Rhythm Jargon

[rasputin1963]

I hope David Byrne explains how rhythm in music is "architectonic". In other words, there is not just one groove going on within a pop/rock groove... Often there are implications of about three or four hierarchical levels of rhythm in a piece.

 

A groove might have an overall lilt or swing to it, in broad clusters of rhythm; then it might have a secondary implied groove: for example, the groove that the rhythm guitarist is suggesting; then it will have a tight little groove of eighth-notes or 16-notes.

 

Each architectonic level of rhythm may have its own implication: it might feel duple or it might feel triple, or it might feel "swung" somewhere between a duple and triple feel.

 

Every great rock musician has been able to feel the various architectonic layers of rhythm; my most dismal times playing in rock bands were when we'd by chance get a drummer who could locate/simulate one of those grooves.... but could not feel the other two. Thus every rock song we attempted seemed to have a German oom-pah feeling or 1950's C&W feeling.

 

Your truly monster musicians are those who feel these levels so naturally in their bodies, that they don't even have to think about it. We now consider it a politically incorrect stereotype to say that Black musicians "have rhythm", but for me, the simple truth is that it's our Black musicians who can most dazzle with variations and mixtures of rhythms so effectively. At Berklee, the Black musicians I knew proudly claimed this stereotype, and often wanted to form working ensembles comprised of... only each other, with no pesky Caucasians or Asians to spoil the swing they were after.

[nat whilk II]

 

That Alicia Keys song is a masterpiece of songwriting and singing, her vocals are just superb, the chord changes and melody are unforgettable, and the hook also carries the message of the song. But I agree the "groove" is nonexistent But another way to see it is that the dominating kick drum is literally the heartbeat of the song and its driving, mechanical, unchanging rhythm subliminally carries a big part of the message of the song.

 

 

Well, I was going to sorta agree. The boom-tic beat is also just a flag that says, "hey this is a dance song, party song" so smile and get to it. Notice how near the end the video actually switches to "and here's how you dance to this!" footage.

 

But on further reflection, seems to me that the combo of the dance thing with the croon thing makes the whole production come across as just meaningless and insincere - it's a cocktail of mismatched moods - here's a little sad, here's a little slinky, here's a little dancey, here's a little intense, here's a little happy, and did ya notice the expensive jewelry, so ya'll buy this, ok?

 

Now she almost charms me out of my critical thinking mode, just looking at her gorgeous little self, but after a couple of minutes, my musical sensibilities rebel in spite of the eye candy.

 

nat whilk ii

[rasputin1963]

re: The Alicia Keys video: I mean, gawd that woman is gorgeous. No two ways about it.

 

I get turned-off not by the opening heartbeat drum pulse, but by the stupidly banal little piano arpeggiation that follows. Right there, she's is telling you that this song is going to be brutally, bestially, simianly limited in harmonic implication. [it's not even Minimalist as a "statement".] She essentially is playing a variant of that 1950's Doo-Wop progression, but not quoting it with any charm or nostalgia. Just a kind of Ge-To dumbness that's supposed to be little-girl sweet or something. Even the Beatles' earliest pop ditties had more complex harmonies than this. Even the very Doo-Wop records of the 1950's had richer harmonic implications. At least Chubby Checker's 3-chord "The Twist" invited listeners to feel good and join the dance.

 

Compare Alicia's defining piano arpeggio.... with something like THIS:

 

 

A curious Myxolydian scale-- derived from raga?--- morphing into a Dominant 7 implication, capped with a sus4 Tonic. Rich with suggestion and possibilities.

 

Then Alicia migrates to her synthesizer and pokes out a saw-wave bass note that sounds like nothing so much as a sudden fart (listen to it again and tell me I'm wrong).

 

So by then, the viewer gets the message of this video: It's saying GODDAM I'M A HOT CHICK. But it has no other comment to make on life, love, men, women... That's it: GODDAM I'M A HOT CHICK. But where does that leave the viewer? I dunno, envious? Concupiscent? But is envy the only cultural/spiritual message our pop songs should elicit?

