6/8 rythm

[davidpenalosa]

“Feeling” is a very imprecise word, although I do find it useful at times. “Feeling” is generally used to describe those musical elements a person doesn’t want to analyze, or those musical sensibilities that are more intuited than they are intellectualized. Cuban folklorists don’t use the idea of 4, 6, 12 etc, because they don’t count or analyze their music. They don’t relate to it that way. They “feel” it.

It seems to me that you are interpreting their directions to some extent: “they didnt say 12”, so what EXACTLY did they say? If you don’t remember exactly, it’s cool. Your interpretation makes sense to me.

>> Tony : “the perception of many players that things are played in either 6 or 4, which is simply not the case”.

Tony, I think by “6 or 4” you are speaking of the subdivisions of the main beats. That would be three or four actually:

1+a2+a3+a4+a (three subdivisions per main beat)

or

1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a (four subdivisions per main beat)

Am I correct?

In some slow or moderate tempo music, there is also the phenomenon of subdividing the main beats into six pulses:

1xxxxx2xxxxx3xxxxx4xxxxx (six subdivisions per main beat)

However, the most common subdivisions are three and four per beat. Most of the elusive “feels” one encounters actually fall into one of these three pulse grids. Some of the more esoteric interpretations of parts use the six subdivisions per main beat.

Ethnomusicologists do typically write triple-pulse clave in one measure 12/8, whereas most of the instructional Afro-Cuban literature on the market writes it in two measures of 6/8. I prefer the one measure system. “4/4”, “12/8” or “6/8” are often used as shorthand when referring to the pulse (subdivision) structure of the music. However, “12/8” means twelve eighth-notes per measure. Eighth-notes and measures have nothing to do with the music’s inherent structure, but refer to a method of notation.

The terms primary beats (four) and secondary beats (six) come from ethnomusicologist David Locke and Ewe (Ghanaian) master drummer/scholar C.K. Ladzekpo.
-David



Edited By davidpenalosa on 1185484666

[davidpenalosa]

>> Martin: “How does this secondary meter manifest itself in guaguanco?”

Triple pulse and double-time triple pulse (six subdivisions per main beat) are subtly used. They are in a way “hidden” within the rhythm. If you have the CD/booklet from Latin Percussion called “Understanding Latin Rhythms”, listen to the selection “guaguanco”. The tumba part enters by itself and is clearly played in triple pulse. Once the duple pulse cascara comes in though, it’s quite difficult to hear the triple pulse in the tumba. The open tones of the tumba are only a six of a beat apart from the straight duple pulse (“4/4”) version.

Various duple pulse parts are sometimes “swung” by playing them in double-time triple pulse. For example, here’s the Matanzas cascara part in regular duple pulse:

L|RLxLRLxLRxLxRLxL|

Here’s that part swung with double-time triple pulses:

Lx|RlxxLxRLxxLxRxxLxxRLxxLx|

R = right hand
L = left hand
x= rest

When played in context, this swung cascara sounds like duple pulse (“4/4”) with “feel”. It doesn’t sound like triple pulse.

Another example of the secondary meter manifesting itself in guaguanco is found in the quinto, which mostly plays in duple pulse, but most certainly plays in triple pulse as well.

Quinto resolution phrase played in duple pulse:
|xxxOOxOO|xSSxxxxx|

Resolution phrase played in triple pulse:
|xxOOOO|xSSxxx|

Resolution phrase played in triple/duple combination:
|xxOOOO|xSSxxxxx|

O = open tone
S = slap

-David

[Tone]

My take on this is that there is two different issues here.

Notation is just a symbolism which helps to remember the patterns but only as far as it can jog the memory.

If you give the best classical percussionists a score of guaguanco I am sure that it will sound extremely different from the real thing, even though they will follow the notation exactly.
In the same way if you were to give those same charts to Turkish percussionists, you would get some thing else altogether.
And so on and so forth and so on with all cultures of the world.

