Harmonic Rhythm

[Shenlong]

http://www.stephenjay.com/hr.html

Interesting...

Try it out:

Open up FLStudio or whatever you use

Open up a piano synth (Less CPU usage=better)

Change to 3/4 timing

Punch in this rhythm:

Raise the tempo to 999

Play

Then with your keyboard, play intervals of perfect 5ths on a different octave - They match!

 

[James McFadyen]

It is an interesting subject and one with particular merit.

However, I see it more as a conceptual device rather than a technqiue.

What I mean is it's a good explanation of the physics of sound, but has little artistic musical value of it's use.

Certainly in classical music, the speeding of rhythms 60 times faster is never ever done.

However, Gyorgi Ligeti is a master of harmony and colour which go far deeper than explained in the article above, but with more realistic results.


Let's face it, what can you do with this information.

So you take a rhythm, speed it up 60 times (or more) and what results is harmony. mmmm - yes AND no. It is not strictly harmony at all, it doesn't even create harmony - it creates the illusion of an overtone.

Harmony is TWO or more TUNED FREQUENCIES sounding together. Harmony is impossible to achieve with one Tuned Frequency. What can be heard is overtones (or harmonics) this should not be confused with harmony - It can however produce a unique sound.

What MAY be happening is a trick on the ear that may relate Schenkerian Analysis, where by the flutuating rhythms are calling the mind to react so quickly that it cannot tell wither it was a rhytmical difference or a frequency difference. Depending on the rhythm, the frequency (or note) difference will be different)

On the basis of Schenkerian Voice Leading Principles (which can be applied to rhythms alone) the ear finds the closet route to the next note (or rhythm) this would be a by step (or typically a tone)

Like I said this is an interesting subject, but in my opinion, you'd do well to actually write proper harmony rather than rely on what is VERY subjective theory and will largely depend on the listener. This, however, may be an interesting angle for your music, but I suspect is more akin to the principle of John Cage with his Chance Theories.

Also, the key is not to think in terms of tempo. It's not about slowing it down to hear the so-called rhythm, it's about taking it further back to a waveform consisting of a few periods to complete a cycle that can show the CHANGE IN AMPLITUDE (not rhythms)

I also want to point out that stripping down a note to hear the pulses would not provide a rhythm, it would be a steady oscillating frequency vibrating at the equivalent frequency of the musical note. In short, a note is a sped up pulse (based on the fundemental frequency of the note) and NOT a rhythmic cell of varying lengths. If such a discovery were made, NASA would be the first to know. The repurcutions of such a discovery would change everything we know about frequencies and how they affect our universe.

 

[James McFadyen]

In fact, after reading it again, this harmonic rhythm thing is complete nonsence!

Try it again, I don't think they match!!!

The interval of a perfect 5th is so perfect that even a trained ear can be caught off it's guard and think they're hearing only one note.

So, here's where I am now - I don't buy it at all anymore.

It's a trick of the brain on a untrained ear.

If you play a C (Despite the tempo and despite the rhthym) it will always only sound a C. If it is played so fast or the tempo is taken to ridiculous level of 999bpm all that will sound is a more continuous note.

Much like the way AC volatge works by the flucuations are so fast that we percieve it as continuous. I light bulb is flashing on and off so fast (because it's AC voltage and not DC) that it looks to the eye to be continuous.

Same type of thing here.

The only way a new 'harmony' note can sound is if the overtones are excited (by which tempo and rhythm has NO CONTROL over) or you actually add the harmony note yourself.

Playing a perfect 5th over this may sound the same to the untrained ear (or even to the trained ear - it is that perfect!) But it isn't the same note at all.

To conclude, the idea is good - All the facts conclude that it's nothing more than a mis-interpretation of science and frequency.

 

[Guenon]

I light bulb is flashing on and off so fast (because it's AC voltage and not DC) that it looks to the eye to be continuous.

An ordinary light bulb does not flash. The glow filament acts as a resistor, heats up and thus emits constant lighting. You are talking about chemical lights like fluorescent tubes here.

Also, changes in the micro-level amplitude of a harmonic sound (or, the shape of the waveform if you will) can be interpreted as a rhythmic structure and talked about as such. Yes, one note is a "sped up pulse" based on the fundamental frequency of the note. When going to the cycle level, the behaviour of the waveform can be said to have a steady rhythm. However, when you are dealing with harmony, the rhythmic fluctuation of the waveform indeed does consist of periods of varying lengths, caused by the single-note waveforms amplifying and cancelling each other, forming a more complex cycle with an innate and natural rhythm.

This cycle can then in turn be analyzed rhythmically and used in many ways; you could program a custom LFO to follow exactly the shape of a given harmony, only a lot slower of course, fluctuating in the common BPM range instead of Hz, and in turn control the amplitude of, say, a regular pad sound with it, turning the natural repeating rhythm structure of the analyzed harmony into the macro-level rhythm of a pulsating pad sound.

 

[dj funkifize]

James, this idea is more akin to Karlheinz Stockhausen than to John Cage... in fact Stockhausen even used this in his piece "Kontakte" for Tape, piano and percussion.

I haven't tried this myself so I don't know what it'll sound like, but in theory it seems like it should work.

Harmony and everything in music is based on what is percieved by the listener, so whether there really is 2 notes playing at the same time or not doesn't make any difference. If you percieve 2 notes to be sounding at the same time, that's still a harmony.

I agree with you james that if you play a C in any rhythm and speed it up you will always hear a C... but what if you don't use a pitched note? what if you use a sound with no specific pitch? If you play a single unpitched note periodically at anything between 20 and 15000 (higher or lower depending on the person) times per second you *will* hear a pitch.
I havent tried it with a rhythm yet, so I don't know... However I am about to go find out in a second... I'll post what I hear.

 

[nalesk]

a sound with no specific pitch?

does that exist?

dont all sounds have a certain frequency and most of the time a few harmonics? (especially when complex sounds)

hold on, I m sure all that has something to do with music... errmmmmm

Damn I shoulda taken some notes!

 

[Filo]

In all fairness, a lot of that was seriously heavy duty stuff that was right over my head but Nalesk is right - Unless you are dealing with a hypersonic or subsonic wave (and even then you could theoretically classify it as such) it surely must be pitched as pitch is essentially a kind of measurement of audible waves.

 

[dj funkifize]

...woodblock, cymbal, triangle, tambourine, hand clap, cowbell, maracas, shaker...

 

[krushing]

They still all have a pitch, even if it's not as easily identified as with, say, a piano...

 

[dj funkifize]

they don't have a specific pitch... the overtones do not follow the harmonic series and they're very strong: this causes them to not be distinguished as having any pitch.