Last week, we learned that time signatures only function to tell us how much "real estate" exists in a measure of music. For example, 12/8 time means 12 eighth notes or their equivalent will fit in there. The time signature itself contains no clue as to how those notes group into larger pulses, although it is customary in most compound meters (3/8/, 6/8, 9/8, 12/8, etc.) to group them in threes.
Nevertheless, taking such an eyeball-only approach to the meter can be very helpful when it comes to changes in the time signature. If you have a piece of music that constantly bounces around between 5/8, 2/4, 7/16, 3/2 and the like, you may have trouble deciding which rhythmic end is up, and, frankly, that is where we often need to cut ties with our gut and go use our brains. Vague notions of speed and relation don't cut it anymore.
Many of us still feel that a 16th note must be pretty fast, and a half note pretty slow. or that a measure with four quarter notes in it must have four beats. That isn't true in our era, though several centuries ago it was thought of that way. It isn't true that the earth is the center of the universe and doesn't move, as we all found out a while back, and it isn't true that a quarter note is always slower than a 16th note. It's all relative--thanks to Einstein, and tempo markings. For example, a sixteenth note in a largo tempo is probably slower than a half note at presto. A piece in "cut time" will have two pulses in a measure even though there are four quarter notes. Things like this trip people up constantly. But today, let's worry about one thing:
How to get from 4/4 to 6/8. The two meters, one simple, and one compound, one generally consisting of four beats which split into two eighths each, the other of two beats which split into groups of three eighths, represent opposite ends of the rhythmic universe. How do you get from one to the other?
One item will have to change. Either the pulse will no longer be the same size, or the note values will have to change. In most cases, the note values remain the same. If the composer or publisher has any sympathy, they've printed a little equation at the top of the first meter change, to the effect that eighth note=eighth note. The old eighth and the new eighth is the same length. What you need to do then is make sure that your eighth note remains constant throughout each time change.
Musically, that means you need to keep a constant eighth note pulse in your mind, or in your fingers. At choir rehearsal, I often drum eighth notes through these passages because if we are singing long notes that pulse can get lost. Next we need to do a little math, in which meters are rewritten so that the bottom number is the same.
4/4 is the same as 8/8 (it isn't in every particular, but for our present purpose it sure is).
This means that the first measure contains eight eighth notes, and the second one, in 6/8, has six. Thus we would count
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6
where every number comes at the same temporal distance from the next--you have to keep those numbers even, in other words. In terms of pulse, respecting the 4/4 meter, we are likely to count
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and uh 2 and uh
or
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 2 3 4 5 6
But while either of these gives us a better sense of how the overall scheme of accents changes, it might mess with our heads when we are trying to make a smooth and even transition from one to the other, which is why I am suggesting the first method, where there are no uneven subdivisions between beats (no uhs and ands). This way we know exactly how one meter becomes the next.
So for 4/4 to 7/16, we would have to make sure we have even divisions or 16th notes.
4/4 = 16/16, thus
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
However, at this point, this method might be more tongue twisting than we would like, so if you will promise to give every sixteenth its due, I'll let you say
1 e and uh 2 e and uh 3 e and uh 4 e and uh 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
The key is to keep each one of those items exactly even so we don't speed up or slow down from one to the other, or, heaven forefend, crash completely because we can't figure out how to make the transition.
When I was learning to read, we were told to break each word down into its smallest parts, and "sound it out." This was known as "phonics." It is too bad more people are not taught rhythmic phonics. Instead, we go through life with a vague notion of how rhythms on the page are related to others. And this only gets us so far, particularly when we are confronted by a 20th or 21st century composer, who assumes we've all "gotten the memo" and are able to fluently decode the component parts of the language of rhythm rather than just relying on what seems right. The same is true, of course, for harmony since the 19th century. You can't be sure you know what the composer meant, because as music gets more advanced, it doesn't rely on stereotyped ideas like sentences you can finish because the outcome is always the same. Instead, you have to rely on problem solving skills, which often means breaking the problem area into its smallest components and then putting it together carefully, and consistently.
