when creating your drums in your daw or on your mpc do you guys take polyrhythms in to account? or do you guys just go bar ear or put in your kicks and snare etc in random spots till it sounds good to you? Also are polyrhythms more for a live playing drum kit, like a rock band?
polyrhythms drums
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bandcoach
Zukatoku - Mod Scientist
Each instrument in your rhythm section: bass, kick, snare, hats, adds to the layers of rhythmic complexity or poly-rhythmic potential. Begin to divide the beat into triplets or even the half beat into triplets (add jazz swing or hip-hop swing) and the underlying poly-rhythmic complexity of the piece increases further still.
That said, once you have two rhythmic levels happening, then you are in the realm of poly-rhythms. The more you add, the more complex it becomes. So: Kick, Snare and Hats each playing different rhythms within the same basic beat framework (beat type and bpm) create poly-rhythms, whether on a drumkit or on a drum machine.
put this into your drum machine/sequencer and see what you think - add more hats so that you have hip hop swing (8th-16th triplet pairs), shift the snare offbeat 16ths to offbeat 16th triplets, do the same with the kicks offbeat 16ths
explore how simple transformations can make this so much more complex
the following audio clip takes the above and applies the transformations discussed
changing the hat pattern to 16ths
changing that pattern to triplet 8th-16th pairs
changing the kick and snare to triplet 8th-16ths as well
[mp3]http://www.bandcoach.org/fp/audio/polyrhythmsAgain.mp3[/mp3]
That said, once you have two rhythmic levels happening, then you are in the realm of poly-rhythms. The more you add, the more complex it becomes. So: Kick, Snare and Hats each playing different rhythms within the same basic beat framework (beat type and bpm) create poly-rhythms, whether on a drumkit or on a drum machine.
| 1 | e | & | u | 2 | e | & | u | 3 | e | & | u | 4 | e | & | u | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hats | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||
| Snare | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||
| Kick | X | X | X | X | X | X |
put this into your drum machine/sequencer and see what you think - add more hats so that you have hip hop swing (8th-16th triplet pairs), shift the snare offbeat 16ths to offbeat 16th triplets, do the same with the kicks offbeat 16ths
explore how simple transformations can make this so much more complex
the following audio clip takes the above and applies the transformations discussed
changing the hat pattern to 16ths
changing that pattern to triplet 8th-16th pairs
changing the kick and snare to triplet 8th-16ths as well
[mp3]http://www.bandcoach.org/fp/audio/polyrhythmsAgain.mp3[/mp3]
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Thank you so much for answering. But im just a ill confused on some stuff you wrote. 1) what do you mean by divide the beat into triplets and half beat in to triplets? 2) The example you used with the kick,snare,hi hat, what polyrhythm did u use?( like 4/3 2/5) 3) when you said shift snare or kick did you mean put it as a 16th note in your loop?
---------- Post added at 03:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:54 PM ----------
also R polyrhythms and time sig related?
bandcoach
Zukatoku - Mod Scientist
the problem with poly-rhythm and it's definition is that there are more modern definitions that prefer to assert that it comes from breaking the current beat into tuplets (as you asked, 4/3 2/5, etc ) of various sizes. This is a very crude definition as it avoids things such as internal rhythmic accents and ideas like the son clave (2-3 clave) and rumba clave (3-2 clave) which set a framework against which all of the rhythms within the suite of Latin American dances are played against - poly-rhythm by it's nature is about layers of rhythmic density: some instruments are played with 16th note divisions as the norm, others are played with 8ths as the norm, some have the 1/4 note or the half note as the rhythmic level at which they are divided. In ethnomusicological terms, we are looking at colotomic structure, the large cycle of repeating rhythms, as well as poly-rhythmic content, the small variations in rhythms.
the beat level in most of the music you will write or experience is the 1/4 note.
