Energies (Polyrhythm)

Syncopation refers to the practice of inverting or otherwise shifting accents in an established rhythmic pattern. Polyrhythm, on the other hand, describes more than one rhythmic pattern occurring simultaneously. Though these elements frequently appear in tandem, especially in larger groups, I think their distinction from each other is worth pointing out.

Here’s some polyrhythm:

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Cotonou, “Sé Wé Non Nan,” The Vodoun Effect, 2009.

To my ear, the drums resolve in a 2/4 (two quarter notes to a measure) shuffle while the other instruments are played in 6/8 (six eighth notes to a measure). This polyrhythm yields syncopation for the ensemble’s total sound, though each rhythm sticks to its accent-pattern.

The resulting energy of the tune is sustained within the push-pull of the time signatures: the drums are steady but seem to push the other instruments, which in turn seem to drag the tempo. This is not the same thing as playing ahead of or behind the beat. It is, in fact, a difference of measure, which term should be read literally: it takes the horns longer to get back to the top of their phrase than it does the drums.

Once the vocals come in, however, the group coalesces into a collective 2/4, following the drums instead of the horns. The guitar, percussion, and organ, in the meantime, opt for a 4/4, bridging the gap between the drums and the other instruments.

If this is math, it is also rhythm. The fact that it can be quantified does not disqualify the energy and emotion it provides and amplifies. Rather, it confirms the energy and emotion, and one additional absolute truth: music does not exist outside of time.

Energies: Time

The first step towards defining new criteria for craft 1 is to establish the criteria of composition.

Context provides meaning. Much in the way a composition’s key determines its note-relations, its time signature determines its feel. This latter determination is where things get interesting for me as a drummer.

Hayden Carruth, in an essay on writing poetry in syllabics, sums up the situation most tidily: if a poetic line is bound to a specified number of syllables, it is, within that limitation, free to contain any number of stresses, any meter, any number of words, as long as it conforms to the syllabic proscription.

So it is, more or less, with time signatures. If one is drumming in 4/4 time, the only limitation is that the measure is derived from 4 equally distributed quarter notes. Within this measure, one can play any combination of notes on any part of the kit, bearing in mind that in any event, one must start over in a total of 4 beats.

This is rhythm.


  1. I continue to sweat the term craft because I believe it to be a generally-accepted term whose use describes the favorable degree of a piece of music’s  energy generation, distribution, and sustainment.

Energies (A Brief Adumbrative Interlude for J.R.)

Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.
— Friedrich Nietzsche

Musical performance is, in every case, a bodying forth of energy. Though it might rely on electrical or electronic means, it is, at bottom, a physical act. We do it with our hands, our limbs, our voices — at some point or other, we bring the sound into existence.

Though taken out of context (he was talking about working on a typewriter as opposed to writing everything out longhand), I think Nietzsche’s remark describes the condition under which music is played.

For example, I play a drum kit, not hand percussion or any other percussion instruments. I have at my usual disposal a snare drum, a kick drum, two rack toms, a hi-hat, two crash cymbals, and two ride cymbals. I strike these items with sticks, except for the hi-hat and kick, which are pedal-driven (or both struck and pedal-driven in the hi-hat’s case).
All the noises I make are derived from a combination of my body and the preceding array. Therefore, I can, within the limits of my mind, strength, and dexterity, strike any combination of these items simultaneously or in succession, in any order, at any volume. On the other hand, I can refrain from striking any or all of them as I see fit. The subsequent fitness results from my choices.

Those choices are guided by the energy at my disposal, from my personal fitness, the sounds of my drum kit, and the fitness and sounds of my collaborators. Collectively, the energy will be, by definition, greater than its contributing parts. If we are to remain humble and effective in the face of music, we must keep this result in mind at all times: no single collaborative expression is more important than any other.

Energies (Craft)

To reiterate: the problem is not  generating the energy but rather managing it. Taking a moment from a drum-centric view, I think it’s worth considering how energy is presented in songs which handle it more or less the same way, though to different ends.

In the case of early Hardcore, for example, there are two conditions under which the energy is maintained. First, the tempos are unusually fast. Second, the songs in this style generally contain all the same elements as conventional popular songs, they just occur more rapidly. So there are verses, choruses, bridges, solos, or codas, all occurring in the space of under two minutes instead of the usual three or four.

out-of-step

Minor Threat, “Out of Step,” Out of Step, 1983.

The aim of the accelerated tempos is clear: manage the energy by forcing a burst of it and nothing else. A limitation to the style is that each song must be short. The aggression and compression makes longer songs unthinkable.

