound bad even if someone else was doing the drifting.
> Mind you, if the timing is drifting anyway then you've got someone  
> on the team who just isn't really listening, so that's the root  
> problem, rather than the drummer.
> As a bass player, it's much easier to follow a drummers "mistakes"  
> directly and play a supporting role rather than a prescriptive one.  
> My technique for doing that would be make sure I wasn't counting  
> time in my head, or tapping my foot, and listen to the drummer to  
> understand their internal clock, without a notion that they are  
> just "out of time". (then once the drummer starts to feel that  
> support the rhythm starts to really flow)
>
> andy butler