Drum/rhythm knowledge rolling thread

continuum

smugpolice
@sodiumnightlife

dunno, think it may have more to do with the sounds he uses around the drum beat itself which kind of throw you off what you expect to happen next in the tune. I could be wrong also...!

I made one track a few years ago which is the only tune i've ever made which i thought was ok where I tried to abandon all structure whatsoever (or at least conciously abandon it) which may show what I'm trying to get at better. If you go to www.myspace.com/djldjl it is on there (called 'Bears').

Again, this probably has nothing to do with what you are talking about so feel free to ignore!
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
Your explanation of syncopation is not one that I recognize. It does not require "several rhythms at the same time" (one implied and one actual are sufficient, hence the prefix "syn") (e.g., I can make a syncopated rhythm by clapping my hands, no need for additional rhythms, so long as a basic pulse is implied), and it does not "prevent rhythmic resolutions" or occlude a "definite sense of closure" (in fact, a syncopation works because at the end of the moment of syncopation there's closure). It's a basic term for alternating/shifting accents or ghosting them that can be applied to dance music or a violin melody or anything reallly. And on the contrary, this does not create ambiguity, it creates a very identifiable rhythmic phenomenon - which is why it's gotten its own term in the first place. Maybe I've just misunderstood you?

No, you understand syncopations well. I just have a non-standard take on the issue. Iand i'm not expressing myself well -- it's a highly technical issue. think what is really going on musically is that there are several rhythms going on. The standard understanding says: normally weak beats are strong. This implies one rhythm (giving the normally weak beats (and the corresponding strong beats), and a second one which emphasises the weak beats. So i take "several" here to mean "at least two" ;) But in practise one needs more i reckon. You can put
a constant 123123123... on top of a 123412341234... and it wouldn't feel syncopated in the way that clave does. But the boundaries are fluid. I think the overlay of several rhythms (implied or otherwise) is the key phenomenon. (However, and contradicting myself slightly, the classic latin beats like clave, can be interpreted as either 6/8 or 4/4, but, because only not all beats are played, and because the players usually imply one of the two more strongly than the other, the ambiguity is not as crass as in some technotracks that put blatant 123123... ontop of a blatant 12341234...)

Syncopation subverts listener expectation regarding the beat structure. I think -- and that's pure speculation -- that what goes on in the brain when listening to music, is that the brain tries to predict what's happening next (this is probably a left-over of the brain parts responsible for language learning, which is a gigantic pitch-and-rhythm pattern detection exercise). and syncopation plays with this: it gives enough structure so the brain always feels like it has just locked into the rhythm, and then that feeling is subverted by the anticipations that make weak beats strong. Because the brain is constantly not getting the rhythm right, it wants more to predict better next time.


The fact that highly syncopated rhythms have a definite flavour is correct, but i think it happens at a much higher level of pattern recognition. In the same sense that white noise sounds very characteristic, but at a more detailed level we are unable to predict white noise, except in its unpredicatbility.
 
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noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
That's interesting, I don't know much about what 'clave' is but isn't laying 6/8 over 4/4 like that more a polyrhythm than what you would call syncopation?

Often with syncopation you have multiple patterns that obviously all do start and resolve but they are doing so on different beats. The overall effect then can be one of non-resolution because something else is always beginning. Autechre's 'Montreal' is a good example of that I think, where it's very obvious what's happening.
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
Wot? Funky drummer is a crazy rhythm with lots of shares, ghosted or otherwise, almost nothing emphasis the downbeat. I don't remember it off the top of my head, and it's too complicated
for me to work it out on the fly by listening, but i have programmed it (don't have my XS key at work sorry). i can post it next time i go online if anybody cares enough aboutWork of art. Amen, if i remember correctly, was produced by recording several drum takes and splicing them togetherwith tape and a razor blade, so it should be something that's not really possible for humans to play.

Funky Drummers and Amen differ a bit in the details but the basic skeleton is practically identical. Almost all the breakbeats taken from funk have the kick on the first 1 beat, snare on 2 and 4 structure. So they are all more or less the same (family of) rhythm.

The dancehall/soca beat of 3-3-2 is an example of something that is a different rhythm. I guess the typical two-step d'n'b beat would be something different as well.
 

hint

party record with a siren
I thought syncopation is when you play notes just before or just after "the beat". Syncopation = swing

Syncopated beats usually swing too, but swing is much more subtle than syncopation.

Syncopation is based around the accent of a rhythm.

