Quintessential Polyrhythm Article [Archive]

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timdog

09-22-2002, 05:59 PM

Tempo-Mental is an article that Steve Vai wrote back in around '83.
It's almost everything you need to know about polyrhythms and polymetrics.. or maybe everything you shouldn't know.

Don't hurt yourself.

http://www.vai.com/LittleBlackDots/tempomental.html

Bucketbot

09-22-2002, 07:26 PM

Great article. Although, I think I hurt my self reading it. My brain hurts.

Scars Unseen

09-22-2002, 08:21 PM

Oh geez... I remember that article. I especially liked the "maniac" example. :D

Tsorovan

09-22-2002, 08:32 PM

Looking back now, he could have saved her
But there's no one left to save him
'Cause we're all walking in tomorrows
We may never experience

timdog

09-22-2002, 08:38 PM

If you knew the number
Of the steps you'd ever take
Bitter, I wonder
Would you run or cease to walk?
-Pain of Salvation

I'd buy one of those IT/Ginger machines so I wouldn't have to walk.
hehe

wodda

09-25-2002, 08:41 AM

I still like the part:
You might say, "Why, Steve?"
And I might say, "I don't know".
You might say, "Who's gonna play it, Steve?"
And I might say, "I don't know".

:-)

mr marcus

10-04-2002, 04:26 AM

yeah that part kicks arse.

why steve?

ha ha!

kick ass

Dethritual

01-05-2003, 12:26 PM

It truly is a great article, one I feel that really explained how to count polyrhythms correctly. Now if I could only internalize it so as to be able improve my rhythm and lead playing.

Barry Clark

01-05-2003, 12:28 PM

Another ggod place to get this info is in a book called Polyrhythms for the Drumset.

KYCTbI

02-21-2004, 09:26 AM

hi here is another very good article i found on polyrhythms that might help http://www.bobbrozman.com/tip_rhythm.html

Transfixion Burn

11-27-2004, 11:14 PM

someone fucking shoot me...

I've seen this thread and that page like a million times now. I'm trying to get back into polys I still can't get my head around this shit. Whenever I think I have to I get confused again reading something else and I'm never sure if I truely have it.

OrganicAnagram

11-28-2004, 02:19 AM

very nice

Guinness

11-28-2004, 11:39 AM

I get it, i just dont get the last thing steve talks about, about the metric modulation

grandpascorpion

12-03-2004, 03:13 PM

Very good ideas but some of the stuff is illegible. It'd be nice to see it in a larger print.

One section strikes me as screwy is:

Another technique I use is that of overlapping polyrhythms. This can get kind of sticky and is best used when there's no definite time signature going on.

Could anyone wrap their head around this one? If he could write the time signature then you could work back and figure what he's doing otherwise it seems like BS. Maybe Lord Timdog could explain it?

Shujin

12-03-2004, 04:19 PM

Too bad none of this stuff ever gets incorporated into his music.

grandpascorpion

12-03-2004, 04:30 PM

Yeah. Most of the things in that article he says are in the FZ Guitar Book aren't in there. There's nested polys but that's it.

Guinness

12-03-2004, 05:42 PM

I dont know anything about Frank Zappa, but what is Tempo Mental Rap? Does that even exsist as a song?

I would love to find a program to play some of the more complex ideas he has to hear how they go and have a better understanding of them.

fixxxer

12-06-2004, 05:23 PM

Too bad none of this stuff ever gets incorporated into his music.

kill the guy with the ball

Shujin

12-06-2004, 05:42 PM

Granted, it has been a long time since I've heard that song, but I don't recall hearing any polyrhythms or other weirdness. Some slightly unpredictable drumming is all I can remember.

fixxxer

12-07-2004, 01:30 AM

me neither. but i think i remember towards the end of the first part (before the really shit one note leads against synths ending)

Corsucation

12-24-2004, 12:53 AM

am i the only one who understands???

Yes it is hurting my head right now, but that's cause i'm slef taught, i taught myself how to play, nothing about theory though.

All you do is divide it up evenly.