 

Every American needs to spend time in Los Angeles for awhile. Why? You will see so many incredibly beautiful young women and men, that they become commonplace. Especially should you try to bed one or converse with one. Then maybe Americans wouldn't be so inordinately floored by every pretty face that crops up on their TV screens.

 

One of the subtexts of this video is: Here you have an African-American woman who has transcended-- in effect, conquered--- her blackness... and, with closely approximated Caucasian skintone, hair, even dwells, masturbatorily alone, in some kind of Edwardian Gothic storybook house, chicly devoid of clutter. (Showing us that clockwork musicbox... Is that intended to be ironic? Or is she telling us exactly what we're listening to, Millennial -style?) Ever since Lena Horne, we in America are so thrilled to see this sort of thing... ["Why, she's as desirable as a white girl!"] Why do you suppose Michael Jackson spent a lifetime pursuing these values?

 

My Summation: As America fully moves into its decline-- especially the decline of cheap, abundant fuels--- we become alarmed, atavistically, that maybe we won't be able to reproduce-- our highest life's aspiration. So we focus no longer on human emotions, but on Sex itself. Each one of us wants to boast, in a caveman like fashion: "Hey, I'm fertile. I'm sexually viable! Now I don't know about YOU, but I sure am!!""

 

There's nothing wrong with a stupid record. Phil Spector, when recording each of his 1960's megahits, would ask Sonny Bono and Jack Nitzche: "Is it dumb enough?" A dumb record can be so much fun if it has archness and a "knowing" wit, like THIS one:

 

 

 

[Jorge7]

What's missing from the Alicia Keys record that these two songs seem to have?

 

First, the Sly song is not a rhythm box, it is from the early 70s, before rhythm boxes were invented. You are listening to real humans playing kick, snare, high hat, rhythm guitar (including the piccicato part), cowbell, keys, and bass guitar. Played by masters of rhythm and a few of the originators of funk.

 

Second, the type of bold and critical political message in Stevie Wonder's song is missing from today's music, despite the much lower resistance from the indie and internet recording and distribution industry than the repressive atmosphere Stevie had to contend with from the 1970s recording industry establishment. Back to your question, this song also predates the rhythm box as we know it and was played by real human musicians who helped create some of the sounds that are getting "sampled" in present day music. Although they were mostly playing electronic instruments, they were actually playing them, not triggering or sequencing sampled sounds. Real musicians not drum programmers. (flame suit on)

[Folder]

Stevie had to contend with from the 1970s recording industry establishment. Back to your question, this song also predates the rhythm box as we know it and was played by real human musicians who helped create some of the sounds that are getting "sampled" in present day music.

 

 

"This song also features a thick clavinet track and an early appearance of the drum machine."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Haven%27t_Done_Nothin%27

[blue2blue]

First, the Sly song is not a rhythm box, it is from the early 70s, before rhythm boxes were invented. You are listening to real humans playing kick, snare, high hat, rhythm guitar (including the piccicato part), cowbell, keys, and bass guitar. Played by masters of rhythm and a few of the originators of funk. Second, the type of bold and critical political message in Stevie Wonder's song is missing from today's music, despite the much lower resistance from the indie and internet recording and distribution industry than the repressive atmosphere Stevie had to contend with from the 1970s recording industry establishment. Back to your question, this song also predates the rhythm box as we know it and was played by real human musicians who helped create some of the sounds that are getting "sampled" in present day music. Although they were mostly playing electronic instruments, they were actually playing them, not triggering or sequencing sampled sounds. Real musicians not drum programmers. (flame suit on)

I have to say it was pretty obvious to me that those were drum machines from the first time I heard them. (In addition to the Sly and Stevie uses, Shuggie Otis also used a DM on his 1971, Freedom Flight album, including the cult fave "Strawberry Letter.")

 

Seriously, I'm listening to "Strawberry Letter" right now and I can't imagine how anyone could listen to this and think it's a human. Might as well be a Casiotone. [it does sound pretty cool as they wash the mix in presumable tape flanging at the end.]