Showing posts with label rhythm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rhythm. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Time Change (part one)
One of the problems with getting older is that you have to unlearn virtually everything you were taught when you were young. This is true of every subject, and when it comes to music, a good deal of the bad intel centers about rhythm.
Nearly everyone that I know who has had piano lessons learned very early on that 4/4 time means that there are four beats in a measure and a quarter note gets one beat. This last bit of information was really pretty useless as you probably spent the first year and a half playing music in 4/4 time or 3/4 or 2/4, so that the bottom number never changed at all--it was always and forever a 4, and thus knowing why it was there was unnecessary and more than likely you completely forgot about it.
It is also, unfortunately, wrong. If and when you got around to playing a piece of music in 6/8 time, you might have assumed that there were six beats in a measure and the 8th note got the beat. That is simply to apply the same logic to the explanation of 4/4 above. But you would be wrong, because most of the time, when someone is performing a piece of music in 6/8 time, there are really two beats in a measure, so that the eighth notes by themselves are only parts of a beat.
confused?
The rhythmic universe is actually pretty simple, but only if you view it from the right angle. Pretty much everything in music can be split into either groups of two or groups of three. A time signature with an 8 on the bottom is likely to have a multiple of 3 on the top, and the eight notes are going to be grouped into sets of three, added together to make one beat. A time signature with a 4 on the bottom is going to be counted in groups of two eighth notes, which together form a beat. Thus time signatures are either simple (with a 2 or a 4 on the bottom) or compound (with an 8). On the page you can see the difference by whether eighth notes are grouped into set of two or three, and whether there are dots after the long notes, making them all divisible by three.
We call these two kinds of meter simple and compound. 4/4 is simple meter, and would be counted
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and
whereas its compound meter cousin, 12/8, would go like this:
1 and uh 2 and uh 3 and uh 4 and uh
(if you counted each eighth note that would be 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12, but as you can hear, that's a bit cumbersome; hence the approach above, where the second and third eighth notes or a group lose their numbers and become simply ands and uhs)
That's pretty much all there is to it, except for mixed meter, which is a combination of the other two. A bar of 5/8, for instance may feature a group of two eighth notes followed by a group of three. Before mixed meters came into prominence in the last century there was very little fraternizing between the worlds of simple and compound meter; it was either groups of two or groups of three, never both in the same measure, or for that matter, even the same piece. If that rule was ever violated, it was announced with a special number above the unusual grouping (like the 3 above a triplet). Also, once the time signature was announced at the beginning of the piece, it didn't change. That's not always true anymore, and there is where things can get difficult, especially if you don't have a clear idea of what time signatures really mean.
What time signatures look like on the page and how they are performed may be two very different things, as we've already noticed. 12/8 doesn't mean there are twelve beats. 5/8 doesn't mean there are five. What it really means is an indication of rhythmic real estate. How much space exists in each measure? In the case of 12/8, you can get 12 eight notes, or the equivalent (like 6 quarter notes) into one measure of music. That's all. The pulse is an entirely different matter, and it may not be represented in writing at all! The time signature doesn't tell you how to feel the piece.
So what's up with that, anyhow?
A lot of folks would like to think that one sunny day in the storied past, a nice old chap with nothing to do that afternoon sat down and single-handedly drafted the entire system of rhythm that we have today, and, since he got to define every bit of it himself and since he was obviously a bright fellow, everything should be consistent and easy. But that's not what happens, ever.
Instead, various people try various things, and what eventually happens is a collision of various systems governed by various rules, which may in themselves be consistent, or have made sense at one time, but now we're stuck with them.
Exhibit a: the English language. How is it that the letter f is pronounced like an f, and the letters gh are also (sometimes) pronounced like an f, and so is ph, although sometimes gh is actually silent and of course, c and k should get downsized because at least one of them is redundant, I mean, S can do the job in the first part of the word circle, and k can do the rest and don't get me started on homonyms.
