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.

 

Types of Rhythm

Small-scale rhythm, large-scale rhythm, medium-scale rhythm. What do these things mean?

 

Essentially, it’s a matter of perception. How does the listener perceive the sounds that are coming at them? How does the composer control the sound in order to control those perceptions?

 

Small-scale rhythm

Small-scale rhythm is what most people think when they hear the word “rhythm.” It’s what you’re most aware of when you hear music. More than pitch or harmony, you hear and retain small-scale rhythm.

 

Here’s an example.

 

 

This kind of thing can be repeated over and over to create a type of hook.

 

Medium-scale rhythm

Medium-scale rhythm refers to where the stress is placed in each bar. Over the course of a phrase of music (say 3 bars), a listener will be aware of accents in each bar that add up to a coherent rhythm.

 

So take the rhythm above and add accents, and you might get this:

 

As a listener you notice those accents and unconsciously form a background rhythm superimposed on the small-scale rhythm.

 

Large-scale rhythm

Large-scale rhythm is more abstract. It’s usually communicated in musical events that stand out from those around it. These don’t occur that often, but a listener notices them.

 

They could be the entry of a new instrument, or a chord that’s louder than all the ones around it. It could be a change of rhythm. These types of events act as mile-stones.

 

Thinking about what the musical milestones are in both songs and instrumental pieces gives you something to move toward when you’re writing. It also makes the whole thing more coherent for the listener.

 

These large-scale things often occur intuitively as you’re writing, and it’s easy to miss them. Stay aware, and you’ll have material to build the whole piece around.