Category : songwriting

More West African rhythm: Nigeria

This rhythm is from Nigeria. It’s called Frekoba.

It’s trickier than the last one. The reason for this is the syncopation on beat 4.

Isolation

Let’s isolate the last two beats and repeat them.

The rhythm on beats 1 and 3 are the same rhythm that you saw in the last post. It’s the rhythm on beats 2 and 4 that are a challenge.

You’ll notice that two notes from each of the second and fourth beats are bracketed. Count the “2 ee and uh” and “4 ee and uh” but don’t play a note on the number (the 2 or the 4) or the “uh”.

This will take some practice. Start slow. Once it feels comfortable at a slow speed, gradually make it faster.

Guitar problem

Here’s a riff with this rhythm using A dorian. Don’t try this until you’re comfortable with the rhythm.

There’s a difficulty in this riff aside from the last two beats. The good news is that there are two ways to play it. The bad news: they’re both problematic.

It’s that F# on the 9^th fret of the A string. It’s a bit of a stretch. If it’s uncomfortable, you can play that note on the 4^th fret of the D string. To do that smoothly, you’ll have to play the D on the 5^th fret of the A string (the four 16^th notes on the second beat) with your middle finger. This allows you to play the F# with your index finger on the 4th fret of the D string at beat 3.

Either way, that point in the riff presents a challenge. This is a common type of problem. It will come up again in other things you play. Learn how to do it both ways, and you’ll have a greater range of possibility in the things you can play.

Just be patient, work on it every day for about a week, and you’ll see it get better. Always start slow with new things.

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Sixteenth notes and West African Rhythm

Time to talk about 16^th notes. I’m surprised that I haven’t brought this up before.

Sixteenth notes are simply 4 notes played evenly in the time of one beat. They look like this:

And you count them like this:

Independence

Tap your foot while counting this pattern out loud. The foot tap is on the beat: one tap for a single “1 ee and uh” sequence. This helps develop independence in your limbs, which helps your entire body feel the rhythm. Try alternating your feet while counting the sequence. This creates more independence.

Instead of tapping your feet, try tapping your hands on a table. Alternate hands and feet for even more fun.

Remember to keep the “1 ee and uh” counting even.

West African rhythm

Knowing how to count 16th notes is important for learning how to play the 16th note rhythms that are used in different styles. We’ll look at particular West African rhythm from Ghana. This is call Cinte.

The “ee” in brackets indicates that the note that’s normally there isn’t played. Play the rhythm while counting “1 ee and uh”, but don’t play when you say “ee”. Once you can feel the rhythm, stop counting.

What you get (if you repeat the rhythm) is a galloping rhythm that you hear in metal tunes a lot (depending on the type of metal you’ve heard).

We can use this as the rhythmic basis for a riff or it can be a strumming rhythm. I like it best as the basis for a riff. Here’s one.

Make up your own riffs using this rhythm with notes from the scales you’ve learned. Continue using no more than five notes for any riff you make. But stay open to using more. There are always exceptions to rules.

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Making riffs

A riff is a short melodic idea that people remember. That last bit is important. And really hard to do, because how do you know what people are going to remember?

You don’t, of course. You can analyse riffs from songs that have sold millions. You can figure out the rhythms they used, the melodies. That’s a good thing to do (necessary, even) but it doesn’t guarantee that you’ll write a successful riff.

There are some rules that most successful riffs follow, though.

Keeping it simple

First rule: keep it short and simple. You have to be able to sing it.

Second rule: make it rhythmically simple (but not too simple).

Third rule: don’t use too many notes.

Keeping it short means you’ll remember it. How short? Typically around two bars. Some are four bars, but start by making two bar riffs.

Rhythmically simple means quarter notes and eighth notes for the most part. “For the most part” means 95-100%. “Not too simple” (second rule above) means you’ll probably want some syncopation.

The third rule (Not using too many notes) supports the second rule (use simple rhythms). The third rule extends to melody. A complex melody with lots of notes will be hard to remember and sing. Three to five notes are enough for riffs.

You can stretch out if you want to write solos. Riffs need to be simple.

Examples

Take a look at these potential riffs.

There’s nothing wrong with any of these, but which one is easier to remember?

• The first one has a nice flow to it and has six notes.
• The second one has less notes (four), but seems more like a bass line than a riff.
• The third one has three notes – G, Bb, C – and a distinct rhythm with syncopation. Both of these things – small number of notes, distinct rhythm – will make it easier to remember.

The fourth one is just because I felt like changing the third one a bit.

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Melody in A minor

Let’s practice using the fixes I suggested in the last post. We’ll do this by making a progression in A minor, and by using some of the scales I talked about in earlier posts.

http://davewallmusic.com/soloing/

http://davewallmusic.com/a-bunch-of-notes-for-the-blues-2/

Everything you’ve done with these scales should begin to give you a flexible sense of melody. Playing them over the blues gives you one sense of melody. Playing them over a progression in A minor will give you a different sense of melody.

Chords in A minor

Make a progression in A minor.  Here are the chords you can use to do that.

Amin             Bdim             Cmaj             Dmin            Emin             Fmaj             Gmaj

If you’ve read one of my earlier posts, you’ll know that these are the same chords as C major.

http://davewallmusic.com/improvisation/

In A minor you can use Emaj instead of Emin, and G#dim instead of Gmaj.

Taking a look at my posts on songwriting (see main menu) will help you put a progression together if you need help. And remember to use the fixes I talked about in the last post.

Playing the scales

Use minor pentatonic, dorian, and the blues scale. Major pentatonic won’t work on a minor progression.

After using the blues progression, soloing over a regular progression will be a bit of a revelation. Notice how your playing changes. The blues progression tends to make you play blues clichés. A progression in a minor key (or a major key) encourages a different melodic approach.

Play around with this. Pay attention to the kind of melody each of the three scales make you want to play. This will give you a sense of what you like.

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How to make chord progressions a pro would love, Part 16: Rhythm III – Strumming

So let’s take the progression from the last post…

…and add some rhythms using quarter notes and eighth notes.

You’re probably looking at that symbol on the second and fourth beats of bar 5, and wondering what’s going on. Let me explain.

Counting

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How to make chord progressions a pro would love, Part 15: Rhythm II

Before we get to using those quarter notes and eighth note rhythms, I want to briefly review harmonic rhythm. I mentioned it a while ago, but we haven’t really put it to use. This is a good time to do that.

Progression in G major

Let’s take a look at a progression in the key of G. The chords for the key of G are…

That double bar-line with the two dots at the end of the second line? That’s called a repeat sign. It means that you need to go back to the beginning and repeat the 8 bars.

Changing harmonic rhythm

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