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Upcoming activities

Hermit Crab is now on bandcamp – https://hermitcrab1.bandcamp.com/releases;

on cdbaby – http://cdbaby.com/cd/hermitcrab;

and on itunes – https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/hermit-crab/id1289927176

Aside from playing shows, there are a number of projects and/or possible projects coming up – video production with award-winning filmmaker Kyle Armstrong; dance production with dancer/choreographer Nancy Sandercock – https://vimeo.com/user4416477; and theatre production with director Sandra Nicholls, and writers Karen Wall and Michael Andrew.

That last one is a theatre production presenting a vision of environmental apocalypse. You know. Rising oceans and drowning cities, crop plagues created by genetic mutation. That sort of thing.

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Hermit Crab Bio

Hailing from the northern beauty of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Hermit Crab is the collaborative project between composer Dave Wall and the instrumental post-rock trio Gary Debussy. Using the classic two guitars/bass/drums rock band format, it combines the driving intensity of punk with minimalism and the harmonic sophistication of jazz. Noise, improvisation, and electronics are also part of the sound, creating a focused, exciting, and sometimes unpredictable experience.

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Placement

Placement of notes is crucial for producing metric tension. Generally, the production of metric tension means notes not lining up with the pulse.  Repeat the following example, and the notes in the top stave will line up with the downbeat of every bar, and nowhere else.

 

Does the next example hold more tension or less? Conventional thinking says that more notes equals more tension, at least in terms of rhythm. However, to my ear (at least in this case), less notes makes it  less predictable. Because of this, it holds more tension.

 

 

For someone else, it may hold less tension, especially if they’re hearing a composite rhythm instead of a metric relationship.

The measurement of rhythmic tension relies a great deal on number of notes. The measurement of metric tension looks at the relationship between pulse and the notes played against the pulse. Your experience of tension arises from how you are listening.

These examples highlight the idea of defining different qualities of tension, instead of defining tension based on quantity of material. Quality is almost completely subjective, however.

So how do we define rhythmic quality?

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