A variation on this style appears in a certain vein of popular folk-derived music (Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Mark Kozolek, et al.) . In these songs, pace and duration are determined by the song’s lyrics and the singer’s style; that is, the manner in which s/he sings and how long it takes to sing everything. Gillian Welch’s “Dream a Highway” is an example of this practice, as is her “My Morphine,” whose yodel might be the slowest such call ever recorded. It is aloof, nostalgic, self-absorbed, slow, sweet, remorseful.

revelator

Gillian Welch, “I Dream a Highway,” Time (The Revelator), 2001.

haty

Gillian Welch, “My Morphine,” Hell among the Yearlings, 1998.

Both the folk-derived mode and that of Hardcore, however much they swing to extremes of tempo and duration, still stay close to the form, if not the structure of conventional songs. I suspect this is due, in large part, to their reliance on singers. In the above cases, the vocals and music reflect each other mutually: the first voice can’t keep up (or thinks he can’t), the second dreams at her own pace, the third sings from the depths of a dope habit. The music is frantic, contemplative, and stoned, respectively.

In any case, I think this mutual reflection is a sign of the quality of songwriting — the high level of craft — at work here. Each of these songs continues to resonate with its fans, even after many years and with no obvious distinction from its peers. 1

Most of the time, if someone in a conversation about music brings the term “craft” to bear, they’re talking about singers and popular music. I suspect further that what they’re responding to is the fact that they are moved in some notable way by the music in question even though they know precisely where the tune is headed. This notion of craft, then, describes to me the effectiveness of a song’s distribution of energy according to its conventions: if the song does precisely what we expect in an unexpected way, we praise its craft.

I contend that craft is defined by its unique relevance to an established practice. Once one abandons the parameters of a given practice, one must establish, from the outset, the parameters of the new practice. These parameters will result in a new definition of craft.


  1. e.g. most Hardcore fans like several bands in their preferred genre, which all sound identical to the uninitiated ear — one has to learn to hear it; the same is true for slow, long, Americana or roots music: get hip or get lost, which is further true, upon reflection, of most things worth knowing. But I digress…

Farewell, Then.

Never let it be said that I’m afraid to try new things. I am, however, not always careful when I trundle forth into uncharted territory. To wit: I changed website hosts without having a backup of this blog. Therefore, all entries prior to about a week ago have vanished.

Unless any of you knows of a way to get them back.

Am I saddened by this event? I’m not sure. I’m better at letting things go than I used to be.

Energies (First Thoughts)

Listening the other morning to McCoy Tyner’s Expansions, I was reminded of an aspect of my playing that defies, much of the time, a basic tenet of jazz. Bill Evans once said that jazz is defined by the following equation: it is music in which one minute of composition equals one minute of performance. For my part, I have never, according to Evans’ or any other definition, been a jazz drummer. My playing is too loud, my strokes too discrete, my approach too aggressive to flourish in an environment that requires the high level of trust I admire in jazz.

There is, however, an element of jazz to which I cling and from which I derive a fundamental quality of my practice. I mentally refer to this quality as banking, and it works something like this: any piece of music, however worked-over or spontaneous, should have as its goal the creation of energy. The goal of this energy might vary but its presence must be assured by the performers. So if I set out to provide a beat for my bandmates, my aim is twofold. On the one hand, my beat is additive, complementary to the existing parts, confirming their energy and directing it with my own. On the other hand, I’m exerting my energy to overwhelm the other parts, not to bury them but rather to contain them, to mete the energy we create together. This containment, this reserve, amounts to a banking of energy; that is, if you will indulge an analogy, the energy is held in escrow until such time as the deal is closed.

One obvious way to handle this reserve is dynamic, the loud-quiet-loud mode, for example, that many of us practiced through the 90s. It continues to be a useful approach, though I sometimes think it exhausts itself too quickly, expressing its energy before there’s been sufficient time to build it in the first place.

I have come to better appreciate duration as a banking means. There was a stretch several years ago when I held to a belief that a given tune should only be as long as was required to express a single kind of energy. So if it took two minutes to perform a piece into a recognizable state, then the tune would be limited to a two minute duration. Since that time, mostly after working with my friend, the guitarist Joel Wickard, I have learned to work out longer ideas, to accept the unwinding of ideas, and to engage energies that might take longer than a couple of minutes to take effect. Lessons learned from film and video artists (Chantal Akerman, Bill Viola, Tsai Ming-Liang, et al.), to say nothing of the musicians and composers who have captivated me in their durational or repetitive studies (Philip Glass, Peter Gabriel, The Eternals, Do Make Say Think, David Grubbs, McCoy Tyner, et al.), I strive to keep the available energies in proper reserve, in scale with the group’s intention. So if it takes several minutes to manage the energy of a given piece, the duration is only prohibitive if a) the banking and meting of energy is poorly paced; and/or b) there is some proscriptive limitation on the piece’s duration (e.g. commercial radio).