Visualizing rhythm as a wheel

Just an abstract way of looking at different rhythmic patterns and how they can be layered and modified. Sometimes it's helpful to look at something that is familiar from a different perspective. Can be good for creativity. Just one way of many...

I enjoy the visualization of music. When I close my eyes while listening to music I see gears and belts, colors, patterns, and architecture in my mind's eye. It's a creative tool.

I also think when you look at the concept of groove you have to acknowledge that repeating patterns are what create a groove and feel. You can have all kinds of variation within the layered patterns, but there has to be some amount of repetition to give the feeling of a continuous groove. Early humans used repeating rhythms and chants to induce trance states, or to work more efficiently at repetitive tasks.

But we all want to break out of circles in order to evolve. And good songs have elements of establishing patterns and then introducing some amount of surprise.

Maybe it's not so much the visualization tool that bothers you, but the presentation of it as a new philosophy for music...
 
Interesting. Perhaps even-Elemental my dear Watson-comes to mind. You could play the periodic chart of elements using their electron orbitals. Wow Sodium looks like a catchy tune. Plutonium must be a metal song??

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GetAgrippa said:
Plutonium must be a metal song?
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Maybe. Maybe not.

The upper right goes 2, 8, 18, 32, 24, 8, 2.

The biggest value is 32. So 32nd note hats.

Eight (8) is 1/4 of 32, so kick.

Two (2) is 1/4 of 8, so snare.

Farm the other numbers out to percussion sounds.

Now Pu sounds like a pop song.
 
C. Dave Run said:
Maybe. Maybe not.

The upper right goes 2, 8, 18, 32, 24, 8, 2.

The biggest value is 32. So 32nd note hats.

Eight (8) is 1/4 of 32, so kick.

Two (2) is 1/4 of 8, so snare.

Farm the other numbers out to percussion sounds.

Now Pu sounds like a pop song.
Click to expand...

and "PU" is what I say about most pop songs....
 
JimmyM said:
I don’t get that at all. What’s the point, and how is that communicating what’s being played? Music is written linear because it’s linear, not circular. If it was circular, then it would be just one repeating figure the whole way through a song. I guess if you’re a complete newb, it could be useful as a demonstration of a repeating motif, but it’s only useful for so long, and then what?

Sometimes these Ted folks think a little too hard ;)
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JimmyM said:
Not every song is repetitive on bass. And how could the circle tell you what notes to play even when you’re playing a repetitive line?


Maybe so. I just find notation a much better way to do it, and it doesn’t require animation to understand it ;)
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I just watched this video, and to me it's clear that the dots on the concentric circles are only meant to represent the rhythm, not the actual notes being played. It's not going to tell you what key it's in, it's not going to tell you what individual notes to play, etc., so it's not meant to replace conventional music notation. It's simply a unique way of visualizing the repetitive rhythms associated with most forms of music.

And even though the individual notes in a song may change from measure to measure, for the most part the rhythm remains constant—at least through any particular part of the song (verse, chorus, bridge, etc.). Which is why the circular motion makes sense, since you're only considering the repeating rhythms.

Hopefully that clears it up for you. Personally, I found that video to be pretty interesting. I don't think it will have an affect on how I approach playing, but I found it interesting nonetheless.
 
TK-421 said:
I just watched this video, and to me it's clear that the dots on the concentric circles are only meant to represent the rhythm, not the actual notes being played. It's not going to tell you what key it's in, it's not going to tell you what individual notes to play, etc., so it's not meant to replace conventional music notation. It's simply a unique way of visualizing the repetitive rhythms associated with most forms of music.

And even though the individual notes in a song may change from measure to measure, for the most part the rhythm remains constant—at least through any particular part of the song (verse, chorus, bridge, etc.). Which is why the circular motion makes sense, since you're only considering the repeating rhythms.

Hopefully that clears it up for you. Personally, I found that video to be pretty interesting. I don't think it will have an affect on how I approach playing, but I found it interesting nonetheless.
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Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.
 
This is how I see music. It's to 1 dimensional-it needs to fit on a Möbius strip-just add the dots and follow the crab. Fiddler_crab_mobius_strip.gif
 
Alain Rieder said:
It is an interesting way to look at polyrhythms.

Amazon.com

www.amazon.com
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I think it’s a great book, although I have only read a few pages yet.
It’s been recommended by my cardiologist, who is interested in rhythm and knows more on the subject than many drummers 😝

“The Geometry of Musical Rhythm: What Makes a "Good" Rhythm Good? is the first book to provide a systematic and accessible computational geometric analysis of the musical rhythms of the world. It explains how the study of the mathematical properties of musical rhythm generates common mathematical problems that arise in a variety of seemingly disparate fields. For the music community, the book also introduces the distance approach to phylogenetic analysis and illustrates its application to the study of musical rhythm. Accessible to both academics and musicians, the text requires a minimal set of prerequisites.¨
 
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