That is were the feel comes in. As has been described already, in all the great percussion cultures, the feel is neither in 4, 6, 8 12 or any combination. It falls in between. It even ( as in Cuban, African or Brazilian tradition) varies along the bar in a regular fashion but that "swing" is itself subject to interpretaion and will vary from person to person and from moment to moment.

So trying to pin it down on paper is absolutely impossible, and missing the point completely.

To get the feel of a particular culture, you can only expose your self to that culture and then express yourself as an artist with your own particular swing.

A life long pursuit!

my 50c

[davidpenalosa]

A lot of what is ascribed to feel concerns off-beat accents. While there is a fair amount of displaced strokes (falling in-between triple and duple), a lot of swung patterns in fact lay within a grid, especially the grid of double-time triplets. I feel that the “in-between”, “neither in 4 or 6” dynamic is mistakenly credited for a lot of effects. I am not denying the dynamic of stroke displacement, I use it myself and worked for many years to achieve that effect. I’m just saying that musical analysis has for the most part, neglected the components of “feel”. For what it’s worth.
Dr. Nerdy

[blango]

>>So trying to pin it down on paper is absolutely impossible, and missing the point completely.

>>To get the feel of a particular culture, you can only expose yourself to that culture and then express yourself as an artist with your own particular swing.

That was very well put tone man, thanks for the input. I agree completely.

>>The terms primary beats (four) and secondary beats (six) come from ethnomusicologist David Locke and Ewe (Ghanaian) master drummer/scholar C.K. Ladzekpo.

I bet C. K. says the primary feel depends on the rhythm, the part and the moment, but, Ill ask him the next time i see him. Dont want to bother the man with a phone call on this one... Ill report back.

Lastly, western notation is fine, if you write this material in 32nds :laugh:

I'd like to see a classical pro sight read that!!

Tony

[davidpenalosa]

>>Tony: "I bet C. K. says the primary feel depends on the rhythm, the part and the moment, but, Ill ask him the next time i see him. Dont want to bother the man with a phone call on this one... Ill report back."

Please do. However, I didn't say anything about a "primary FEEL". I said primary BEAT (main beat). Please be careful not to misquote me during your inquiry.

Whereas "feel" is used to describe just about any aspect of musical interpretation, the main beats are something very tangible and specific. The four main beats are present in ALL of the rhythms. This is explained by CK himself on his web page "Technique of Main Beat":

www.cnmat.berkeley.edu/~ladzekpo/PrinciplesFr.html

Of course there are various interpretations (feels) of rhythms and individual parts. I have already described a few ways in which that happens.

>>Tony: "western notation is fine, if you write this material in 32nds
I'd like to see a classical pro sight read that!!"

Agreed. 32nd notes, especially in the music we are talking about, are difficult to read. Your quote does contradict Tone's statement though:

"..trying to pin it down on paper is absolutely impossible".

32nd notes are not impossible to read. In the context of conga drumming, they may be impractical for performance, but could serve a useful purpose in a theorical context, such as this discussion.
-David

[CongaTick]

David,

Have always been impressed by your scholarship and knowledge. For a guy like me, on the ground, you're flying at 50,000 feet and frankly, I envy that unreachable altitude. If you produced a series of DVD's illustrating some of the concepts you've described involving beat, rhythm and structure within cultural contexts, I suspect it would be an archive of immense educational value, not to mention the potential for an educational series of market value. Having been a writer/director all my life I can easily see a NOVA series or perhaps one of greater depth here. Just a thought. Didn't mean to interrupt this fascinating discussion.

[Tone]

I am really enjoying this post. Thanks guys for the great infos and debate.

I still maintain that writing in 32nd is useless pursuit for two reason.

One is because of the very essence of feel. Which gives to the bar cycle a certain wave like form ,weaving in and out of the grid. I believe it is a continuous form and not a discrete one, for which a grid can only be an approximation and won't give you the information if you are slighlty ahead or behind. Also, like as been said here, another crucial information linked to the subposition in the bar is accents. In Brazilian traditional rhythms there are rhythms that are written exactly the same but have different names depending on the accents.