 

My dad was a fan of big, crazy electronic organs (although we had a very simple Thomas/Silvertone two manual with no extras [except for the 'chord-mode' that deeply offended my old man]) and one of my favorite things -- typically an add-on/optional feature on high end multi-manual, mega-stop jobs -- were the 'rhythm boxes' that sometimes came with them. (Drum machine was slower to be adopted, even though it's an older construction which originally referred to that component in a hurdy gurdy.) My aunt had a multi-manual (Wurly, I think) with a rhythm box built in in the '60s I used to play with and I loved that thing.

 

 

 

Honestly, you kids today! Next you'll try to tell us that they didn't have talkbox/vocoder type effects and answering machines in the 30s.

[rasputin1963]

What about this 1973 record?

 

[video=youtube;CeC3I-gWd5k]

[nat whilk II]

 

 

Yeah, that really sounds like those old Wurly organs like Blue mentioned that had all the color coded keys and the rhythm boxes. There was a piano/organ retail store in the mall when I was in high school, '69-'71 or so, and I'd go down there and play around with those things. The idea was I suppose you were supposed to gig with them at the dinner club or whatever, play Lawrence Welk stuff and have your own rhythm and bass accompaniment.

 

The really good B-3 players from the 60s were kind of one-man-bands what with guys like Jimmy Smith and others who played bass with their feet, comped chords on the lower keyboard and played lead on the top keyboard. So I guess the super tricked out all-in-one models kind of keyed off that development.

 

And the idea that a keyboard organ can stand in for or replace various instruments goes back to the Middle Ages. Some say even the Greeks had something like a pipe organ of some sort...

 

nat whilk ii

[Folder]

I'm not sure when it occurred to me that this one had a drum machine in it but it was a revelation to me in my youth and demonstrated that you could use machines and still make emotional music.

 

It came out in 1974 and is still one of my all time favorite pieces of electronic music.

 

 

[blue2blue]

Yup. Sounds right at home, too!

[Folder]

I hope David Byrne explains how rhythm in music is "architectonic". In other words, there is not just one groove going on within a pop/rock groove... Often there are implications of about three or four hierarchical levels of rhythm in a piece. A groove might have an overall lilt or swing to it, in broad clusters of rhythm; then it might have a secondary implied groove: for example, the groove that the rhythm guitarist is suggesting; then it will have a tight little groove of eighth-notes or 16-notes. Each architectonic level of rhythm may have its own implication: it might feel duple or it might feel triple, or it might feel "swung" somewhere between a duple and triple feel.

 

 

He doesn't mention use the word "architectonic". . but I think he's trying to describe something like you're expressing.

 

I was reading a magazine with interviews from the 100 greatest drummers.

 

The section with Ian Pace of Deep Purple has this exchange:

 

"That subtle swing was almost lost in the 1980s. Now everyone talks about it again"

 

 

"But there's no call for it. You name me a last hit record that had a shuffle or swing beat to it. Everything is smashing eighths. Nothing wrong with that but there is more. A shuffle beat is a heartbeat. That's why when you hear it played well there's nothing you can do except move to it, it's so primordial. When you hear Little Richard, Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry, Elvis -half the rhythm section are swinging and half aren't because they didn't know what to do. Because you played (Jazz Swing) while the piano played straight eighths and that mixture, which shouldn't have worked, gives it that glorious feel. I still get more pleasure out of Chuck Berry than listening to what rock has become. I just find the rhythms more enticing and erotic, human, not machine like, just better.":

 

 

And even playing heavy you've always kept that jazzy, swinging feel.

 

 

"I hear everything with a swing and even today I have more in common with the rock drummers of the '50s than even the '60s and '70s.

 

 

I was never a huge Deep Purple fan and I the last time I listened to the Machine Head album I was probably 12 years old but I pulled it up on YouTube and can hear what he is talking about. You can dance to this music, unlike the Heavy Metal of today.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3laScCmZSw#movie_player

[Lee Knight]

I love Ian Paice for that ^ very reason. What an awesome feel drummer. That fact that he has chops to spare are beside the point almost. That guy has feel.