RennyFN

03-17-2005, 08:11 PM

That's a really good article as it goes... :)

Apathy

03-18-2005, 03:09 PM

The article is great, too bad i can't hear examples of some of the more complicated stuff he's doing. It would make it slightly easier to understand, although it did take me about 4 reads to actually get it all.

grandpascorpion

03-18-2005, 08:42 PM

The only thing I don't get is the later examples of the overlapping polyrhythms. They seem ambiguous to me (the first one is clear to me though).

timdog

03-18-2005, 08:49 PM

I think I understand what it is. I actually use it in one of my songs for Tandjent. The beat switches back and forth between 5 eighthnote triplets and to 5 eightnotes. It's really whacky heh.

grandpascorpion

03-18-2005, 08:56 PM

Hey Tim,

That I do get and god bless ya for putting that in a song. So in a sense, you go back and forth between 5/12 and 5/8 (oops, that's the other thread)

I reread this and it's the last overlapping example that throws me. It's the double overlaps that get me:

http://www.vai.com/LittleBlackDots/images/tm_tempo27.gif

If there was a time signature, I could work my way backwards but otherwise it seems ambiguous.

timdog

03-18-2005, 09:05 PM

That I do get and god bless ya for putting that in a song. So in a sense, you go back and forth between 5/12 and 5/8 (oops, that's the other thread)

The thing is, I keep it in 4/4 with the hat on the quarter while it's going on. So it is really nutty like a squirrel turd.

If there was a time signature, I could work my way backwards but otherwise it seems ambiguous.

It's very ambiguous but I look at it pretty much like metric modulation.

grandpascorpion

03-18-2005, 09:17 PM

How many beats do you think are in those measures?

Back to Tandjent though, your turdly ends up being a wacky sextuplet rhtyhm.

timdog

03-19-2005, 01:07 AM

OK, I was bored and programmed the crazy Tempo Mental example.
http://www.vai.com/LittleBlackDots/images/tm_tempo27.gif

It looks like the whole thing takes up 14 quarternotes.
This one was programmed over straight quarters:

http://tandjent.com/meshforum/media/TempoMental27.mp3
http://tandjent.com/meshforum/media/TempoMental27.gif

This one was programmed with the hat to help signify when the overlapping polyrhythms start:

http://tandjent.com/meshforum/media/TempoMental27_v2.mp3
http://tandjent.com/meshforum/media/TempoMental27_v2.gif

RennyFN

03-20-2005, 06:13 AM

grandpascorpion

03-20-2005, 12:23 PM

Timmay,

Thanks for uploading this but I don't see how this corresponds to the article's gif.

Here's why:

Assuming it's all three bars in the example, the first three hits in the file seem to be the same length but the first bar in the example starts with an 8th and 2 16ths.
Also, the ending should feel faster than the beginning because you have (a mutation of ) septuplet 16ths (and there's no tempo downshift I don't think).

timdog

03-20-2005, 04:52 PM

After looking it over, I am secondguessing a couple parts. You are right about the septuplet at the end. It should be much faster. I think I screwed up the math there. The biggest question for me is whether or not the quintuplet at the end of line 1 was the same duration as the one beginning bar 2. I guessed not and refered back to the original tempo but I'm not really sure. There is definitely metric modulation going on when you overlap polyrhythms though, so that is where the tempo shift comes from. It's easy to lose reference though.

grandpascorpion

03-20-2005, 07:13 PM

That's my beef, I guess. Notation's supposed to be determinisitic but not open to interpretation (unless you're talking about graphic notation or similar)

timdog

03-20-2005, 07:30 PM

Actually, when I look at it again, the septuplet at the end is correct. The last eighthnote in the triplet becomes the first 2 sixteenths of the septuplet. I'm sticking with what I programmed for now. The tempo shift comes from all the damn metric modulation heh.

theory freak

03-27-2005, 02:59 AM

Do you really think Zappa thinks with septuplets within quintuplets?
It's feeling and not mathematics.
The aim of Vai was to notate sth which cannot be normally...
To find a WAY OF NOTATION!

xCx

03-27-2005, 04:04 AM

2 much

BlueGrot

03-27-2005, 05:45 AM

never 2 much

Yes indeed.

