Concepts Behind Rhythm, Part 2

Now that we have discussed some of the primary values of rhythm as the infrastructure of music and the immediate pros/cons of the notation of "measured music," we can delve into deeper layers of rhythm.

Rhythm exists in every facet of life. It is found in the cycles of the moon and the tides. It is built into the pace of our strides and the cadence of our speech. Our very life source pumps regulated beats through our veins. And therefore, just as rhythm is found in the core of life, we can identify rhythm as the core of music.

Syllabic meter and the flow of punctuation within any poem, prose, or musical piece create the foundation by which any piece derives meaning. With any given rhythm, you can create a pattern that tells a story. Rhythm is the beginning of communication in any piece of music. Establishing a pace and flow within a song gives the listener the ability to anticipate the resulting highs and lows built into the structure of a song.

Feeling the rhythm (movement through time) connects directly to dance (movement through space). And any good dancer, regardless of style, must have this key grasp of rhythm and communication that many artists refer to as musicality.

Here we can examine a few styles of dance that exemplify good musicality:






Eleanor Powell and more, Fascinatin' Rhythm

This amazing choreography gives a great depiction of the story told by the Gershwins in their folksy and timely piece Fascintin' Rhythm. On many levels, the choreography epitomizes the song and the period in which it was made. The driving rhythm in this song is well demonstrated in each tap of the foot, the different tapping styles of the artists, and the dedication to the ongoing patterns invigoratingly repeated. Most of all, the great musicality of these artists fulfills the story created in the song.

Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, The Kirov Ballet

 I believe that the story created in ballet is best appreciated in its full form, not in excerpts. This particular performance of Swan Lake is extremely well done and worth the time watching the full video. You can see clearly in this style how a dancer, as an artist, can manipulate every slight motion--flitting across the beat or carrying long motions over the pace--of each musical movement to tell a story. Especially in the theatrical use of ballet, the story is evermore apparent through the perfected musicality of each dancer.

Dawn Richard, Bombs Choreography

I included this style because of its distinct attention to detail in defining the story of the song. You can tell, without even looking deeply into the lyrics, that this piece is intended as a feministic and empowering story. It may have the wrong idea about how women can portray and embody true power in the sense that God intends, but the choreography very well tells their version of what it means to be a powerful woman. Their dedication to the rhythm in this song is spectacular. They utilize different hip hop styles including isolations, some threading, and tutting. They also utilize some strong influences from African dance forms. While they are using this style for personal glorification, I still believe understanding this style is important and can be redeeming for God's glory. Just watch as each step and isolated move carries out the driving pulse of the song.

While we have stuck to some basic beats for grasping rhythm, there is a bigger picture that rhythm can deliver in some of its more complex patterns. Let's take into account the late, great Dave Brubeck. We will return to him in the future because of his impact on music history and also because of his personal testimony in the face of a changing world--a world into which American music fully collides. In his travels in Turkey, he discovered a 9/8 rhythm pattern that he adopted and completely re-purposed for a new musical conversation.

Here is a bit of his story:

Dave Brubeck, from Ken Burns' Jazz



Blue Rondo à la Turk, Dave Brubeck Quartet

You can hear how the pattern of his rhythm was the perfect home for the light, yet substantive style of his alto-saxophonist, Paul Desmond.

Hopefully, through these few examples, we have opened the door to seeing rhythm as the infrastructure of music. There is always more to see and hear. So from this point, listen for the rhythms, and the patterns structured around them, in every future piece you come across. With this perspective, you can zero in on the rhythm and begin making analytical deductions concerning the worldview and message of the piece you are hearing.

By remembering that "rhythm is the how," telling us how each note is to be delivered, offering us a the weight of importance placed on each musical point, we can follow the flow and plot of any song's story line. We begin to discover the intentions of the artist and the values they want to impart with their audience. And as artists, we ourselves learn more about our ability to create and share our stories with the world.

Concepts Behind Rhythm, Part 1

 "From the time of the Greeks to the full flowering of Gregorian chant, the rhythm of music was the natural, unfettered rhythm of prose or poetic speech." 

~ Aaron Copland (27)

Rhythm is the driving force in music. It is how we play the tones. Rhythm tells us the combined sense and value of a piece's syllable and meter. Rhythm is the how of music. By relating rhythm to both the value of a syllable within a given phrase and to the meter, we can create an expressive flow giving the musical phrase its true meaning.

