Yin yang thing

Re: YIN YANG THING!!

Nice!

On the Van Halen album "Balance" there is one "song" that is nothing but Eddie Van Halen drunk, dropping things on the inside of his piano. Although I'm not really sure why they included that on an otherwise awesome album. hahaha

I expect for the usual reason - it seemed like fun at the time :)

Then there's Crimson's Thela Hun Ginjeet where Bob Fripp covertly recorded Adrian B babbling nervously when he returned to the studio after a close call with muggers on the street.

One-off accidental elements of music are like photos of an unaware / unselfconscious subjects - often it will be nonsensical but when it's good the sincerity makes it great. Hence WC Field's famous line, "Never work with animals or children" ... apart from being messy and chaotic, they also tend to steal the show.
 
Re: YIN YANG THING!!

Then there's Crimson's Thela Hun Ginjeet where Bob Fripp covertly recorded Adrian B babbling nervously when he returned to the studio after a close call with muggers on the street.
I always wondered about that. He sounded authentic and maniacal. There was something weird about it. He was relating a story and that's what it was, but I had no idea that that was the story behind it. Cool.
 
Re: YIN YANG THING!!

Nice bit of resourcefulness, DED.
Did you ever hear Adrian Belew's album, Lone Rhino? The closer, The Final Rhino, consisted of some lucky piano doodling by his 4 year-old daughter (while he held the sustain pedal down). He recorded swell guitar over the top to tie it together and - voila! - instant composition.

I think the album was called SEXY RHINO, Pol,
 
Re: YIN YANG THING!!

Abe, Sexy Rhino was one of the songs but the album was Lone Rhino. It was one of the 500+ records I had in the Paleozoic Era. Whatever, the album was full of rhinos :)

My correction stands corrected..yes, lots of prehensile whammy bar grunts and snorts, if I remember correctly. Very rhino.
 
A melody consisting of multiple notes at the same pitch is still a melody though, no?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY-FG-hj7zU

Haha, kinda like that.

I don't see melody and rhythm as yin and yang.

Melody cannot exist without rhythm, but rhythm can exist without a comprehensible melody.

...I don't consider a single stroke roll on a snare drum a melody for example.

Don't see melody as a musical element on its own, it is a combination of rhythm and pitch for each note.

Rhythm (syncopation, swinging, phrasing, metre, and what not)
Pitch
Timbre (character of sound)
Dynamics

Those are the fundamental elements of music.

Without rhythm there is no note produced in the first place, each note has a happening and a duration, applies to percussion aswell.
 
Re: YIN YANG THING!!

My correction stands corrected..yes, lots of prehensile whammy bar grunts and snorts, if I remember correctly. Very rhino.

Yup, Adrian goes crazy to extract whatever sound he's shooting for. Especially the title track - a rather nice confluence of conservationism and an excuse to make animal sounds.

BD, there is still an element of melody when you play a single stroke on a snare drum, despite a strong element of noise (no idea if it's white or pink noise - or purple for that matter). After all, if you hit a rimshot, it's a higher pitched note.

Melody certainly can exist without comprehensible rhythm (the qualifier you used). Think Tangerine Dream or Stomu Yamashta or Frippertronics or John Cage.
 
Agree with Polly,BD. Chk out some Tuvan throat singing, Tibetan Chants, or even some ancient Gregorian hymns which are pretty much pure drones with no perceptible breaks in them.

Pol, looks like we were checking out ol Stomu's album at the same time. Crossing the line was my favorite. Winwood sang it, right?
 
Agree with Polly,BD. Chk out some Tuvan throat singing, Tibetan Chants, or even some ancient Gregorian hymns which are pretty much pure drones with no perceptible breaks in them.

Pol, looks like we were checking out ol Stomu's album at the same time. Crossing the line was my favorite. Winwood sang it, right?

Go was a great album, wasn't it? Crossing the Line was my fave too - gorgeous vocal (yes, it was SW) and that beautifully building solo by, I think, Pat Thrall. Michael Shrieve was great throughout.

Loved the space music too ... close your eyes and drift away ... SY and Eno were huge influences on me when I was playing with sequencers in the 80s.
 
Re: YIN YANG THING!!

Did you ever notice that your username is kind of connected to mine - parrot ... Polly? And we both draw cartoons. Serendipity perhaps? Is there a reason? Sorry, I'm being silly again :)

No coincidence. We're separated at birth.
 
And that doesn't even account for the drumming...!
 
Thing is, melody and rhythm can be teased apart. See attached:

1. A well-known melody played normally

2. Same melody, different placement of notes to create a completely different song

3. Same melody again, played arrhythmically.
 

Attachments

  • smoke-normal rhythm.mp3
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  • smoke-Rhythmic transformation.mp3
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  • smoke- No rhythm.mp3
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haha, oh yeah ... forgot about that. How's your memory, Al?

Frightening. I can memorize huge lists of info, and I still remember how to play songs I learned in high school back in the 80's. I know most of the actors in every movie and TV series I've ever watched, know what year all of Rush's studio albums were released, and still have some left over to memorize all the vital stats of the 20-someodd people who work with me. Why... how's yours ;)
 
Frightening. I can memorize huge lists of info, and I still remember how to play songs I learned in high school back in the 80's. I know most of the actors in every movie and TV series I've ever watched, know what year all of Rush's studio albums were released, and still have some left over to memorize all the vital stats of the 20-someodd people who work with me. Why... how's yours ;)

What was the question again??

The other day I was cleaning up my SMSs and found a reminder to attend an optometrist appointment on the 1st of March. I can't even blame the good times (not that they would have helped) because when I was little Mum used to tell me I was like the absent-minded professor. Ah, the joys of ADHD.

Maybe we're not conjoined twins after all?

Is everyone talked out on melody and rhythm?
 
Possibly yes. Nobody wants to intrude on this magic moment of reunion.

In the meantime, I used our conversation to make a comic book character.
http://gbk-sayonara.thecomicseries.com/blog/

Here's the bottom line: melody and rhythm are so intertwined, only the very fringes of music will try to use the one without the other.
 
In the meantime, I used our conversation to make a comic book character. http://gbk-sayonara.thecomicseries.com/blog/

Gee, you draw well, Al. You also appear to have a sick mind - another likeness!

melody and rhythm are so intertwined, only the very fringes of music will try to use the one without the other.

Really well put. They aren't necessarily codependent but they usually are. Kind of like women and men, really, so in that sense the Yin/Yang idea still holds.
 
Thanks, Grea. Back to the point: Sure we can separate melody and rhythm in theory, but in practice, why would we want to?

There's method and metamusical ability that makes the idea tempting, but really, who will that appeal to? The fringe .002% of music theory majors?

Let's make people move, and dance, and react emotionally... like *I* started out making music to do, anyways!
 
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