baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Thanks for these - I'll check them out. Upside Down, eh? I'd never really stopped to think about why it was so amazing, aside from the obvious disco change-up midway (?it's been a long time) through.
Drum/rhythm knowledge rolling thread
- Thread starter baboon2004
- Start date
Thanks for these - I'll check them out. Upside Down, eh? I'd never really stopped to think about why it was so amazing, aside from the obvious disco change-up midway (?it's been a long time) through.
i don't think upside down displays anything particularly interesting or tricksy in terms of timing/phrasing. the 'down' of 'upside down' is the 1 of the bar, the words 'up' and 'side' are simply leading into the beginning of the next bar. it's pretty standard for phrases to begin either before or after the start of a bar, the match of the day theme tune being an immediate example that just popped into my head
I don't think it really speeds up to double-time (as in k-s-k-s- with everyone playing along frantically where they were previously grooving along for two beats k-s-), but fair enough if that's how it feels to you - whatever it's doing, it's great
(and I hadn't noticed before that the verses of Sophie Ellis Baxter/Spiller's If This Ain't Love was such a rip-off of it)
I don't think so - it seems like that if you're counting from the end of the verse, but the word "Up" I think is really on the 1-beat, it's just that it comes in unexpectedly early i.e. the last bar of the verse has only 2 beats instead of 4. I think. :slanted:
Thinking more about the original question about the reggae skank emphasis - 1-AND-2-AND-3-AND-4-AND - that presumably came about as a calypsoed-up jazz rhythm, where a banjo originally strummed on that same AND-beat (I read somewhere that late 50's/ early 60's ska was a Jamaican version of jazz/swing). Also that same emphasis is evident in traditional European music - e.g. the oom-pah rhythm, where the pah gets emphasis, and this itself may have influenced the early development of jazz in New Orleans funeral marches, brothel music etc. (certainly the brass instruments were European). Even the Irish reel rhythm which kind of goes oodle-addle-oodle-addle (honest!) has an emphasis on the "add" beat - again the same off-beat. So maybe it wasn't until r&b and funk that a popular dance music emphasised the 1-beat and subjected us ot the ultimate tyranny of the disco/house/techno kick?
hmmm... not so sure. In general, while some European popular musics might have gone with the Oom PAH accent on the upbeat, European classical music in general has the strongest accent on the one, and a secondary on the three (in 4/4 at least); ONE two Three four. The tyranny of the strong downbeat goes a ways back.
sodiumnightlife
Sweet Virginia
another example of not being able to tell the downbeat -
Hiatus by Fluxion, on Chain reaction.
Hiatus by Fluxion, on Chain reaction.
Victor Xray
Subtropical
This is a top thread, given me some ideas to think about for my own drum and rhythm programming! I just want to address one small thing in the very first post ... which comes around also to maybe have some relevance the last few posts as well.
You know, I think the key here, and sorry to take the emphasis away from the rhythm for a moment, but the key here are the CHORD CHANGES. Yes, reggae has chords. ;-) It's fairly typical even in reggae to change the chords on the one, even over a fairly skanking beat. Chord changes aren't all on the bar of course - it has plenty of passing chords just like any good Beatles song.
But the major chords, that define the key you're singing and playing in, typically in reggae change on the bars (or on the one and the three).
As someone pointed out just above, the vocals in songs often don't start on the bar, but if you listen carefully to the vocals even in isolation, you can hear where the chord changes are. This would typically (but not always) define where the "one" is. Think acoustic guitar and singer territory. Reggae is easily played in that form (and still generally recognisable as reggae too I might add).
You know, I think the key here, and sorry to take the emphasis away from the rhythm for a moment, but the key here are the CHORD CHANGES. Yes, reggae has chords. ;-) It's fairly typical even in reggae to change the chords on the one, even over a fairly skanking beat. Chord changes aren't all on the bar of course - it has plenty of passing chords just like any good Beatles song.
But the major chords, that define the key you're singing and playing in, typically in reggae change on the bars (or on the one and the three).
As someone pointed out just above, the vocals in songs often don't start on the bar, but if you listen carefully to the vocals even in isolation, you can hear where the chord changes are. This would typically (but not always) define where the "one" is. Think acoustic guitar and singer territory. Reggae is easily played in that form (and still generally recognisable as reggae too I might add).
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
Re-reading Blackdown's Burial interview. Some pertinent quotes re drum programming, or El-B drums specifically:
"It’s like the last fucking secret left in music: how you do those drums. I’ve tried. I’ve locked myself away and tried. And the thing about garage is: the more you look at it like some tech-boy producer, the less you get it."