To help us realize and recreate rhythms, the systematic form we follow allows us to define individual beats and patterns surrounding musical phrases. A beat can be long or short. It is identified at the beginning of a piece by the time signature. The beats are most often organized in groups of two, three, or four called measures. Here are some common time signatures listed below:

As you can see, the top number relates to the number of beats per measure while the bottom number defines the value of a beat. While this concept can grow complicated, we will stick to these more common time signatures for the time being.

If you have any past experience in music, these notions may be very simple to grasp. But it is important to understand the value of rhythm for both its notation and beyond. The system of notating rhythmic value has, as Copland explains, freed artists from a "dependence on the word" (28). He adds that the notation of rhythm:
     1. supplied music with rhythmic structure of its own,
     2. made possible the exact reproduction of composers' rhythmical conceptions from generation to generation, and
     3. most of all, is responsible for contrapuntal (or many-voiced) music.

Rhythm and motion have a strong connection. According to the Harvard Dictionary of Music, rhythm is movement through time while motion is movement through space (729). With this foundation, the connection of music and dance is powerfully bound to one another. Musicality in dance links the dancers' ability to manipulate their physical body according to the conceptual expression defined by the rhythm in any given piece. But we will return to the topic of musicality again later.

Throughout the time of Western music's early development, the focus necessarily leaned toward the melodic and harmonic relationships in music. Rhythm was whatever naturally took shape in the emphasis of specific lyrics or prose. With the beginning of notated rhythms starting around 1150, simple rhythmic patterns were simply a better standard in order to develop increasingly complex melodic and harmonic relationships. In those stages, the science of instrument creation and improvement came alongside the science of developing intricate contrapuntal (many-voiced) pieces. Simple rhythm structures provided a strong foundation for the development of music over the years. Simple rhythmic patterns should not be taken for granted for the mere fact that they are simple. Take into account Copland's word on the matter: "The fascination and emotional impact of simple rhythms [...] repeated over and over again, as they sometimes are, with electrifying effect, is quite beyond analysis" (29).

However, in years to come we can see the value of investigating more complex rhythmic patterns. One of the beautiful things about jazz music is its flexibility. In jazz, we see the expanding communications and messages of music reaching further into the sphere of time movement, i.e. rhythm. 19th century composers stressed the downbeat on the alternating beat in 4/4 time:

ONE-two-THREE-four    or    one-TWO-three-FOUR

Unfortunately many music teachers to this day have been mislead into thinking this fact consequently meant the downbeat ought to always be on the one and three, or the two and four. However jazz presents some new ideas on the subject. Let's watch this fun explanation from the Duke himself, Duke Ellington:


 


As you can see, by avoiding snapping directly on the beat, you communicate a relaxed message. The language of music changes from a driving and direct idea to another message entirely. Considering the history of jazz music, which we will do more of in the future, this message is clearly connected to the worldview of the artists in this time. By listening to the rhythm and keying in on its structure, we can begin to identify the artists' worldview and the implications of that worldview. Rhythm gives a song its first implications toward its meaning and message. This notion ties us all the way back to the heartbeat. 

Our hearts beat to a rhythm, a rhythm that correlates with our lifestyles and activities. By homing in on the beat of life, you are recognizing where your values are placed. While I recognize openly that this concept is abused at times by many individuals and warped into a cheesy, wish-washy, and fruitless perspective, the truth behind this viewpoint on the beat of life is rather invaluable. To clarify, "homing in on the beat of life" is not intended to mean a sort of relative notion of deriving righteousness from within yourself or "finding the god within." Examining the beat of your own life is not a mission in developing a subjective reality of convenient truths. It ought to be quite the opposite. Relating rhythm in music to the worldview of the artist, or at least to the story the artist is trying to convey, should allow us to look introspectively at the world and our own values. Understanding rhythms on deeper and deeper levels ought to strengthen our search for truth.  

When you genuinely consider the power of a rhythm as the infrastructure of music--pertaining to the very message and meaning of any given artist or composer, you suddenly feel the weight of that message, good or bad, at your very core. Whether you're listening to booming power chords surging over a throbbing rhythm, a lyrical melody wafting over a steady beat, or perhaps an alternating pattern of tones dancing over a vibrant and convulsive pace, you are opening your ears and your heart to the story that the artist is trying to share. It would be wise to understand that pattern. Enjoy discovering the heartbeat of a song.

Hey all,

No Music Club this Tuesday! We're resuming on Wednesday.
I hope you've had a spectacular Christmas break!

Blessings,
Miss Ellis

P.S. In the meantime, enjoy this fun video from the Duke as we prepare to discus the topic of rhythm:

Duke Ellington explains the "hip" way to snap.