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Rhythm chunking

By chunking I mean taking a chunk out of a rhythm you’ve made, and using it as the main action.

 

You can create chunks from a longer rhythm, say 4 or more bars.

 

 

 

Three chunks

For now, take chunks of 3 to 5 beats from this longer rhythm. Here’s a 4-beat chunk.

 

Where did I find this chunk in the 4 bar phrase above? What beat does it start on?

 

Here’s another one.

 

 

Here’s one that doesn’t start with a rest. It’s not 4 beats long, either. Remember to experiment with different lengths.

 

Strumming

Make that last chunk a strumming pattern…

 

Riffs

…or change the notes and create a riff.

 

Solos

You can also use this idea to create part of a solo.

 

 

So the basic idea here is to take a longer rhythm, take a chunk out of it, and then repeat that chunk to create chord progressions, riffs, and solos.  The range of possibilities is endless.  I’ll look at using this idea in a chord progression in the next post.

 

Erasures 2

The next step is to take the patterns you’ve made (see last post) and play them in all the possible orders.

Some examples:

 

1. Original + erasure 1 + erasure 5
2. Erasure 4 + erasure 3 + erasure 1 + erasure 6
3. Erasure 5 + original + erasure 2 + erasure 4 + erasure 3

 

Get the idea?

You can probably see that the number of possibilities is fairly large. I’m not going to write them all down, but you can. Or just write out three, and then play them. Tomorrow, do a couple more and play around with those. Really, all you have to do is one a day.

 

New stuff

Working in this way gives you new stuff to explore everyday.

Some of what you make you may not like, but some you will. And that stuff can turn into entire pieces, or just a really cool groove. In any case, your rhythm playing will get better, and you’ll develop an attitude of experimenting.

You’ll become fine with failing because you’ll discover that finding stuff that works is worth looking at the stuff that doesn’t.

 

Rhythm: Erasures

Arnold Schoenberg said that the eraser was the most important part of the pencil. I’m there.

 

Erasures

Take that rhythm we were working with in a previous post.

 

 

Erase the first note of the rhythm that you wrote.  I’ll call this act of erasing an erasure.

Play that.

 

Now erase just the second note.

Play that.

 

Erase the third note, and you get this.

 

You now have 3 new rhythms. Simple.

 

Continue this erasing process with the 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th notes.

 

Combining rhythms

We’re not done. Play the original rhythm and follow it immediately with the first erasure.

 

Loop this. See if you like it.

 

Now play the original followed by the first and the second erasure.

 

Loop that for a while. This one is interesting because it’s three bars long, which messes with people’s expectations (people tend to expect 2 or 4 bar phrases).

 

You get the idea. Erase one note but keep the others. There are six notes in the original rhythm, so you’ll have 7, one-bar rhythmic ideas when you’re finished (the original and 6 erasures).

 

Longer rhythms

Take the original rhythm and add each erasure to it one at a time. This will give you 7 different rhythmic patterns.

 

Here they are:

1. original
2. original + erasure 1
3. original + erasure 1 + erasure 2
4. original + erasure 1 + erasure 2 + erasure 3
5. original + erasure 1 + erasure 2 + erasure 3 + erasure 4
6. original + erasure 1 + erasure 2 + erasure 3 + erasure 4 + erasure 5
7. original + erasure 1 + erasure 2 + erasure 3 + erasure 4 + erasure 5 + erasure 6

 

Play around with this. You’ll almost certainly find some really cool rhythmic patterns.

 

And then check out the next post. We’re still not done.

Duration

I’ve talked about duration in any post where I’ve mentioned rhythm. This is a bit tricky to talk about. But interesting. Really interesting.

 

Two types of time

We live by two basic types of duration: clock-time and experiential time. Clock-time breaks our lives into chunks. Experiential time happens when we “lose track of time.” At these times we experience time going by more (or less) slowly than we thought.

 

We experience time as a flow instead of chunks.

 

Time and listening

When we listen to a piece of music we generally can’t tell how much time has gone by (unless we sit there counting seconds). We experience time based on our relationship to the music.

 

If we like what we’re hearing, time flies. If we hate it, it takes forever. In either case, we don’t separate time into equals portions. Instead we mark it by noticeable events in the music.

 

Music markers

So if we hear the guitar start we unconsciously create a time-marker. When the voice comes in, that’s another time marker. Then we might notice the bass, or the keyboards. Maybe the horn section plays a couple of shots in the verse.

 

All these things interact, occurring at different points in time.  The cool thing about music is that we notice some of it on the first listen, and something else on the second listen. And something else on each subsequent listen.

 

And then one day, we just stop listening.

 

Different time-senses

But while we listen, we get a different sense of time each time we do. If the song-writer or composer has done a good job, some of the stuff they’ve written will be “hidden.” “Hidden” just means supporting stuff like strings that sneak in and then disappear. Or a bass line where a couple of notes jump out of the texture.

 

Sometimes we notice these things, sometimes we don’t. And this means the song seems a bit different each time we listen to it. This is partly because the things we notice become time-markers, and our experience of time shifts on each listen.