So I'm trying to learn how to play like this, but my small brain is having a bit of trouble figuring out what exactly is going on here on the drums.
https://youtu.be/-Ilr1AY41AA?t=170
(the part i'm talking about is most noticeable at around 2:50, but it appears on a number of spots throughout the whole album)
In advance, sorry if I mess up the terminology. It sounds like quintuplets with a bit of swing, where the kick is on the first and fifth notes of the tuplet, and the hihat is on the first and fourth(?). I'm probably wrong about that though. Anyway, it gives the groove a sort of "lopsided" feel to it that I'm struggling to reproduce. Then they finish off the sequence with two beats of straight eighths/sixteenths before looping around to the "lopsided" part, but that bit's self explanatory. I can get pretty close to emulating that part on the drum kit, but I'm not quite there because I'm just going by feel/ear rather than actually understanding what's happening.
It also happens in this song for example, at around 2:52, where the tambourine has that lopsided rhythm over the straight kick and snare on beats 1 and 3. But I swear, around the 3:09 mark, that clap seems to be hitting the beat early, further accentuating the feeling I'm talking about. Is this just an "illusion" that results from the tambourine being off the beat?
https://youtu.be/0Vuk1VJLMgo?t=169
(@ 2:52, since I apparently don't know how to make the start time share thingie work properly)
(as you can tell, his transcription of the percussion is a bit lacking)
It also happens in this song at around 4:15
https://youtu.be/tSPrBb48ONU?t=255
Is there a name for this sort of thing? Maybe some resources/info about what is actually going on? Where does this style of rhythm originate, and where can I find more uses of it? Do I just need to try harder to swing my quintuplets, or am I barking up the wrong tree? Sorry if you hate the songs, I'm just curious about the drums in particular and those were the first few examples that came to mind. Thanks for checking out my post.
microrhythm
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1530 posts since 17 Sep, 2002
Last edited by funky lime on Mon Oct 14, 2019 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRist
- 489 posts since 24 Nov, 2008
Just speculating, but it kind of sounds to me like just a timing shift or a rhythm interrupt applied at the midi level in whatever software they're using. If so, it would probably be very hard to find out exactly why it made the rhythm change like it did.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1530 posts since 17 Sep, 2002
But they do it live too, on an acoustic drum kit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-e6-jjbrs0
(2:35 ish)
Maybe I'm overcomplicating it, and it could just be a sort of extreme swing feel. But sometimes the subdivision makes it sound like the snare is "early" even though it's not, if that makes sense.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1530 posts since 17 Sep, 2002
Okay, damn, I just found this so maybe my own question is answered:
https://youtu.be/b78NoobJNEo
(starting around 11:30, and 14:50)
Maybe septuplets are the answer? Back to the woodshed, I suppose. Does anybody know of any more music that has these kinds of grooves that I can study?
https://youtu.be/b78NoobJNEo
(starting around 11:30, and 14:50)
Maybe septuplets are the answer? Back to the woodshed, I suppose. Does anybody know of any more music that has these kinds of grooves that I can study?
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- KVRAF
- 25053 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
the live example in that part of the vid has them playing with the sequence of 3s and then a 2 as an abstraction of the basic idea in the start. there are some things the drummer does on the hat which are 5-lets and 7-lets. The singer picks up the 7 in the line but there I don't think it crosses another rhythm but is metrical.
I don't know what is meant by 'swung 5-lets' except some would be late. Swung, technically is iterating the second of 2 at 2/3rds instead of at 1/2 of the time... I wouldn't know how to apply it as a real thing to the number 5.
Let's say your quarter note has 1000 ticks; so a regulated back beat hits at 500 and your 16th 5-let if totally accurate hits at [200,] 400 and 600; delay 600 enough & it's hard to distinguish from a triplet, rush the last one, '800' a little and it's 75%, the 4th 16th of the quarter, so unless it's more overt than what I hear, 5-lets is _an_ explanation but who knows.
Fascinating Rhythm has a backbeat and I don't know if it's slop or something really cute out of say malcolm braff. who has conceptions of swing which evolves over a certain period or number of cycles, finer deviances than notation supports but he has ways of doing.
I don't know what is meant by 'swung 5-lets' except some would be late. Swung, technically is iterating the second of 2 at 2/3rds instead of at 1/2 of the time... I wouldn't know how to apply it as a real thing to the number 5.
Let's say your quarter note has 1000 ticks; so a regulated back beat hits at 500 and your 16th 5-let if totally accurate hits at [200,] 400 and 600; delay 600 enough & it's hard to distinguish from a triplet, rush the last one, '800' a little and it's 75%, the 4th 16th of the quarter, so unless it's more overt than what I hear, 5-lets is _an_ explanation but who knows.
Fascinating Rhythm has a backbeat and I don't know if it's slop or something really cute out of say malcolm braff. who has conceptions of swing which evolves over a certain period or number of cycles, finer deviances than notation supports but he has ways of doing.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1530 posts since 17 Sep, 2002
Thanks, this is extremely helpful. It seems obvious now, but I've never really thought of a quarter as 1000 ticks before.
In a Malcolm Braff / "microrhythm" rabbit hole all evening, my own world seems so small now.
https://canthisevenbecalledmusic.com/ad ... rorhythms/
http://general-theory-of-rhythm.org/div ... da-weight/
Interesting reading and listening, but it seems feeling it is most important, after all
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- KVRAF
- 25053 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
Braff got it from somewhere, microrhythm... David Bruce's video on it has the most info for the amt of time spent on it.