Now of course in 32nd with a new accent notation ( to be developed) you could get a pretty good approximation to play the same pattern over and over again but it wouldn't inform you as to how to play variations or improvisation.
You could in theory cover every 32nd and assign a position and an accent, but I think that is were the feel really comes into play in its highly complex and dynamic way. Now those things exist in computers, for example in Logic it is called a groove template. They do all that and they are useless, believe me I have tried!

Take Samba which has a fairly simple swing. Listen to a few sambas from different people, different times and different regions. Not two have the same swing! It all depends of the energy of the song, the particular swing of the percussionists and then the combination of swings of different persons in the band. Every body is playing against everybody else's swing. The whole thing is alive! It changes with time within the song depending of the intensity of the moment, the variations of tempo, what instrument is to the front,...
Needless to say it is impossible to write down.

I would grant you that you could write in 32nd a template which would be pretty useful for the very beginning of your learning but then you would really have to breathe life into it and be prepared to adapt it. This thing has to be elastic!

Maybe you could write it on plastic paper and stretch it when you need it!

There is a real life example of that grid in the guaguanco, when players start with only playing the heel toes Matanza style.

HTTH
RLRL
Clave is another example which provide swing information but only for a few sub dibvisions, and not two people play clave exactly the same. You probably wouldn't use the exact same displacements for a Yambu or a fast guaguanco, and you might change it from day to day and then also react to the other players style,...it is endless.

I guess what I am trying to say is notation and grid are only useful to help us understand and remember but they can never describe such a complex, ever changing, and alive thing such as music. And it is important to understand that so that you know that you have to be flexible and also free to use your flair and artistic feelings.

[burke]

This is a fantastic and very educational thread.

and though there are lots of things being talked about beyond my ability to grasp in any meanful way (32's ?! Dear Heavens) I'll make one last comment from the point of view of the serious hobby player.

"To get the feel of a particular culture, you can only expose your self to that culture and then express yourself as an artist with your own particular swing."

Absolutely.
But...
If you are not born to the culture and can't (due to various circumstances) expose yourself directly to it, then you are left with little option other than to work with the books/videos that try to interpret the music in a western context. In other words - within your comfort zone.

Realising this is "close but not quite right" all you can do is practice the 'not quite right' and then play along with the recordings of those who are 'quite right' and hope that some little part feel leaks into you and you edge unconciously a wee bit closer to 'rightish'.

Darrell

[bongosnotbombs]

A lot of what is ascribed to feel concerns off-beat accents. While there is a fair amount of displaced strokes (falling in-between triple and duple), a lot of swung patterns in fact lay within a grid, especially the grid of double-time triplets. I feel that the “in-between”, “neither in 4 or 6” dynamic is mistakenly credited for a lot of effects. I am not denying the dynamic of stroke displacement, I use it myself and worked for many years to achieve that effect. I’m just saying that musical analysis has for the most part, neglected the components of “feel”. For what it’s worth.
Dr. Nerdy

This reminds me of a joke, I heard from a friend on another forum called the bongo group, My friend was talking to Armando Peraza, the famous percussionist....

They had been playing together in 4 but my friend could have sworn Armando was playing in five, he was ever so slightly between 4 and 6 the whole time........

So he asks Armando about it afterwards sying he could have sworn he was playing a little off in 5, so Armando smiles, puts both hands on my friends shoulders and says

"Amigo, why do you think they call CINCO-pation?!"



Edited By bongosnotbombs on 1185551850

[burke]

PS

Thanks for tacking the 'feel' issue. Honestly I don't really grasp the explanations at first read through, but maybe with some time and thought - or down the road when my own understanding has grown to the point I'm prepared to get it.

I've had occassion to have teacher say "there's something off with what your doing ... just doesn't feel right" OK - can you elaborate? Nope? OK that's a massively unhelpful comment then.

I think I'm reading that feel isn't like zen buddism (ungraspable by intellectual process) but difficult to explain. Thats a whole lot different than unexplainable.

[blango]

I think the key is to listen, listen, listen to all the masters as often as possible. And, if possible, play next to someone who has a good ear, and unquestionable feel.

