Transcription errors

[martingoodson]

I think the transcription of this Francisco Aguabella solo is completely wrong (starts at 1.02):
https://youtu.be/1iKnn8_ati8

I've tried to discuss this on Reddit but nobody had any views on it. What do you guys think?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AfroCuban/comm ... _aguabella

[Thomas Altmann]

Hi martingoodson,

I think it is relatively accurate ...

We are facing a notation problem that refers to what I call a "contratiempo triplet". From what it sounds like, it is best approximated by a quarter note triplet starting on the offbeat 2+, or 4+, repectively (see measure 4 below). Musically, however, it can alternatively be meant or felt as in measures 1 or 2, and actually, the rhythm oscillates somewhere between these figures:

"contratiempo triplet"

I guess the main problem is that, if you really write it correctly, almost nobody will be able to read it, at least not very easily. I even had a hard time to compose it with my notating program. So after all, it might be the best idea to write it using straight quarter note triplets and make a remark like "contratiempo" or whatever. Because to me, this rhythmic phenomenon reveals the contratiempo (off beat) as a complete concept particular to Afro-Cuban rhythmics. It is best approached by not clinging too tightly to the written music, but by leaving the deciding rest to feeling and interpretation.

Sorry I did not rectify the solo transcription according to this analysis. But no matter whether you use only fragments of this figure, or whether you double the quarter to an eighth note triplet roll, like later in the solo, the anchor notes just fall somewhere on the rhythm notated above.

I hope that helps a bit.

Thomas

P.S.: Note that this rhythm is different from the displaced quarter note triplet as typically used by Elvin Jones in his comping style:

[martingoodson]

Thank you Thomas,

I think I understand you, but I don't hear this at all. I don't think this motif starting in bar 3 (then repeated in bar 6 and 9) is a triplet. I think it's a duple offbeat, a common Bonko figure. I could be wrong, but in my view it should be written like this:

https://ibb.co/k9Hm3vx

Sorry I can't figure out how to embed images!

[Thomas Altmann]

I'll check your transcription tomorrow, got to go to bed now. Anyway, I did not try to correct the transcript, I just laid down the grid.

[jorge]

You don't write jazz swing in 12/8, you write it in straight 4 and the swing feel is understood and played correctly by musicians who know how to swing and not by musicians who don't. They won't get it from the notation without already knowing and feeling how to play it. Likewise writing folkloric-based music like the abakua influenced parts of this solo. I don't really see the role of transcribing parts with mathematical precision to try to teach people who have never studied the original folkloric roots, they are not going to figure it out from the written part anyway. Some of the best Cuban percussionists I know write the parts wrong sometimes, but they play them perfectly. Just listen to the music and figure out how to play it, study the roots that it came from, and use the written parts to remember which break goes where. If you know the bonko part that it came from, playing that flam solo part comes naturally.

[martingoodson]

I couldn't disagree with this more strongly. I'm not arguing about whether you should or shouldn't transcribe and notate solos. The point is that if you are going to notate them you should notate them correctly and not incorrectly.

Have you actually looked at the original transcription? I imagine not, because not only are some of the notes in the wrong place, some are even in the wrong bar (I think). As I said, I may be wrong here and I'm inviting criticism on my view of the notation.

Are you suggesting that instructional materials for students shouldn't be correct? I see plenty of jazz tuition books that do notate swing ride cymbal patterns accurately in 12/8 in order to educate beginners. I don't see people trying to ban those books for daring to notate the un-notatable.

[Thomas Altmann]

Hi martingoodson,

now I took my time to transcribe the first page of the solo myself. I checked repeatedly, and this is what I found to the best of my ability:

Francisco Aguabella: Mi Congo (1st. page)

I couldn't manage to notate laid-back swing off-beats in measures 4, 6 and 8 in triplet form, and maybe I shouldn't. This is a ritardando feel typical of bonkó style, and you have to interpret that accordingly. The two strokes in the transition from measures 3 to 4, 5 to 6 and 7 to 8 are a rhythmic approximation; the timing of the respective second notes, or the first ones in each of the bars 4, 6 and 8, rather coincide with the first notes (of the measure) of my "contratiempo triplet" notation.

In measure 14, the last four open tone strokes are actually four eighth notes, which are typically interpreted with a feeling that I approximated by notating a triplet tied to two eighth notes. As this is not exact, anyway, I should perhaps have written it like four regular eighths.

