polyrhythms

S

scottdisco

rip this joint please
carmen said:
haitian music on FM
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know of any decent online resources streaming for above Carmen? (my own searches are a mixed bag.)

ta!

(unless you literally live in, say, Miami or Brooklyn, and are just listening to your local stations, in which case fair play.)
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
scottdisco said:
know of any decent online resources streaming for above Carmen? (my own searches are a mixed bag.)
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i know of no online resources and far as recrodings go, from my experience Haitian stuff takes quite a bit of digging to find the extra special sweetness, like anything else i suppose...

i should look in that tribal house thread huh...
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Would people identify a difference between 'trancey' polyrhythms and 'funky' polyrhythms?

Both can be good, but there seems to be a distinction between the sort of polyrhythm that dissolves the sense of time and the structure of the 4/4 bar by layering multiple rhythmic 'feels' over an extended period, and the sort that emphasizes them by building up and releasing tension over the course of a bar or so.

And if so, which category would you put stuff in? Funky and Wonky are definitely, er, 'funky', whereas the trancey side covers Steve Reich, yer generic 'tribal drumming', most tribal house and techno etc...
 
Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Slothrop said:
Would people identify a difference between 'trancey' polyrhythms and 'funky' polyrhythms?

Both can be good, but there seems to be a distinction between the sort of polyrhythm that dissolves the sense of time and the structure of the 4/4 bar by layering multiple rhythmic 'feels' over an extended period, and the sort that emphasizes them by building up and releasing tension over the course of a bar or so.

And if so, which category would you put stuff in? Funky and Wonky are definitely, er, 'funky', whereas the trancey side covers Steve Reich, yer generic 'tribal drumming', most tribal house and techno etc...
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I tried to discuss this, in fairly slap-dash sort of way, in my last blog post. Both approaches clearly have their great merits, but where my head is at right now, the tension-building one is closer to representing what I want from contemporary music than the style that helps you to trance out; in fact I think it's in some ways most interesting when they build-up side of the equation outweighs the release. Funky and wonky have this structure in spades, you're right. I'd also say that though it's not usually what you would call 'funky', there's a hell of a lot of rhythmic tension-building going on in grime. Dubstep is interesting because it can be considered to have both approaches going on, but for me the trancey feel seems overall to dominate: I'd argue it's what secretly unites the different, potentially opposing substyles like wobblecore, rootical, deep/technoid and so on.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Lichen said:
http://graphjam.com/2008/07/15/song-chart-memes-general-makeup-of-techno-songs/
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Heh. :)

This would work better with "techno" rather than "rave", but it's still funny:

unce.png
 
M

massrock

Well-known member
Apparently in the days of disco session drummers called upon to play the familiar beat would refer to it as 'pea-soup'ing.
 
3

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
zhao said:
i can not STAND the UN-TZ-KA-TZ-UN-TZ-KA-TZ impoverished formula of most european and american productions. boring, Sidney, BORING.
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Another reason why conventional EDM sounds so boring now is not so much to do with polyrhythms, but with micro-rhythm: EBM is typically rigourously quantised, which means there is little variability with regards to microrhythm. Percussion played by humans OTOH is a lot less precise and thus has more microrhythmic variety.

When EDM became popular first, this rigidity was novel and more interesting that other existing music, but the novely has worn off.
 
M

mms

sometimes
massrock said:
Apparently in the days of disco session drummers called upon to play the familiar beat would refer to it as 'pea-soup'ing.
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well course alot of the early disco musicians were cuban and santerian worshippers too, a drummer called julito collazo who was a master taught the batas to the younger players, alot of the music that came thru that and later on in salsoul was explicitly santerian, santerian music is extremley polyrhythmic and you hear those things come thru in the early nyc post cuban revolution music.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2838/is_n2_v29/ai_17534773/
 
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M

mms

sometimes
3 Body No Problem said:
Thank you for the article, very interesting. It's a big shame that Jamaica became the musically dominant caribbean nation (presumably because it's english speaking) and not Cuba. Jamaican music is just so dull.
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jamaican music has it's own polyrhythmic yoruban influences too thru njabingi of course.

as an aside i went to the equinox festival on saturday, a kind of fesitival of music and spirtual concerns lying slightly to the side of occultism, erik davis gave a talk there etc, and so much of the music was cold drone music, or the stall they had was all this fucking awful industrial stuff that i hate, nothing warm or hot at all, almost no drums it made me a little angry.
 
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M

mms

sometimes
3 Body No Problem said:
Dat tru, but this influence seems to have been lost in Reggae and its successor genres.
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actually it was found in reggae, thru count ozzie etc, like 'oh carolina' was banned originally as it was the first pop chart record to have njabingi, despite it being a fairly sweet pop song. you still hear it in more of the rastafarian influenced reggae, but not dancehall etc.
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
3 Body No Problem said:
Thank you for the article, very interesting. It's a big shame that Jamaica became the musically dominant caribbean nation (presumably because it's english speaking) and not Cuba. Jamaican music is just so dull.
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interesting statement. as much as i love reggae i have to say that there is of course truth to the arbitrariness of certain musics becoming popular in the west, and not others.

i was talking about why a style like Molam from Southeast Asia is unheard of in the west, while it is as funky as Cumbia... but the resons for that stretch probably much further back.

i have not explored much Haitian music until recently... completely hooked. and i have a feeling Martinique is coming up.

also listening to so much Taarab (Tarabu in Swahili) at the moment. amazing fusion style which blends Indian/Arabic melodies with African rhythm. mind melting and gorgeous.
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
3 Body No Problem said:
What exactly does that mean?
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i think he means if it works together it should be considered the same rhythm? not sure if i understand this statement completely either but it seemed kinda beside the point to me... seems like it just depends on what constitutes a singular rhythm to you and how you choose to define it.
 
3

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
zhao said:
i think he means if it works together it should be considered the same rhythm? not sure if i understand this statement completely either but it seemed kinda beside the point to me... seems like it just depends on what constitutes a singular rhythm to you and how you choose to define it.
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It's an interesting question. If you overlay enough rhythms with you'll get a very regular rhythm. However, if you overlay sparingly, and maybe play the rhythms with different sounds/pitches, it should be possible for the trained ear to hear them as separate rhythms over long periods of time, in the same way that we can follow several voices when they sing.

I said "trained ear" above, because the ability to distinguish several rhythms and follow them is very much an acquired ability. Before I started DJing/making music I was pretty much unable to distinguish a breakbeat from a straight bass-drum ... for somebody untrained in rhythms, and that would probably be the majority of westerners, there may be a tendency to identify only one distinct (simple) rhythm, even in complex rhythmic material.
 
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