grasping the rhythm wrong

[Hedon]

does it ever occur to you (mostly prog/jazz drummers i guess) that you try to play something complicated and u need to fix in your mind where exactly the 1 is?
i have never seen anyone talk about this, and i dont even know if this "issue" has a name, but i stumble upon it ALOT when i play on odd sig riffs. (and syncopated 4/4 6/8 stuff too)
when i try to keep a constant 4/4 hi-hat over an 15/8 riff for example, i must work on hearing the 2nd half of the riff different in my head, it really is a whole new riff (because you accent the off beat). same thing, when you play a normal riff but want to play it on 3/4 polyrhythm feel, you need to learn to "hear" it differently. i guess its just something you get better at with practice.
im just curious how no one ever talks about it, when i find it such an obvious aspect in my drumming - the ability to rhythmically hear phrases the way i need

i guess this would be a good example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCICcbNM6AY
you have 5 times 11/8 and a bar of 9/8 to close 4/4 cycle (64). of course, every 2nd 11/8 (and the 9/8) bar is played off beat and you really need to know how to hear the riff that other "way" in order to play it.
not really a technical thing but more mental,rhythmic or something
thoughts?

[Pollyanna]

Originally Posted by Hedon

when i try to keep a constant 4/4 hi-hat over an 15/8 riff for example, i must work on hearing the 2nd half of the riff different in my head, it really is a whole new riff (because you accent the off beat). same thing, when you play a normal riff but want to play it on 3/4 polyrhythm feel, you need to learn to "hear" it differently. i guess its just something you get better at with practice.

I bet you have to work at it, since at each turnaround your hats are on the upbeat, as you say. Maybe check out Bongo John's tablature system (do a site search for Bongo John) which makes polyrhythms easier to get your head around. The idea, as I understand it, is to change the way you think about a polyrhythm - from two discrete rhythms to a single, combined polyrhythm with its own character.

It's all too hard for me and I spend my drumming life playing 4/4s and 6/8s, but I see the principle behind it.

[VedranS]

Polly's got the right idea. If you haven't, look into Gavin Harrison's polyrhythmic concepts. He has a way of de-jargonizing and also some great ideas, so that even my math-challenged mind can get it.

The way I do it, is that if I'm playing a 3 or 5 over a 4, I'm hearing the polyrhythm as a syncopation of the 4 time. Say I'm playing the 5, but my head is still in 4 where I've spent enough time just doing it over and over to where I hear the syncopated phrase created by the superimposed time signature. It is possible for me to switch my internal perception to feeling the other meter, but not both at the same time. Then, if Im now thinking in 5 or whatever, I have to have practiced getting the sound of the syncopation that the 4 creates over the 5. I practice playing a polyrhythm and switching my internal counting back and forth between the two meters.

That's also the way I learned to play quarter notes over an 8th note based odd time. You simply practice having the "ride beat" be on the offbeat every other measure. Maybe it's just me, but like any other practice it came from doing it by rote over and over until I drilled the sound into my head. Just the practice is in the head, not the hands.

[DrumEatDrum]

The thing with odd times is they're odd and it's not easy to count them like 4/4.

If it's a medium tempo 5/4 or 7/4, sure, you can count it.

But a fast 11/8, forget it.

It's easier to break it down into small groups of 2's and 3s and feel the groupings.

I've read plenty of interviews with drummers who do a lot of odd times, and many of them say they don't count it out, they sing the melody in their head, or just feel their way through it.

So, whatever works for you.

[Boomka]

Originally Posted by DrumEatDrum

The thing with odd times is they're odd and it's not easy to count them like 4/4.

If it's a medium tempo 5/4 or 7/4, sure, you can count it.

But a fast 11/8, forget it.

It's easier to break it down into small groups of 2's and 3s and feel the groupings.

I've read plenty of interviews with drummers who do a lot of odd times, and many of them say they don't count it out, they sing the melody in their head, or just feel their way through it.

So, whatever works for you.

This is right on point: it's not about the math! In cultures where odd-time or "asymmetrical" time signatures are the norm, they aren't doing sums in their heads. Rather, they have memorised and internalised the sound and feel of the songs they're playing. The key is repetition and memorising the song/melody/harmony/form.

That said, I find that learning difficult permutations can be aided by writing it out. Write out the groove in 15/8 and put your HH in "4" in as well, then simply let your eyes guide you through rather than trying to do rocket science while you're playing. And/or take a sequencer or drum machine and program the complete groove in so you can hear the finished product and imitate. Anything at all to have you relying on your ears and eyes rather than trying to count it all out in your head.

[JPW]

Originally Posted by Boomka

This is right on point: it's not about the math! In cultures where odd-time or "asymmetrical" time signatures are the norm, they aren't doing sums in their heads. Rather, they have memorised and internalised the sound and feel of the songs they're playing. The key is repetition and memorising the song/melody/harmony/form.

That said, I find that learning difficult permutations can be aided by writing it out. Write out the groove in 15/8 and put your HH in "4" in as well, then simply let your eyes guide you through rather than trying to do rocket science while you're playing. And/or take a sequencer or drum machine and program the complete groove in so you can hear the finished product and imitate. Anything at all to have you relying on your ears and eyes rather than trying to count it all out in your head.