I used to be pretty categorical in insisting on rather imitating what is heard aurally, as opposed to transcribing solos. However, as percussion students in the jazz field resort to transcribing on a regular basis, at some point I started doing it, too, and I would encourage my students to do the same - BUT: In Afro-Cuban music, the range of unnotatable rhythmic manners is much wider than in jazz. So it is inevitable to find compromises in notating and, vice versa, to interpret the transcription according to the source, not to the written page.

Let me recommend you not to search for scientific or mathematical truth in music. Triplet notation in jazz is not accurate, it is nothing but the closest approximation. In the same way, be careful with using the words correct and incorrect. For example, do you think that what comes measurably closest in retrospective analysis is necessarily correct? I don't. I know the style, and I try to depict what may have been musically intended. So even if you find that bars 5 and 7 of the original congachops transcription sound the closest to straight half-note triplets, they may rather be laid-back displaced (syncopated) triplets. I have listened to these passages over and over, and had to come to the decision to notate these bars the way I did - although I had been puzzled, too.

I did not continue to transcibe the solo, because with my notating program it would have been too difficult to notate the muffled-stroke triplet correctly. These are exactly the contratiempo triplets that I had tried to explain.

I apologize for any possible mistakes that I may have made; if you or anybody else has a better ear, or more practice in transcribing, go ahead and let me/us know. In my first post I forgot the ties in my "displaced quarter-note triplet", now edited. Also, I used a wrong english word for "approximate", also edited now.

If you want to upload an attachment, you find the button below your text field, next to "Options".

Best,
Thomas

[jorge]

Yes, Martin, before I posted, I had looked at the original transcription and at yours, but I am not sure I understand how to read them. I am not a trained musician and don't read and write music well, but I do know how to recognize and write basic rhythms. For example, in both your and Conga Chops' transcriptions, look at the 4th bar, which coincides with the 3 side of Palmieri's clave. Help me out here, how do you play the triplet you have written in the 4th bar? Isn't the accented note supposed to be the bigger eighth note that follows the smaller flam eighth note? And doesn't this flam follow a (triplet) eighth note rest? It seems to me that the first note of the 4th bar as you have both written it is a rest. But in the bonko riff that phrase in the solo is based on, that note is an accented note in the middle of a triplet, not a rest. It clearly falls on a downbeat, the first note of the 3 side of the clave, which is the first beat of the 4th measure. I don't see a way to read the triplet notation as you have written it so that the accented note of the triplet falls on the first downbeat of the 4th measure.

[martingoodson]

Thank you Jorge and Thomas for your comments and thank you Thomas for the transcription. It made clear that I made a stupid error in my version, adding whole bars out of place!

First off, I reject the idea that we should never talk of transcription being correct or incorrect. It should go without saying that we all agree you can't capture all the nuance of a musical performance in notation and of course nobody is looking for mathematical perfection. That doesn't change the fact that some transcriptions are just plain wrong. (eg my first version!)

Enildo Rasua gives an example of a wrong notation for jazz feel
.
You don't have to think that there is a mathematical correct way to represent swing feel to know that this notation is "incorrect". This is so self-evidently true I don't think it deserves further comment.

After studying Thomas's transcription and listening to the piece a lot more I think I have a better idea of what is going on. I think it's like this:
.
I agree that there is no point trying to notate the feel to this degree of detail, and I don't disagree with anything Thomas notated. As long as it's clear if a note is on or off beat and note lengths are roughly correct, it's fine.

It is important to note that the original CongaChops transcription is nothing like that of Thomas or me. It has two quarter notes on the beat in bar four which should be off-beats. This is critically wrong and it's just incorrect.



Ps sorry for the image links which you need to click. I can't upload images without getting an error.

[jorge]

Martin, I am sorry but I don't think the 2 quarter notes you are talking about in bar 4 are written incorrectly in the original transcription. The first of what you called "two unsyncopated quarter notes" does fall on a downbeat and is written correctly. Tap the downbeats 1 and 3 in each measure with your foot and you will hear that note is definitely a downbeat.

If you want to get theoretical, bar 4 is the 3 side of Palmieri's clave. Francisco's 6th flam in the solo, which is the note we are talking about, directly follows the second beat of that side of the clave, which is the timbale bombo and is an upbeat, so the flam is a downbeat. The second quarter note you are talking about is written as the last triplet quarter of a 4/4 measure so it can't be a downbeat in 4. It falls on the 3rd beat of the 3 side of the (rumba) clave, so it is an upbeat.