A (very) simple exercise - say the following out loud:

"one, Two, three, Four"
vs.
"one, Two, three AND Four"

The syncopation comes from the emphasis of the "AND".

To enhance the syncopation, you could then make the "three" weaker, or even remove it altogether.

"one, Two, ... AND Four"

It's still the same tempo and time signature, but it feels very different.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Contrary to what's been said upthread, it's not always possible to say what's the 1. Especially in electronic dance music. A lot of producers play with this, to fool you into locking onto one groove, and then continuing with another. Typically you have a full on A section, then an A' section which
takes out the bass drum, and other elements that mark the downbeats strongly, just leaving synth pads and the highhat marking every crotchet, quaver or semi-quaver, but without giving any hint as to the downbeat (AKA, all hits have the same volume, tone quality). this goes on for a while leaving you , your body to infer/hear the BD/downbeat. Then the bass drum kicks back in, but not at the place where the listener expects it, but somewhere else, thus marking a new downbeat. Lot's of detroit techy tracks from the 90s for example. DJs also mix on off-beats or backbeats sometimes for the same effect.

Very interesting. I think I know what you mean, but can you give examples of Detroit trax that do this, sothat I can have a listen for this 'trick'?
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
Great thread. Does anyone know what the beat definition of a two-step track would be?

2step (garage) takes the general kick snare kick snare pattern but it's the detail and embelishment that make it funky.

firstly you often overlay four offbeat hats (so shifted an eighth from the main four beats in the bar), that date from house/techno. These are often pitchbent down between the third and fourth beat

Then you swing the hats that fall outside of the main four beats and four-offbeats. Then there's loads of other embelishments you can add, double kicks around the first beat, or delay the kick on the third, by an eighth. these can be pitchbent in places too.

Or you can push the second snare on the fourth back by an eighth.

And you can fill the hole between the second and third beat with additional percussion.

All that said, i can do all these and more but somehow geniuses like El-B make it sound yet funkier by some magic tricks that have decived my ears for the best part of seven years... but no mind, it makes me happy that there will always be some more drum magic out there to learn.
 
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borderpolice

Well-known member
All that said, i can do all these and more but somehow geniuses like El-B make it sound yet funkier by some magic tricks that have decived my ears for the best part of seven years...

Same here, i've been trying to get my tunes as funky as my fav 2-step garage for a while, but not quite getting it. It's not just the drum programming, every note that one sings/plays is also a rhythmic event, and is a key part of the rhythm, contributing to funkyness.
 

sodiumnightlife

Sweet Virginia
someone was talking in another thread on here about 2-step, and saying that producers would take rhythms, swing them, bounce them down and then put them back into the music program and swing them again...

i'll try and find the thread.

EDIT: here.

Down the page a bit.
 
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borderpolice

Well-known member
someone was talking in another thread on here about 2-step, and saying that producers would take rhythms, swing them, bounce them down and then put them back into the music program and swing them again... here.

i doubt that much 2-step rhythm is Re-Cycle'd from other music. The rhythmic feel of the genre is decidedly non-human.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
All that said, i can do all these and more but somehow geniuses like El-B make it sound yet funkier by some magic tricks that have decived my ears for the best part of seven years... but no mind, it makes me happy that there will always be some more drum magic out there to learn.

Don't! It was particularly El-B I was thinking of, I keep fucking trying to get what he does and it's just really elusive, thanks for that about 2-step.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
forgot about people doing that - the first tune on ames essential mix from 2006 does this to great effect.

One of the tunes from the recent Gui Boratto does this at the start also- it has some elements in a 4/4 pattern, some doing triplet time on top, then the beat kicks in against both patterns, really confusing, but suddenly making the tripletish pattern cohere into the rhythmical make-up, and a great moment! I'd like to hear some tracks which do that kind of shifting mid-tune too, presumably that would mean subtly shifting the bar line (ie- having the last bar of the old pattern shorter or longer by a beat or so?)
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
One of the tunes from the recent Gui Boratto does this at the start also- it has some elements in a 4/4 pattern, some doing triplet time on top, then the beat kicks in against both patterns, really confusing, but suddenly making the tripletish pattern cohere into the rhythmical make-up, and a great moment! I'd like to hear some tracks which do that kind of shifting mid-tune too, presumably that would mean subtly shifting the bar line (ie- having the last bar of the old pattern shorter or longer by a beat or so?)

a friend of mine, the best DJ i know, alas he has given up on making music, used to beatmatch incoming tunes on the off-beat or backbeat. With the right selection of tracks, this can be amazingly funky!
 
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