Oddly, I saw the shifting within the period in an academic paper before I saw the above video. Africa, and there's a type of it in some Brazilian thing Bruce gets into I know of. It's all about feel, a way to track it/clock it and reproduce it, different than the osmosis/handed down orally tradition. The paper only talked the concepts really.
Oddly, I saw the shifting within the period in an academic paper before I saw the above video. Africa, and there's a type of it in some Brazilian thing Bruce gets into I know of. It's all about feel, a way to track it/clock it and reproduce it, different than the osmosis/handed down orally tradition. The paper only talked the concepts really.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1530 posts since 17 Sep, 2002
I did stumble across that David Bruce video, definitely a good ratio of informative content to time as you pointed out.
I've been attempting to digest the rhythmic elements of Gnawa for the past few days as well, and have gotten into the drummer Mokhtar Samba as well. It's weird, I was sitting at the kit for a while, trying to work out the more basic underpinnings of Gnawa and I felt myself beginning to "flow" out of time, almost like the rhythm was starting to melt before finding itself again. I don't really know how else to describe the sensation. It was like a revelation that the grid isn't real, just a suggestion. (i'm sure it sounded way cooler in my head than it did to anyone within earshot) Now, this happened purely as a result of slop/accident, but it was a really unique feeling. I tried to recreate it with intent, and found that the more I actually thought about it, the harder it was to pull off.
"Too many mind," perhaps. It's crazy how someone like Samba can be so tightly locked to the groove, while still somehow seeming to be so free of it. I've got a really long way to go. I think it was almost helpful that in some of the videos I was trying to learn from, the instructor/drummer was speaking in a language I don't understand (I think Arabic?). It made me focus more on the sound, rather than an explanation of the sound.
Braff is fascinating and all, but yeah, it almost feels contrived at times, like he is intentionally exaggerating some concept he picked up elsewhere for effect, e.g. that bizarre rhythm in Crimson Waves.
...and his explanation of it:
"I feel it in 7/8 with 11-tuplets except for the bridge and solo part that follows where we clearly switch to an 11/8 with 7-tuplets."
All else aside, the key for me being: "i feel it in..." rather than "it is..."
I've been attempting to digest the rhythmic elements of Gnawa for the past few days as well, and have gotten into the drummer Mokhtar Samba as well. It's weird, I was sitting at the kit for a while, trying to work out the more basic underpinnings of Gnawa and I felt myself beginning to "flow" out of time, almost like the rhythm was starting to melt before finding itself again. I don't really know how else to describe the sensation. It was like a revelation that the grid isn't real, just a suggestion. (i'm sure it sounded way cooler in my head than it did to anyone within earshot) Now, this happened purely as a result of slop/accident, but it was a really unique feeling. I tried to recreate it with intent, and found that the more I actually thought about it, the harder it was to pull off.
"Too many mind," perhaps. It's crazy how someone like Samba can be so tightly locked to the groove, while still somehow seeming to be so free of it. I've got a really long way to go. I think it was almost helpful that in some of the videos I was trying to learn from, the instructor/drummer was speaking in a language I don't understand (I think Arabic?). It made me focus more on the sound, rather than an explanation of the sound.
Braff is fascinating and all, but yeah, it almost feels contrived at times, like he is intentionally exaggerating some concept he picked up elsewhere for effect, e.g. that bizarre rhythm in Crimson Waves.
...and his explanation of it:
"I feel it in 7/8 with 11-tuplets except for the bridge and solo part that follows where we clearly switch to an 11/8 with 7-tuplets."
All else aside, the key for me being: "i feel it in..." rather than "it is..."
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1530 posts since 17 Sep, 2002
Just discovered this from 2004... a pretty damn fine example with both the drums and the vocals, how everything is just... wrong... but so right. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC7-opq4Gik
Gonna have to dive into some more hip-hop now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC7-opq4Gik
Gonna have to dive into some more hip-hop now.
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- KVRAF
- 25053 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
I eschewed getting into this for the one post as sort of tangential: subvision at /5 in compound time is written as dotted; compare 4 in the time of 6/8, these are dotted 8ths; 5 in the time of 6/8 is 5 dotted 8ths (w. the indication above the grouping). So in exercises comparing 3 to 5 now you have 15:6, or 15 in the time of the two *beats* of 6/8 (or [factor of 5 to] four of 12/8) in the strict sense of compound time.
A thing young hip drummers are into today is taking a sub-grid like this and re-ordering it (eg., Tigran Hamasyan's influence) so you have multiple time streams; compound time has 3 possible pulses now. So say on the hihat you can haz eg., 4+4+4+3 against a triple & against a duple foundation while remaining as literal 5-lets.
I suppose at this point (where 5 is factored along with 3) there is 2+1 on the dotted 5-lets. Compound time as a shortcut to 'swung' duration, which somehow I didn't think of as proper triplets.
A thing young hip drummers are into today is taking a sub-grid like this and re-ordering it (eg., Tigran Hamasyan's influence) so you have multiple time streams; compound time has 3 possible pulses now. So say on the hihat you can haz eg., 4+4+4+3 against a triple & against a duple foundation while remaining as literal 5-lets.
I suppose at this point (where 5 is factored along with 3) there is 2+1 on the dotted 5-lets. Compound time as a shortcut to 'swung' duration, which somehow I didn't think of as proper triplets.
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- KVRAF
- 25053 posts since 20 Oct, 2007 from gonesville
Also as a shortcut to nested tuplets; if you work with Cubase you can make it display 3 different potential grids by basing tuplets on a dotted note grid, "Triplet 5-lets" = a 15-grid (EG: Triplet half-note 5-lets = 15 to a half note) while the default 16ths grid still displays as the 'real' grid.