The first note of bar 4 is written in a confusing, maybe incorrect way, and that is probably what is throwing you off. That first note of the 4th bar is a downbeat but it is written following a rest. I don't know if this is correct musical notation for a triplet pattern, but when you are dancing, you will feel that it is a downbeat. The triplet crosses the bar from the 3rd measure and the second note in the triplet that started in bar 3 is actually the first note (downbeat) of bar 4. Just write out the bonko riff in 4/4 (half clave per bar) and you will see the first of those two quarter notes falls on 2, which is a downbeat.

(EDIT: Now that I look back at your post, I see you edited out the "two unsyncopated quarter notes" and now call them "two on-beat quarter notes". How can that be? There is no way in 4/4 that more than one quarter note in a triplet can be a downbeat, assuming they are evenly spaced in time. The 3 quarter note triplets take 2 beats. Since the first quarter note is a downbeat, the other two quarter notes in that triplet would be "upbeats" before and after the second downbeat, and with a triple feel not a duple upbeat feel.)

Martin, I just have one question for you, what are your purposes in trying to write out this solo?

[martingoodson]

Thank you Jorge. I can see what I wrote was ambiguous so I've changed the wording to "quarter notes on the beat" to make it clear. There are four quarter notes "on the beat" in a 4/4 bar.

I will reply to the substance of what you wrote later on.

[Thomas Altmann]

Hi martingoodson,

of course there are transcriptions that are definitely wrong. But let me tell you an anecdote: I once played in a Latin big band, where the leader came up with an arrangement of an Irakere number that I happened to know fairly well. In his transcription he had misplaced a rhythmic pattern because he wasn't familiar with Afro-Cuban rhythmics, although it appeared to be "correct", phenomenologically, so to say. So the whole band ended up playing the piece incorrect in a musical sense. This reminded me of text translations of translators who may be knowledgeable idiomatically, but don't have a clue of the subject matter that the text is about. The result can amount to nonsense.

Straying off-topic a bit, Enildo Rasua's swing notation is (1) a common pattern you see in some traditional big band charts, and (2) it can even be correct at certain tempos. I do not, and cannot, know how much experience you have in jazz drumming, but at least for those who don't have any experience, let me remark that the relative distance of the "skip beat" or "up beat" (or whatever you want to call it) to the main note (on-beat) shrinks, the slower the tempo gets, and widens with faster tempos. In slow ballads, the relative distance can even become a sixteenth-triplet note before the beat, suggesting a hint of double time. (There is one ballad, "Willow Weep for Me", where I used to prefer a clear triplet placement, suggesting a bluesy type of 12/8 feel. Often I dispensed with the skip beat in ballads altogether.) In up-tempo swing, it is common to play an almost straight eighth note rhythm (like a "gallop"). It seems as if the skip beat has a tendency to remain almost constant in all tempos. The triplet feel can mostly be found in medium-up tempos, but there are also different styles of placing the skip beat or off-beat feel in general: Kenny Clarke has a very narrow placement, Elvin is predominantly triplet-oriented, and Billy Higgins has a tendency to play a wider beat. (I remember a musicological script where the researcher had measured a quintuplet feel in the swing ride of Philly Joe Jones!)

Time feel depends a great deal on the physical motorics and the psychological disposition of the individual player. Now this refers again to all types of Afro-American, including Afro-Cuban music.

Regards,
Thomas

[martingoodson]

Hi martingoodson,

Straying off-topic a bit, Enildo Rasua's swing notation is (1) a common pattern you see in some traditional big band charts, and (2) it can even be correct at certain tempos.

Sorry, I don't think I was being very clear. The point of this example is that it's got nothing to do with the feel being wrong: the pattern itself is wrong. Take a look at the chart again.

This is the same reason I find myself mis-communicating with you and Jorge. You both seem to think I'm making a subtle point (you both used the word 'mathematical') about the notation of feel but I'm actually talking about major errors in the notation - syncopated offbeat motifs written as if they are on-the-beat.

Jorge:

The motif starting at the end of bar 3 going into bar 4 is a syncopated off-beat pattern. There is a rest at the start of bar 4. This is something Congachops, Thomas and I all agree on. You may be right, or you may be feeling the beat in the wrong place.

[Thomas Altmann]

Sorry, I don't think I was being very clear. The point of this example is that it's got nothing to do with the feel being wrong: the pattern itself is wrong. Take a look at the chart again.

Oh, I see - my fault! He confused up- and down beats. I didn't even realize that!

Thomas

[jorge]

Martin, why do you want to transcribe this solo?