Basically, what's happened is that different groups of people, speaking various languages, have had useful words exported to English, and some of those different rules for pronunciation, including some of their letters, went with them. Usually they got corrupted along the way. It has led to a confusing set of exceptions to the rules that we were taught as children--first the rules, then the exceptions, which nearly outnumber the rules. And nobody really has the authority to clean it all up and start over.
By contrast, musicians have a much easier road. For the real definition of a time signature, simply as a measure of space, and not as an indication of number of beats or who gets the beat or whatever, has no exceptions. It does have the disadvantage of not telling us very much, but at least it is never wrong. 16/8, you want to know? Why, you can get 16 8ths notes in there. Don't see that one very often. how about 5/2? Five half notes, or the equivalent. 19/3? Doesn't exist. There is no 1/3 note in music.
Remember how that bottom number is supposed to represent a note value? Some 20th century composers began writing time signatures with a note on the bottom instead of a number, so that 4/4 would have a 4 on top and a quarter note on the bottom. 12/8 would have a 12 on the top and an eighth note on the bottom, although that was often replaced by a 4 on the top and a dotted quarter on the bottom, which is a truer indication of the way you would actually play the piece, and finally makes your piano teacher sound like she's telling the truth--the number on the bottom at last really does function as an indication of what note gets the beat. No word yet on whether this is going to catch on universally. My money is on forget about it. Numbers are too entrenched, as are many customs, long after we have the slightest clue what they are about.
Nearly everyone that I know who has had piano lessons learned very early on that 4/4 time means that there are four beats in a measure and a quarter note gets one beat. This last bit of information was really pretty useless as you probably spent the first year and a half playing music in 4/4 time or 3/4 or 2/4, so that the bottom number never changed at all--it was always and forever a 4, and thus knowing why it was there was unnecessary and more than likely you completely forgot about it.
It is also, unfortunately, wrong. If and when you got around to playing a piece of music in 6/8 time, you might have assumed that there were six beats in a measure and the 8th note got the beat. That is simply to apply the same logic to the explanation of 4/4 above. But you would be wrong, because most of the time, when someone is performing a piece of music in 6/8 time, there are really two beats in a measure, so that the eighth notes by themselves are only parts of a beat.
confused?
The rhythmic universe is actually pretty simple, but only if you view it from the right angle. Pretty much everything in music can be split into either groups of two or groups of three. A time signature with an 8 on the bottom is likely to have a multiple of 3 on the top, and the eight notes are going to be grouped into sets of three, added together to make one beat. A time signature with a 4 on the bottom is going to be counted in groups of two eighth notes, which together form a beat. Thus time signatures are either simple (with a 2 or a 4 on the bottom) or compound (with an 8). On the page you can see the difference by whether eighth notes are grouped into set of two or three, and whether there are dots after the long notes, making them all divisible by three.
We call these two kinds of meter simple and compound. 4/4 is simple meter, and would be counted
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and
whereas its compound meter cousin, 12/8, would go like this:
1 and uh 2 and uh 3 and uh 4 and uh
(if you counted each eighth note that would be 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12, but as you can hear, that's a bit cumbersome; hence the approach above, where the second and third eighth notes or a group lose their numbers and become simply ands and uhs)
That's pretty much all there is to it, except for mixed meter, which is a combination of the other two. A bar of 5/8, for instance may feature a group of two eighth notes followed by a group of three. Before mixed meters came into prominence in the last century there was very little fraternizing between the worlds of simple and compound meter; it was either groups of two or groups of three, never both in the same measure, or for that matter, even the same piece. If that rule was ever violated, it was announced with a special number above the unusual grouping (like the 3 above a triplet). Also, once the time signature was announced at the beginning of the piece, it didn't change. That's not always true anymore, and there is where things can get difficult, especially if you don't have a clear idea of what time signatures really mean.
What time signatures look like on the page and how they are performed may be two very different things, as we've already noticed. 12/8 doesn't mean there are twelve beats. 5/8 doesn't mean there are five. What it really means is an indication of rhythmic real estate. How much space exists in each measure? In the case of 12/8, you can get 12 eight notes, or the equivalent (like 6 quarter notes) into one measure of music. That's all. The pulse is an entirely different matter, and it may not be represented in writing at all! The time signature doesn't tell you how to feel the piece.
