dissecting music

As I am staying in India right now, I feel rather pretentious writing about this topic, since some of the cats I befriended here are doing stuff with rhythm I can only dream of pulling off right now. The reasons why I came here were twofold: First, I love the country and its colourful culture, which I know from when I came here 5 years ago. Secondly, my jazz mentor told me that any jazz musician who is serious about learning rhythm has to visit either India or Westafrica to do so. So here I am now. I will not go into any aspects of Indian Music Tradition right now though, as there are a lot of basics to cover first and I also don’t feel competent enough to convey material of that tradition properly, as to now.

Rhythm is really fascinating. Just as harmony and melody, it is able to create tension and release which is one of the most important elements in musical perception. I will elaborate on the mathematical background of this musical element, so that further exploration into the field of rhythm can be understood in relation to the physical reality we live in. Just as with the other elements of music, I will resort to the use of many handdrawn pictograms to convey ideas, but also add some rhythm notation.

The concepts presented here are ment to provide a basic understanding of what rhythm is and what role it plays in music. This knowledge can be further used to understand how different musical instruments interact with each other in a band situation. It also forms the basis for any other concept of rhythm I will introduce in the future. These will be applicable to percussive, as well as melodic instruments.

What does Rhythm mean?

Rhythm is a dancer, we all know that much – but what does it do to our brains apart from making us wan’t to move? For this we must analyze it, starting at it’s most simple form: a steady pulse. Once there is a series of events happening with roughly the same span of time between each occurance, there is rhythm to be perceived.

This applies to many aspects of life, not only music. The day and night cycle forms a rhythm, so does the human cycle of reproduction. The stock exchange has it’s own rhythm and of course our heartbeat. All of these elements have been used for ages (well, maybe all except the stock exchange) to derive a concept of time from, a steady pulse being the most simple form.

Some of those examples however, have more than just a simple pulse. There are variations, sub-divisions, at specific stages in the cycle, maybe a faster or slower self-similar pattern is played on top. A pupils school day for example is excellent raw material for these metaphors:

• • A pupil has roughly six hours of school each day

• • Each set of classes throughout the week represents a variation on each of the five days of school, but

• • there are similarities between the days, like 2 hours of sports in the first two lessons on tuesday and thursday for example. These are accents reoccuring at the same spots in the cycle each weak.

• • Each afternoon represents further variations in the daily routine, but

• • maybe there are Karate classes on tuesdays and thursdays and guitar class every friday. More reoccuring accents.

• • Every night the pupil goes to bed roughly at the same time and sleeps for 8 hours.

• • the last two days represent the weekend, a contrast to the other days

  • every sunday the family goes out for lunch

All of those weekly reoccuring elements form a complex rhythmic pattern, which is equivalent to anything that could take place in a musical context. All of this could in fact, be translated directly into music. When our ears witness such a thing happening in a timeframe that is short enough for our short time memory to handle and mathematically simple enough for our limited processing power, our brain will be able to analyze and subconsciously understand it in real time.

What. An. Amazing. Machine. Is. Our. Brain…!

Of course, when the rhythms get more intricate, there is also a huge factor of cultural and personal experience that comes into play.

So, we now know that rhythm is based on

• • reoccuring elements, we can use to derive an idea of time from and

  • other elements, that stand in relation to the experience of time created and may give us a sense of when the cycle ends and starts again and

  • our experience of rhythm stems from our brains capacity to analyze and put into relation what we hear on the spot

It is really fascinating to get into conceptual comparisons of harmony, melody and rhythm, but it is a lengthy topic and it deserves it’s own page. Let’s instead translate what we went through, just now, into a musical framework.

How to create Rhythm?

Step one: Take your hand and slam it against something (in a non-destructive manner for both your hand and the something chosen.) If it creates a sound, proceed with step two.

Step two: repeat this process, while trying to have the same spans of time occuring between the instances of slamming. Be as precise as possible.

Congratulations, you just created a steady pulse. Now, while hitting random objects rhythmically can be a lot of fun, try sticking to ones that resonate well. Hollow objects tend to be excellent resonators, in my experience – especially if they have a thin surface and are hard or under tension. An excellent resonator you carry with you at all times (at least I hope) is your chest. Body percussion is an excellent way to practice rhythm.

The next step you may wan’t to take is to add a metrum or meter. A meter defines the length of a cycle. While a steady pulse can be looked at as a one beat cycle, the area of observation can also be increased to several beats. Very popular and simple meters are 3/4 and 4/4. The first number indicates how many beats make up a cycle and the second tells you the length of each beat. This way of quantitatively describing the length of a meter is called a time signature. In this case both meters deal with quarter notes. There is no reason, except convention, that western music is counted in quarter notes. It is based on viewing the 4/4 meter as the standard one. One quarter note, refers to a quarter of that meter and is the standard unit of measuring the length of a musical event. This term should just be accepted and taken for what it is – a term. Don’t worry, I and many much better musicians than me vouch for the quality of this system.

I hope you could follow thus far – In fact I reckon you are yearning to go much deeper into rhythm than that. So stay tuned for next installation of our rhythmically inclined introductory series.

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