bengt

03-27-2005, 01:11 PM

Do you really think Zappa thinks with septuplets within quintuplets?
It's feeling and not mathematics.
The aim of Vai was to notate sth which cannot be normally...
To find a WAY OF NOTATION! Yes, he actually did. If you've read interviews with him you'd know that he was very conscious of it.

theory freak

03-27-2005, 02:23 PM

Zappa was fond of Edgar Varèse, which was a fantastic rythmician and wo wrote for percussions.Zappa is a in rythmo fecondation" man!

timdog

03-27-2005, 07:44 PM

I would say it is hard (nearly impossible) to write polyrhythmic music without actuallly understanding what it is. How the hell are you going to write a 7:4 beat if you don't have the slightest clue about what it sounds like or where to begin.

grandpascorpion

03-27-2005, 09:17 PM

Beefheart comes to mind.

Speaking of the Vai transcriptions, I really doubt Zappa thought things out to that detail in his improvs. The Guitar book is just lunacy. I know Zappa did it consciously in his compositions though.

Guinness

03-27-2005, 09:30 PM

theory freak

03-28-2005, 02:51 AM

It seems that nobody's practicing improvisation there huh?
Zappa worked out thoroughly the rythm.He has not to relearn all the tuplets to play or write anything.
It is for him a second nature.

timdog

03-28-2005, 03:34 AM

It seems that nobody's practicing improvisation there huh?
Zappa worked out thoroughly the rythm.He has not to relearn all the tuplets to play or write anything.
It is for him a second nature.

(Good) improvisation including polyrhythms doesn't mean not having a grasp on polyrhythms. I am saying that you can't really improvise well without a good vocabulary. Most people aren't just going to come out and start playing quintuplets and septuplets without ever hearing one.. it is not common in "popular" music.

bengt

03-28-2005, 04:22 PM

Q: Are your solos on record improvised first takes, or are they conceived beforehand?

FZ: It depends on what the song is; very rarely are they first-take things. But they aren't things where I'd sit down and work out the whole solo in advance before I played it. I can't do that, I can't remember it. Usually what I do if I get something going, I'll lay down 20 bars or so, and stop the tape, back it up, and punch in, and take up where I left off. I try to have the event that's going on the record make musical sense and fit in with what's going on; because a record is a fixed object, it doesn't change. It's not a song anymore, it's an object. If you're playing a song on the road it can change every night. It can be something, it comes alive each time you play it, and it has its own existence. But once you've committed it to wax, it never changes. So if you're going to leave your guitar solo on, you're stuck with that for the life of the record. I'm fairly fussy about it, but I'm sure I let a few go out on record that I could probably do better now. But I hope that's the way it's always going to be.

Q: Have there been songs in the past that you've written specifically as guitar vehicles?

FZ: Not really, no. There are a few now that I've designed that way. I figure that since I've been playing for about 20 years or so, I might as well start doing that.

Q: What scales do you work from?

FZ: My solos are speech-influenced rhythmically; and harmonically they're either pentatonic or poly-scale oriented. And there's the Mixolydian mode, which I also use a lot.

Q: You don't really play a lot of blues licks in your solos?

FZ: I can, I have. I started off that way. But I'm more interested in melodic things. I think the biggest challenge when you go to play a solo is trying to invent a melody on the spot. I also think that a guitar player can only be as good as the band that's accompanying him. If the people backing you up are sensitive to what you're playing, you'll sound great; if they're just note-mashers, then you'll always sound mundane.

Q: Are those the qualities you look for in a backing musician?

FZ: I've always had good rhythm section players, but I wouldn't say that they've always been too enthusiastic about what I was playing, or understood it very well, or really got into it. Because if a person's from the jazz world, they're going to play worlds of gnat-notes, clouds of pentatonic gnat-notes that really don't amount to shit. Or if they're from the blues world they want somebody who gets on three notes and goes squirm-squirm-squirm. It's hard to explain to guys just coming into the band, the rhythmic concept I have about playing, because it's based on ideas of metrical balance - long, sustained events versus groupettoes that are happening with a lot of notes on one beat. Like a lot of sextuplets, septuplets, and things like that. A lot of times I'll play 13 notes over a half note and try to space it evenly so it flows. This is sort of against the grain of rock and roll, which likes to have everything in exactly duple or triple, straight up and down, so you can constantly tap your foot to it But I prefer to have the rhythm section be aware of where the basic pulse of the time is and create a foundation that won't move, so I can flow over the top of it. It's hard to do, it's hard to get people to do that. And it's also hard to get them to leave some space for where the fast notes occur. Rhythm sections always have a tendency to copy: If they hear somebody else playing fast notes, they want to play fast notes too, and then you can't hear any fast notes any more. I've always had good rhythmic rapport with Aynsley Dunbar- I thought he was really good, drum-wise. And Terry Bozzio, the drummer in the group now, is excellent. He has a tendency to frenzy out a little bit, but Ijust figure that's because he's from San Francisco. -- Guitar Player, 1977