So what's up with that, anyhow?
A lot of folks would like to think that one sunny day in the storied past, a nice old chap with nothing to do that afternoon sat down and single-handedly drafted the entire system of rhythm that we have today, and, since he got to define every bit of it himself and since he was obviously a bright fellow, everything should be consistent and easy. But that's not what happens, ever.
Instead, various people try various things, and what eventually happens is a collision of various systems governed by various rules, which may in themselves be consistent, or have made sense at one time, but now we're stuck with them.
Exhibit a: the English language. How is it that the letter f is pronounced like an f, and the letters gh are also (sometimes) pronounced like an f, and so is ph, although sometimes gh is actually silent and of course, c and k should get downsized because at least one of them is redundant, I mean, S can do the job in the first part of the word circle, and k can do the rest and don't get me started on homonyms.
Basically, what's happened is that different groups of people, speaking various languages, have had useful words exported to English, and some of those different rules for pronunciation, including some of their letters, went with them. Usually they got corrupted along the way. It has led to a confusing set of exceptions to the rules that we were taught as children--first the rules, then the exceptions, which nearly outnumber the rules. And nobody really has the authority to clean it all up and start over.
By contrast, musicians have a much easier road. For the real definition of a time signature, simply as a measure of space, and not as an indication of number of beats or who gets the beat or whatever, has no exceptions. It does have the disadvantage of not telling us very much, but at least it is never wrong. 16/8, you want to know? Why, you can get 16 8ths notes in there. Don't see that one very often. how about 5/2? Five half notes, or the equivalent. 19/3? Doesn't exist. There is no 1/3 note in music.
Remember how that bottom number is supposed to represent a note value? Some 20th century composers began writing time signatures with a note on the bottom instead of a number, so that 4/4 would have a 4 on top and a quarter note on the bottom. 12/8 would have a 12 on the top and an eighth note on the bottom, although that was often replaced by a 4 on the top and a dotted quarter on the bottom, which is a truer indication of the way you would actually play the piece, and finally makes your piano teacher sound like she's telling the truth--the number on the bottom at last really does function as an indication of what note gets the beat. No word yet on whether this is going to catch on universally. My money is on forget about it. Numbers are too entrenched, as are many customs, long after we have the slightest clue what they are about.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Polite Syncopations
During my copious amounts of spare time lately I've been recording a few Joplin rags. Well, actually, I've been practically sight reading them into the microphone because that's how copious my time is, and my energy. It's the end of the semester, after all. Still, with the ability to do a few takes and some light editing, some of the playing isn't too bad. I've gotten used to playing music well on very short notice these past several years.
While I'm doing things on the fly, I'm also trying out some creative interpretations of the Joplin classics. Maybe it's my classical training, but some of the interpretations are rather expressive, and I'm doing some unusual things with the tempi as well. But today I thought I'd let you listen to one of my favorites, and point out one salient feature.
When ragtime was new, the public (well, the white public, anyway) didn't know what to make of it. Amateur pianists, who bought most of the sheet music, couldn't really play it because of the complex rhythms. In some cases, those rhythms were taken out, so the pretty little heads that bought the music wouldn't get too frustrated with it.
Rhythm can be a tough thing to notate, particularly if things are syncopated--that is, if they are not on the beat. If everything is between the beat you end up using a lot of ties and sixteenth notes and so on. A lot of ink is spent on what is really a pretty simple concept if you just listen and feel it. But on the page it looks daunting.
Then there are rhythms that aren't on the page. A row of eight notes might just be a row of eighth notes, or they might be swung. In that case, the first eighth note is longer, and the second is shorter, in what is pretty much a 2 to 1 ratio (you might say they are really triplets, with the first note getting the first two-thirds of it). On the page all the notes look equal. But they aren't. This concept actually existed in European music back as far as the Renaissance. But it also crops up in American jazz styles. Ragtimers probably did their fair share of it, too.