Not an easy task, but thats why its so fun!

Tony

[davidpenalosa]

I agree that by far, the best way to acquire feel is by playing with people who play with feel. Specifically, go hang with the guys in Africa, Cuba, or Brazil (the country and neighborhood of origin), and play within the cultural context. There’s nothing else like it.

Tone, I like you plastic paper idea. I don’t question “that writing in 32nd is a useless pursuit” for YOU. I say only use notation for folkloric music if it’s helpful, otherwise don’t worry about it. It’s not in any way a required tool for learning the music. It’s when you speak of notation’s limits that I sometimes take issue with you.

You begin to explain why writing in 32nd notes is a useless pursuit, but immediately begin to talk about accents. Accents are an basic part of the standard notation system. There are many different symbols, which indicate various aspects of articulation.

>>Tone: “I guess what I am trying to say is notation and grid are only useful to help us understand and remember but they can never describe such a complex, ever changing, and alive thing such as music. And it is important to understand that so that you know that you have to be flexible and also free to use your flair and artistic feelings.”

I guess to sum it up, the paper is not actual music. That’s true of jazz, classical, or any other kind of chart.

I have heard that the different samba escolas vary in how they swing the parts. That kind of variety is also found in Afro-Cuban music. Those who claim that these feels can’t be written tend to be ones who haven’t tried though.

What I discovered is that the generating principle of clave is the same generating principle of swing and related polymetric feels. I know that this level of analysis is a big turn off for a lot of drummers. It certainly was for me once upon a time.

A respected sambista stated that the flamed batucada tamborim part cannot be analyzed or notated. Well, that was flat out not true. The part is within the most basic duple and triple pulse grid. It’s very simple to notate, but not simple to play. The structure is veiled because it’s polymetric. The flam is generated by a duple pulse (e), immediately followed by a triple pulse (+). The two strokes are a 12th of a beat apart (“closed flam”).

The part can be understood as duple on-beats (1e..2e..3e..4e..), combined with triple off-beats (.+a.+a.+a.+a). If you put both hands on a table top and have one hand play the duple on-beats, while the other plays triple off-beats, you can generate this flamed tamborim part and it won’t sound stiff. It will swing.

OOxxOOxxOOxxOOxx right hand
1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a

xOOxOOxOOxOO left hand
1+a2+a3+a4+a

O = strokes
X = rests

(note: the symbols will properly align in size 12 Courier font)

Regarding the heel toes Matanza style:
HTTH
RLRL

Not a big deal, but I play it like this:

HHTT
RLRL

Here it is in straight duple pulse:

HHTTHHTTHHTTHHTT
RLRLRLRLRLRLRLRL
1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a

Here it is swung, using double-time triplets:

HHT.T.HHT.T.HHT.T.HHT.T.
RLR.L.RLR.L.RLR.L.RLR.L.
1xxxxx2xxxxx3xxxxx4xxxxx

There are indeed many ways to play a polymetric rumba clave pattern. El Negro shows some useful triple/duple combinations in his instructional book “Conversations in Clave”. Awhile back, James posted a graphic showing one cycle of rumba clave played by Los Muñequitos (sorry I can’t remember the particular tune). He had it in wave form with an even grid of 16 over it. All strokes were dead-on duple pulse, except the fourth stroke, which was half way between duple and triple (a sixteenth-note triplet).

I found it fascinating, but of course hearing that particular pattern played over and over again is the best way to learn it.

CongaTick, Thanks for your words of encouragement. I’ve been working on a series of eight instructional books for over a decade now and the first volume is finally coming out this year.
-David

[Derbeno]

Looking forward to your book, David
I will for sure be buying a copy
Will it contain any supporting media (CD or DVD)?



Edited By Derbeno on 1185582221

[davidpenalosa]

Derbeno,
Each book will have an accompanying CD. The examples are written in both standard notation and the simpler box notation preferred by a lot of conga drummers. I hope to have DVDs later. I will of course announce the release date here on the conga board.
-David