"It’s like the last fucking secret left in music: how you do those drums. I’ve tried. I’ve locked myself away and tried. And the thing about garage is: the more you look at it like some tech-boy producer, the less you get it."
Blackdown is Burial?
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
Yes, a cunning ruse interviewing himself.
the word "Up" I think is really on the 1-beat, it's just that it comes in unexpectedly early i.e. the last bar of the verse has only 2 beats instead of 4. I think. :slanted:
no, it's not - the words in the chorus that fall on the 1 are down, out, round and whatever comes after that
the idea that they'd go into 2/4 at the beginning and end of the chorus for just one bar is so over complicated as well
borderpolice
Well-known member
I agree, the harmonic rhythm is another indicator of downbeats, as are the weak and strong jumps in melody, and significant changes in volume. if one form of rhythm anchors the downbeat firmly, other forms can vary more freely.
@ Gabriel:
oh yes it is!
- isn't it? If you keep the 1-2-3-4- counting from the verse, then what you're saying is pedantically true, but I still think/feel that the "Up" establishes an unexpected new time - 'PON DE ONE-BEAT, GETME? so "up" and "in" fall on the 1. Forgetting the verse for a minute, can you really sing/count the chorus with "down" on the 1? Sounds/feels wrong to me.
But if you're correct, the next verse then comes in on a 3 beat... in which case the following chorus doesn't really come in on a 1 according to your count! Something has to lose 2 beats or establish a new 1 beat, doesn't it?
oh yes it is! - isn't it? If you keep the 1-2-3-4- counting from the verse, then what you're saying is pedantically true, but I still think/feel that the "Up" establishes an unexpected new time - 'PON DE ONE-BEAT, GETME?
so "up" and "in" fall on the 1. Forgetting the verse for a minute, can you really sing/count the chorus with "down" on the 1? Sounds/feels wrong to me. But if you're correct, the next verse then comes in on a 3 beat... in which case the following chorus doesn't really come in on a 1 according to your count! Something has to lose 2 beats or establish a new 1 beat, doesn't it?
borderpolice
Well-known member
Well, each piece of music can be interpreted in many ways. It's possible to read upside-down as 13/17th rhythm. but that would be an extremely complicated and unnatural way of understanding that piece.
If you look at how people dance to upside-down you'll find that everybody interprets the chorus as starting with 1. also the melodic resolutions totally point to the chorus starting on 1. Same for the changes in volume. Moreover, the 'thinning out' of notes that usually happens on the 4 speaks against your interpretation.
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fair enough, i haven't heard the out from the chorus (30 sec sample on amazon doesn't get that far) or seen people dancing to it - i must've misread what you said upthread as i thought you were saying that it does a 2/4 bar before the chorus and a 2/4 bar at the end of the chorus, which would be completely ridiculous and imply that the 1 was actually in a different place...
Victor Xray
Subtropical
I just listened to "up side down" while counting the bars in and paying attention to the key changes and vocal emphasis ... it sounds like to me like there's a definite 2/4 (two beat) bridge (aka the pre-chorus, but herein called the bridge) between verse and chorus ... the chorus then starts at "+UP+ side down +rest+ boy you're turning me, +IN+ side out and +rest+ round, and round" where the +..+ is the one beat. Now that four-bar pattern repeats and we have a standard 8 bar chorus ... except here again there's this bit of 2/4 bridge back into the verse . I don't think listening to the chord changes in the verse that the emphasis shifts from the first to the third beat between chorus and verse (making, what, a 9 bar chorus? doubtful), to me it definitely sounds like there are two 2/4 bridges - one at the start and one at the end of a standard 8 bar chorus. being bridges, they are neither chorus nor verse. possibly they were added in later using old style tape editing.
that's it... except that this "bridge" is actually the last bar of the verse, which cuts off after 2 beats thus giving the chorus that unexpected feeling, unlike a regular bridge which happens after the end of the verse.
Edit - thanks to hint's youtube link below, actually the chorus has a half-bar (2 beats) tacked on after it, but the verse's pseudo-bridge occurs within the verse structure, thanks to some subtle arranging and playing.
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hint
party record with a siren
It's not ridiculous at all... and that's exactly what it does.
The downbeat of the chorus is "Up".
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Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
Actually, I'd kill to be able to do Dem 2's or Steve Gurley's drums, even more than El B's.
Burial isn't blackdown.
It's Blackdown and Dusk.