In this recording, I do a certain amount of it. Since Joplin repeats each section, on the repeated halves of two of the sections I do some swinging. There's nothing in the score that says to do this, and I don't know whether Joplin would have approved. But I'll bet you anything I'm not the first person to do this! In fact, I'm probably about a hundred years late.
Now in the second section of the piece, which starts at :48, I play it straight the first time, and swing it the second time (that repeat is as 1:09); after the opening section returns, there is another section, similar in nature to the second (it is more lyrical and melodic than its bouncier cousin, the first section) and this time I swing it the first time (1:49), and play it straight the second time (2:09). It sounds so polite and contained the second time! I love it. Sometimes an even passage of notes can sound syncopated--or at least give the same effect-- if they follow a group of notes that are syncopated. In that case, it is the sudden contrast between the syncopation and the unsyncopated notes that make the effect. Putting everything suddenly on the beat after several measures in which nothing is on the beat is a sudden rhythmic shift, just like your body experiences going around a tight turn in a roller coaster. It's a neat trick Joplin himself employs in the bass line near the end of the piece when, after a bit of unpredictable oom oom pah pah ooming he suddenly restores the old predictable oom pah oom pah in the bass (at 2:41 and on the repeat at 3:01). And, with the uneven notes becoming even notes when I repeat that earlier section I'm doing something like that as well.
Anyhow, have a listen. It's a fun piece.
Elite Syncopations by Scott Joplin
While I'm doing things on the fly, I'm also trying out some creative interpretations of the Joplin classics. Maybe it's my classical training, but some of the interpretations are rather expressive, and I'm doing some unusual things with the tempi as well. But today I thought I'd let you listen to one of my favorites, and point out one salient feature.
When ragtime was new, the public (well, the white public, anyway) didn't know what to make of it. Amateur pianists, who bought most of the sheet music, couldn't really play it because of the complex rhythms. In some cases, those rhythms were taken out, so the pretty little heads that bought the music wouldn't get too frustrated with it.
Rhythm can be a tough thing to notate, particularly if things are syncopated--that is, if they are not on the beat. If everything is between the beat you end up using a lot of ties and sixteenth notes and so on. A lot of ink is spent on what is really a pretty simple concept if you just listen and feel it. But on the page it looks daunting.
Then there are rhythms that aren't on the page. A row of eight notes might just be a row of eighth notes, or they might be swung. In that case, the first eighth note is longer, and the second is shorter, in what is pretty much a 2 to 1 ratio (you might say they are really triplets, with the first note getting the first two-thirds of it). On the page all the notes look equal. But they aren't. This concept actually existed in European music back as far as the Renaissance. But it also crops up in American jazz styles. Ragtimers probably did their fair share of it, too.
In this recording, I do a certain amount of it. Since Joplin repeats each section, on the repeated halves of two of the sections I do some swinging. There's nothing in the score that says to do this, and I don't know whether Joplin would have approved. But I'll bet you anything I'm not the first person to do this! In fact, I'm probably about a hundred years late.
Now in the second section of the piece, which starts at :48, I play it straight the first time, and swing it the second time (that repeat is as 1:09); after the opening section returns, there is another section, similar in nature to the second (it is more lyrical and melodic than its bouncier cousin, the first section) and this time I swing it the first time (1:49), and play it straight the second time (2:09). It sounds so polite and contained the second time! I love it. Sometimes an even passage of notes can sound syncopated--or at least give the same effect-- if they follow a group of notes that are syncopated. In that case, it is the sudden contrast between the syncopation and the unsyncopated notes that make the effect. Putting everything suddenly on the beat after several measures in which nothing is on the beat is a sudden rhythmic shift, just like your body experiences going around a tight turn in a roller coaster. It's a neat trick Joplin himself employs in the bass line near the end of the piece when, after a bit of unpredictable oom oom pah pah ooming he suddenly restores the old predictable oom pah oom pah in the bass (at 2:41 and on the repeat at 3:01). And, with the uneven notes becoming even notes when I repeat that earlier section I'm doing something like that as well.
Anyhow, have a listen. It's a fun piece.
Elite Syncopations by Scott Joplin
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