grandpascorpion

03-30-2005, 10:31 AM

Ah, I read this years ago. Good interview.

In the book itself, many of the transcriptions go into extremely specific detail (double- and triple-nested tuplets then with subrhythms further embeded sometimes). Vai spent two years putting this book together.

I don't have a scanner so I can't post any of the pathological cases but the top image below would probably be a 2 on a difficulty scale of 1 to 10:
http://www.zappa-analysis.com/shutup.htm

I'd think Zappa could have just banged out the transcription it out if he intentionally played those specific nested tuplets.

kitten surprise!

04-07-2005, 08:04 AM

Somewhere, i have the sheet music to "the black page" (bozzio percussion solo found on "Live in New York"). It's a fucking nightmare to read. If I can scan it in for you guys, I will. It's chock-full of odd sub-subdivision phrases, some over the bar. I don't think that song was meant to be transcribed.

timdog

04-07-2005, 08:40 AM

Please do scan it if you can. I'd love to see it.

Guinness

04-07-2005, 10:55 AM

Please do scan it if you can. I'd love to see it.

That makes two people!

grandpascorpion

04-07-2005, 11:30 AM

I 3rd the motion :)

PrayingMantis

04-07-2005, 12:09 PM

4th

Please

kitten surprise!

04-07-2005, 02:56 PM

alright, i'll see what i can do. a drum teacher of mine gave me a blown-up copy that might not physically fit in the scanner (you'll understand why when you see it), but i'll ask him if i can grab a regular-sized copy. It'll probably take a week or so.

*edit: i just had a look at that aforementioned zappa site (that's a pretty fucking awesome find, dude!). anyway, for the time being, there's a little bit on the note groups found in the black page here: http://www.zappa-analysis.com/irrdisco.htm

*edit2: apparently, the score can be bought and paid for online. since i'm not sure what this board's policy on copyright infringement is, when i get a scannable copy, i'm not going to be publicly posting a link; however, if someone wants to... err... "discuss" the score in private, they can PM me. i'll post again when i have it ready.

Lundgren777

05-27-2005, 12:44 AM

Too bad none of this stuff ever gets incorporated into his music.He does use polyrythms alot! well mostly the drums alone but he does! Try to listen to FireGarden suite about 8:24 in the song Mike Mangini plays some of the most complex and technically insane shit in the world. Try to check out the polyrythms he is playing in that part. Mangini Is the guy that has the world record in singlestroke rolls, i think its 2003 strokes per minute his record is. Check out www.extremesportdrumming.com Go to the wfd tv section and check it out. :D

grandpascorpion

05-27-2005, 06:03 PM

He does do polys but he doesn't do the funny stuff described in the article.

If you could post a clip of that berserk section, that'd be great. I have only scanned his stuff and have found anything interesting, rhtyhm-section wise. Satriani is the same way for me.

The record is 1203 BTW. Still amazing :)

marduk111

06-14-2005, 12:51 AM

hey timdog thanks for the article, i came here to this thread hoping that fredrick might have put together something like this (that would rock) and was surprised to find this article

thanks a lot man, im a big vai fan and i have never seen this article

lol im still hoping to find any articles or lessons from fredrick, if any of you know where i can find some please let me know

im going to look through the forum and see what i can find

8stringsToBliss

07-05-2005, 12:33 AM

Very interesting/confusing.
Especialy when mixed with weed (the article)

theory freak

10-02-2005, 11:43 AM

Hey Tim ,haven't you been to Berklee?

timdog

10-02-2005, 01:14 PM

Hey Tim ,haven't you been to Berklee?