Yeah, I work on a lot of polyrythms and odd groupings and the way I'm able to throw them in an impro context is to just feel them. First you need to use some sort of counting or singing system to tell your brain what you should play, then you practice it to a point where you just feel it as a series of groupings. It's the exact same thing as with rudiments. You don't think separate letters in language, you are thinking about words or series of words and especially their meaning. But I remember I did many repetitions of letter "A" in pre-school years. =) And now I can almost say "ab". ;)

Once you get the feel of some odd grouping you can start to leave notes out of it to make things more interesting.

[Boomka]

Originally Posted by JPW

Yeah, I work on a lot of polyrythms and odd groupings and the way I'm able to throw them in an impro context is to just feel them. First you need to use some sort of counting or singing system to tell your brain what you should play, then you practice it to a point where you just feel it as a series of groupings. It's the exact same thing as with rudiments. You don't think separate letters in language, you are thinking about words or series of words and especially their meaning. But I remember I did many repetitions of letter "A" in pre-school years. =) And now I can almost say "ab". ;)

Once you get the feel of some odd grouping you can start to leave notes out of it to make things more interesting.

That's another good point. I tell my students all the time: vocalise, vocalise, VOCALISE! We are capable of incredibly complex rhythmic recognition, repetition and improvisation with speech. It's perhaps the best way I've used to learn and memorise difficult musical passages. Of course, often in conjunction with listening and visualising/writing.

Our sense of rhythm and meter is tied in with our speech. Onomatopoeia is how I've learned many polythythms. "What atrocious weather" helps me hear a 4:3 polyrhythm.

[DrumEatDrum]

Originally Posted by Boomka

This is right on point: it's not about the math! In cultures where odd-time or "asymmetrical" time signatures are the norm, they aren't doing sums in their heads. Rather, they have memorised and internalised the sound and feel of the songs they're playing. The key is repetition and memorising the song/melody/harmony/form.

That said, I find that learning difficult permutations can be aided by writing it out. Write out the groove in 15/8 and put your HH in "4" in as well, then simply let your eyes guide you through rather than trying to do rocket science while you're playing. And/or take a sequencer or drum machine and program the complete groove in so you can hear the finished product and imitate. Anything at all to have you relying on your ears and eyes rather than trying to count it all out in your head.

Reminds me of many years ago when I was in a prog band. The guitar player would play all these crazy parts, and I learned all the songs well enough.

Then we decided we should have a click track going for when we recorded the songs.

It took me weeks to map out all the time signature changes and program them all into my Alesis HR-16 drum machine. I had internalized all they rhythms, I had all the 2's and 3's broken down, I knew where all the "1's" were, but it had been too complex to have actually counted out before.

I remember being floored when I finally broke down one section to discover it was 23/16.
Obviously, that can not be counted while playing, but I had been getting through it because I knew the patterns of how many 2's and 3's went by until "1".

Ah, those were good times.

[Fiery]

Originally Posted by VedranS

Polly's got the right idea. If you haven't, look into Gavin Harrison's polyrhythmic concepts. He has a way of de-jargonizing and also some great ideas, so that even my math-challenged mind can get it.

The way I do it, is that if I'm playing a 3 or 5 over a 4, I'm hearing the polyrhythm as a syncopation of the 4 time. Say I'm playing the 5, but my head is still in 4 where I've spent enough time just doing it over and over to where I hear the syncopated phrase created by the superimposed time signature. It is possible for me to switch my internal perception to feeling the other meter, but not both at the same time. Then, if Im now thinking in 5 or whatever, I have to have practiced getting the sound of the syncopation that the 4 creates over the 5. I practice playing a polyrhythm and switching my internal counting back and forth between the two meters.

That's also the way I learned to play quarter notes over an 8th note based odd time. You simply practice having the "ride beat" be on the offbeat every other measure. Maybe it's just me, but like any other practice it came from doing it by rote over and over until I drilled the sound into my head. Just the practice is in the head, not the hands.

I use a similar approach when learning Meshuggah-type polyrhythmic unison riffs.
I take the whole big figure and split it into a number of one or two bar 4/4 phrases which I then learn separately. Once I've got all of them down, it usually doesn't take too long to learn to play them in a sequence.

[Toza]

Originally Posted by Pollyanna

I bet you have to work at it, since at each turnaround your hats are on the upbeat, as you say. Maybe check out Bongo John's tablature system (do a site search for Bongo John) which makes polyrhythms easier to get your head around. The idea, as I understand it, is to change the way you think about a polyrhythm - from two discrete rhythms to a single, combined polyrhythm with its own character.

It's all too hard for me and I spend my drumming life playing 4/4s and 6/8s, but I see the principle behind it.

thanx ,

[ccsimms]

ya this is really an independence thing. im much like you, i have to either hear wat the "new" rhythm sounds like against the pulse or even better, use sheet music. it must take many years for people to be able to gain that independene to play polymetric sequences without really having to write it out or anything but just simply keep it constant against the pulse. but then again, there comes a point where simply practicing the independence would make it easier than seeing it on sheet music. like say we have a 5/16 phrasing of five sixteenth note quintuplets and a sixteenth note that were to be played against 5/4. theoretically its resolution isnt to tricky because it resolves on the downbeat after being repeated four times, however; transposed in terms of 5/4 would start to really overcomplicate things. at that point it would just be easier to struggle with the independence than with the sheet music.