the half beat level would then be the 8th note
A lot of what people call poly-rhythm is actually hemiola, which is where the sub-beat is kept constant across changing time signatures or rhythmic interpretation/accenting. The best known example hemiola is the song America from West Side Story: we hear the idea
bold counts are accented notes
to my post above - here is the grid version of each variation
original - lasts 2 bars
variation 1 add straight 16ths to the hi-hats
variation 2, change those straight 16ths to hi-hop 16ths (triplet 8th-16th pairs)
variation 3 - shift the snare and the kick the next 16th triplet from their current straight 16th position
the beat level in most of the music you will write or experience is the 1/4 note.
triplets within that beat level become 3 8th notes in the space of 2
the half beat level would then be the 8th note
triplets within this level become 3 16th notes in the space of 2
A lot of what people call poly-rhythm is actually hemiola, which is where the sub-beat is kept constant across changing time signatures or rhythmic interpretation/accenting. The best known example hemiola is the song America from West Side Story: we hear the idea
| 6/8 | 3/4 | ||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 1 | - | 2 | - | 3 | - |
|---|
bold counts are accented notes
to my post above - here is the grid version of each variation
original - lasts 2 bars
| 1 | e | & | u | 2 | e | & | u | 3 | e | & | u | 4 | e | & | u | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hats | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||
| Snare | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||
| Kick | X | X | X | X | X | X |
variation 1 add straight 16ths to the hi-hats
| 1 | e | & | u | 2 | e | & | u | 3 | e | & | u | 4 | e | & | u | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hats | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| Snare | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||
| Kick | X | X | X | X | X | X |
variation 2, change those straight 16ths to hi-hop 16ths (triplet 8th-16th pairs)
| 1 | 2 | e | 3 | &/4 | 5 | u | 6 | 2 | 2 | e | 3 | &/4 | 5 | u | 6 | 3 | 2 | e | 3 | &/4 | 5 | u | 6 | 4 | 2 | e | 3 | &/4 | 5 | u | 6 | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hats | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Snare | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kick | X | X | X | X | X | X |
variation 3 - shift the snare and the kick the next 16th triplet from their current straight 16th position
| 1 | 2 | e | 3 | &/4 | 5 | u | 6 | 2 | 2 | e | 3 | &/4 | 5 | u | 6 | 3 | 2 | e | 3 | &/4 | 5 | u | 6 | 4 | 2 | e | 3 | &/4 | 5 | u | 6 | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hats | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Snare | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kick | X | X | X | X | X | X |
what do u mean by different beat levels? sorry if im gettin annoying with these questions but let me see if i get this, if you have a kick, snare, hihat and u want to use the polyrhythm 3/4. so would the kick and snare be (1) 2( 3) 4, () hits. what about the hihat? where does it go in the count but if its 3/4 over 4/4 would it look like this (1) 2 3 4. 4/4{kick} n (1) 2 (3) 4 .3/4 (hithat / snare} also im really confused about how a polyrhythm would look like in daw? like when your using the step sequencer.
kick
hithat
snare
also is there a certain amount of polyrythms ? like 4/4 3/4 etc?
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bandcoach
Zukatoku - Mod Scientist
3/4 over 4/4 would be polymeter i.e. different metrical structures happening a the same time, it does not mean that a 3/4 bar occupies the same duration as a 4/4 bar.
If your time signature was constantly changing 4/4-3/4-4/4-3/4- etc, then you would have shifting meter
Poly means many
rhythm means durations grouped into bars/measures
Beat level is simply a phrase to indicate the underlying beat structure of a rhythmic line.
Hi-hats are usually twice as fast as the beat or more (8ths or 16ths when the beat is 1/4's)
The snare, occurring only twice in the bar is at half the beat
The kick can be at the beat level or larger or a combination of beat and sub-beat divisions
A sub-beat division is chopping the beat into 8ths/16ths/32nds and the various triplet combinations
3 in the space of 4 is not a normal way of thinking about triplets, it is usually 3 in the space of 2: this is because 3 in the space of 2 says "use 3 of the current duration to fill the space occupied by 2 of the current duration". The direction 3 in the space of 4 requires us to change our thinking, to: "use 3 of the next largest duration to fill the space of 4 of this duration"
At base, I think you are trying too hard to understand this.
Some musical examples of what you are attempting to achieve may make the explanations easier to give and easier to read......