Yes. Graduated '99.

Fractal Illusion

11-02-2005, 10:56 PM

oh hell yeah.

theory freak

12-10-2005, 07:18 AM

WELL SAID TIM!
You who graduated in Berklee saying that...should know that if you don't hear the thing in your head before writing it, is rubbish.
Moreover if writing polyrithmics is just to brag...Let the fuckers do.

grandpascorpion

12-10-2005, 07:11 PM

I have to disagree. With technology the way it is, you can start with an abstact idea (i.e. some polymetric idea) and manipulate it until it sounds good. The end result is what matters.

theory freak

12-12-2005, 02:20 AM

Finally I guess I can be ok with you granpa(I apologize for my erroneous opinion), I've just used some horrible examples off Vai with metric modulations and it works great on sequencers.Now the deal is to be able to play it.Now,training!!!! :lol:

Arghhhhh!

http://www.earmaster.com

For lazy guys to train, there are rythmic exercices useful to improve accuracy.

Intercaust

02-14-2006, 10:57 PM

That's pretty cool.

Nack Blapkin

11-27-2007, 03:56 AM

Here is a link to a score of the melody of The Black Page that Zappa wrote out for a keyboard magazine.

http://www.zappateers.com/scrapbook/thumbnails.php?album=91

The only place I've ever seen the drum score is on the Bozzio/Wackerman duets DVD where they both play it together(!) and it is at the bottom of the screen so you can read along.

If you want to hear some REALLY weird rhythms, get one of Zappa's synclavier albums. I've read that with the synclavier he could decide on how many notes he wanted then tell the synclavier to evenly split those notes across the bar. So you can imagine the amount of polyrhythms that are going on in some of those songs. By the way, the synclavier was one of the first synthesizers that you could type information into.

And if that weren't enough... Here's an mp3 of a version of The Black Page that Zappa did on the synclavier for that same magazine so all us guitarists out there would have something to play along with.

http://rapidshare.com/files/37138799/06_the_black_page__1.mp3.html

Re-Inanimate

07-06-2008, 02:14 PM

Whoa, pretty detailed!
Nice :grin:

päron

02-05-2009, 03:52 PM

skit i detta, låt skägget växa

Offbeat

02-28-2009, 07:37 AM

thething

03-04-2009, 07:40 AM

Nack Blapkin

03-17-2009, 10:12 PM

And that synclavier cost him $250.000 ... which is lol

Why is it lol? If he didn't pay that price for it then, he never would have been able to execute the monster of a project that is Civilization Phase III. I'd say it was money well spent. ;D

xugro

03-30-2009, 01:59 PM

Have you guys seen Pieslak's article on Meshuggah? It does a bit of polyrhythmic analysis as well as what he calls "hyperrhythm" in tracks like "I."

The article is linked below. It's pretty decent and comes from a professional musician/theorist.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6375990/Recasting-Metal-Rhythm-and-Meter-in-the-Music-of-Meshuggah

grandpascorpion

04-04-2009, 01:44 PM

I like the notion of a hypermeasure. Thanks for posting.

Curtis

06-05-2009, 09:53 AM

Sorry to bring this up again but i was reading over an old meshuggah polyrhythm thread where people kept mentioning Neurotica as featuring a polyrhythmic section in the verse and nobody seemd to confirm this. It definitely sounds like a polyrhythm to me, 3:4, with the guitar doing the 4 and the rest doing the 3.

I guess what makes it sound theoretically cool is that the drums are actually in 4/4 but can be grouped in 3 when mixed with the guitar.

damn great section is also what I'm trying to say :D

Louison

06-23-2009, 12:53 AM

I like the notion of a hypermeasure. Thanks for posting.

Yep, interesting concept.
Haven't read the whole article yet, but it looks fascinating and so detailed!!!
I can't think of any other metal (or even rock) band that could be analyzed so deeply. Our heroes have really invented a new rhythmic concept - we already knew it, but seeing such a deep and "serious" analysis confirms that this band is unique!
It seems there are no reference to Indian classical music in that paper, though. Having listened (and practiced) that music for the last years, I can assure you there are similarities with Mesh, polyrhythm-wise...:wonky:

Take care!

grandpascorpion

06-23-2009, 08:06 PM

Louison

07-15-2009, 04:00 PM

In what sense exactly? Tihai-type "resolutions" back to the downbeat, maybe?

