Advanced Rhythm
This lesson covers
Contents
Pre-Reqs
- Music Theory Basics - introduction to rhythm
- Applying Rhythm to Chords - understanding downbeats, backbeats, and tuplets
Odd-Time Signatures
Odd-Time Signatures incorporate an odd number of beats into a measure, which breaks away from the usual down-beat/back-beat rhythmic feel common in rock music. They are often used in Progressive Rock, in addition to Jazz and Classical styles. This can be used to create tension, especially when juxtaposed against other measures in standard 4/4 time. It can also be used as the main rhythm for a composition, with each measure having a stronger push into the next.
Counting
Meter
Used as Transitions
Syncopation
Syncopation describes the use of rhythm that breaks from the expected pattern of how accents align to certain beats (meter). Some ways of creating syncopation are:
- Missing (playing a rest) on an expected beat
- Sustaining a prior note into an accented beat
- Accenting even beats (2 and 4) instead of odd (1 and 3) in even-numbered time signatures
- Playing off-beat (see also, and also)
- Latin Rhythm (tresillo) (> . . > . . > .)
- Temporarily changing meter (adding a measure of 2/4 or substituting the last bar of a phrase with 5/4 over 4/4, etc.) - this may not technically be an example of syncopation, but its effect on the listener is identical.
Syncopation is a staple of most modern forms of music, including Jazz, Rock, Dance, Hip-Hop, and Funk. It can be considered the rhythmic equivalent of non-diatonic chords in harmony or chromatics in melody, catching us off-guard and making the music more interesting.
Polymeter
Polymeter describes contrasting rhythmic patterns played simultaneously, using different meters (often different time signatures), although the different rhythms are played to the same tempo. This is usually done by giving two different instruments different patterns of accents in their respective parts, often with one instrument playing in a different time signature than the other. The result is a kind of syncopated rhythm. Consider a simple composition where each instrument accents beat 1 every measure, but one is playing in 4/4 and the other 3/4:
Instrument 1 - *--2--3--4--*--2--3--4--*--2--3--4-- Instrument 2 - *--2--3--*--2--3--*--2--3--*--2--3--
As you notice, sometimes the accents align on the same beat, sometimes one precedes the other by one beat, and sometimes one's accent falls directly between the others.
Polymeter provides a novel way to turn two somewhat simple parts into a complex composition. The progressive metal band Meshuggah is one of the best examples of the power of polymeter. They often use drums in 4/4 time, mixed with guitars/bass playing in 13/8 and other unconventional meters (or at the least different meters). As the riffs repeat, the drum hits align to different parts of the riff, making it sound like variations of the riff are being played rather than simple repetitions. Funk (and Djent) also tend to use polymeter between drums and guitar, creating complex rhythmic grooves from relatively simple constituent parts.
Here's an example of 4/4 drums playing a standard beat for 3 measures, then one measure of 5/4, totaling 17 quarter note beats - the downbeat and backbeat are shown using the > and ^ accent symbols. The guitar riff below is in 11/8 for 2 measures, then 12/8. This equals 34 eighth note beats. At this point, the drums and guitars have consumed the same amount of time, and can repeat again back to their original synchronization - 17/4 = 34/8.
|1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11|1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11|1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12| E-|0-----1--1--2-----x--2-----x--1-|0-----1--1--2-----x--2-----x--1-|0-----1--1--2-----x--3-----x--4----| |> ^ |> ^ |> ^ |> ^ ^ ^ ^ | |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 5 |
While polymeter and syncopation are different concepts, the effect of polymeter is almost always to produce a syncopated rhythm.
Polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the use of multiple rhythms simultaneously. This goes beyond the different patterns of accents used in Syncopation. The best way to think about it is that the beats for the different rhythms have different durations. For example, imagine two guitars playing the same note on each beat in 4/4 time, only one guitar is playing 100 beats per minute (bpm), while the other is playing 90 bpm. Very rarely do beats occur simultaneously, with a large variety of lengths of time between them.
Rhythm 1 1-------2-------3-------4-------1-------2-------3-------4 Rhythm 2 1------2------3------4------1------2------3------4------1
We've actually encountered polyrhythm before! Remember tuplets? These are a form of polyrhythm. Consider a simple quarter note triplet in 4/4 time:
Piece Tempo 1-----2-----| Triplet 1---2---3---|
We are applying 3 beats in the same duration as the tempo and time signature defines 2 beats. As mentioned earlier, tuplets go beyond simple triplets, with fractions like 5:4, 7:4, and 9:4 appearing.
Piece Tempo 1---------2---------3---------4---------| 5:4 Tuplet 1-------2-------3-------4-------5-------|
Piece Tempo 1------2------3------4------| 7:4 Tuplet 1---2---3---4---5---6---7---|
Piece Tempo 1--------2--------3--------4--------| 9:4 Tuplet 1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8---9---|
Tuplets are the most common form of polyrhythms, as they guarantee that the beats will regularly sync up. As seen in the above examples, the first beat of each tuplet occurs at the same time as the first beat of the piece's defined rhythm, even if we keep repeating:
Piece Tempo 1-----2-----3-----4-----| 2 Triplets 1---2---3---1---2---3---|
Note that rhythm often sub-divides beats into equal halves or other powers of two. We don't consider 2 different rhythms a polyrhythm when they are such. For example, one guitar playing quarter notes in 4/4 at 40 bpm and another playing quarter notes in 4/4 at 80 bpm could simply be interpretting that the second guitar is playing eighth notes in 4/4 at 40 bpm.
Guitar 1 1-----2-----3-----4-----| Guitar 2 1--n--2--n--3--n--4--n--|
Notice how the beats are aligned. A true polyrhythm does not have beats aligned as such. Even if the instruments are playing on different beats or subdivisions of the beat, they could still be considered playing within the same rhythm:
Guitar 1 1-----2-----3-----4-----| Guitar 2 ---n-----------n-----n--|
In the above example, even though the two instruments never play simultaneously, the distance between when they play is constant - guitar 2 is always playing 1/2 a beat between guitar 1. In a polyrhythm, that distance varies. Look at the 5:4 tuplet above. Beat 2 of the tuplet precedes beat 2 of the tempo by a small amount. No other beat in the tuplet precedes the next beat of the tempo by that amount. Now, the degree of how out-of-sync the rhythms are does have a pattern, where they become less in sync as one nears the middle of the tuplet, and more in sync as one nears the end of it. In the 5:4 example, beats 3 and 4 of the tuplet are the same distance from beat 3 of the tempo, and beat 2 of the tuplet precedes beat 2 of the tempo by the same amount that beat 4 of the tempo precedes beat 5 of the tuplet.
Polyrhythm are like the rhythmical equivalent of harmony. Just as the notes of an interval form a ratio between their pitches describing how often the peaks of their waveform sync up, polyrhythms can be judged how often their beats align. Just as some intervals are dissonant, rarely aligning, polyrhythms sound disjointed and chaotic the less often their beats align.