Other things that are mainstays in classical Indian music, like patterns at different speeds (double, triple, etc) against the pulse I haven't heard in Meshuggah's music.

Yes, Tihai/Mora resolutions. Actually Indians do quite the opposite of Mesh: they don't start their polyrhythm on beat 1, and they end it in a very natural way on the next cycle's downbeat; While Mesh always starts on beat 1, and has to "cut" it in order to fit the 16/4.
Also the fact that a lot of these musics are in 16/4, with odd rhythms inside.

(I'm talking about the Chaosphere/Nothing style)

grandpascorpion

07-16-2009, 01:20 PM

So, what are the similiarities with Indian classical then?

Louison

07-18-2009, 04:48 PM

Well...
the fact that a lot of these musics are in 16/4, with odd rhythms inside.

It may seem nothing; but I haven't heard any other music making extensive use of complex polyrhythms.
I mean, Africans use the basic 3:4. Eastern Europe uses a lot of odd-times, but played without "hypermeasures" (minus some of Bartok's quartets;-)). South Americans may play bits of 5 and 7 in their samba ok. Middle East, Far East...no polyrhythms

I advise any Mesh lover to listen to indian percussionists. Northern play a lot of 4/4 (16/4 in fact:Teental), southern are insane, their meters are more complex.

Tsorovan

07-18-2009, 05:02 PM

Please point out these polyrhythms in Meshuggah's music.

grandpascorpion

07-18-2009, 05:37 PM

Yeah, I'm not really a hairsplitter on this point but it's more, um ... unorthodox syncopation due to polymetric subdivisions of the hypermeasure.

There I said it, bitches.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Louison,

I take it you aren't familiar with modern classical music (and the people inspired by them, like Zappa). Crazy polyrhythms abound there.

"Africans" do more than that.

South Americans do more than that (at least Peru does in their folk music).

There's a lot of odd times in Middle Eastern music (I mention this because you seem to be lumping odd times/complexity in with polyrhythms)

Indonesia (for one) has gamelan music.

Louison

07-24-2009, 05:53 PM

Please point out these polyrhythms in Meshuggah's music.

I can't say there's a Mesh polyrhythm that sounds exactly like Indian Classical, but I'm thinking of the ones with lots of 32nd notes, which is more Chaosphere than Nothing (ex: the middle riff of Concatenation, the outro of Sane...). That reminds me of fast tabla phrases.

I take it you aren't familiar with modern classical music (and the people inspired by them, like Zappa). Crazy polyrhythms abound there.

Yeah I know Zappa, I know Classical music, I studied Ligeti etc.... My point is Indian classical has quite the same approach as Mesh, which is a "groove" approach, a steady pulse + displacement of repeated small patterns (for example a fast tabla solo with a slow and steady sarangi behind).To me Mesh has almost nothing in common with Zappa or Reich or Nancarrow whatever....You can disagree with that, that's just an opinion. That's the way I feel these musics.

"Africans" do more than that.

Didn't know that. Could you detail it please ?
By the way, does "Africans" sound pejorative? If that's the case I'm really sorry (english is not my mother tongue...)

South Americans do more than that (at least Peru does in their folk music).

Again, I admit I didn't know that. I'd like to learn more about it.

Indonesia (for one) has gamelan music.

Yep I forgot that.

Anna Krusis

11-19-2009, 04:28 AM

Woah, never seen that article before. Vai sure was up on his music theory! Thanks for posting :D

BlueGrot

02-25-2010, 11:03 AM

It's a nice piece yeah~!

DancerToTheSystem

07-22-2010, 01:32 PM

So, to address Vai's idea...is there a computer program that could play his "Maniac" example?

Tsorovan

07-22-2010, 01:52 PM

I'm sure Jens Johansson's old Perl script could generate a MIDI of it.

sami

07-22-2010, 01:53 PM

No, I think he has it on microfiche.