Greetings nerds
I have started this thread with the purpose of sharing some take-or-leave knowledge for students and for teachers who want to share some of theirs.

I shall start by a simple introduction to some rhythm stuff. I will teach it as I learned it from an afroamerican percussionist and native drummer.


A Simple guide into odd and compound meters *

* Everything divisible with 3.

1. Think of a steady hi hat in, say, 120 bpm. The same sample just ticking ahead tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik: This is called a count.

2. Now, decide which meter you want to play in. 5/4? 6/4? Let´s say we choose 7/4. Make an accent on the hihat on 1 in every measure. TIK-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik. Now you have turned your count into a meter.

3. Now it is time to add a clave. In native african-cuban music a clave is the ground figure of a rhythm. It is called a clave because it is often marked by the high pitch of that instrument, but it need not to be, it could be any drum that is in charge of the clave or even a rhythm guitar or other instruments. Here we can do it by accents alone. Keep the accent on 1 and add another on 5 and 7. Now we have a ground figure TIK-tik-tik-tik-TIK-tik-TIK.

4. Now you can add more drumbeats. A bd could take 1 and 5, a tom 7 and 1 together with the bd. As long as the clave rules the rhythm, you can play with syncopes around it or place things directly on top of it as you like.

An example of the clave in question you can hear in this tune in 7/4. To the right the clave 1-5-7 is introduced by a native drum. Everything else is build around it or on top of it. You will hear the clave be supplied with a guitar that follows it precisely and eventually supporting strings.



5. To expand complexity and work with polyrhythms there are some simple basics to get one started. Let´s say we want to play a meter of 3 against a meter of 4. The numbers of beats needed for this is easily calculated, we simply need the nearest number that is divisible with both 3 and 4, and that is 12. So 12/4 would allow this division. This is called a cyclus. They share an accent on 1, but one plays in periods of 3, the other in 4. The same with more fancy stuff, e.g. 5 against 4 = cyclus of 20 beats needed. 2 against 3 against 5 = 30 beats and so forth.

6. Further complexity can arise with "mixed meters" where you combine different meters serially.

7. Even further complexity will arise if we work with polymeters and polytempo, but I will leave that for now,

Hope this makes sense and may be useful.

Kindly
Gothi

AN INTRODUKTION TO MODES - PIXIE VERSION

Ladies and gents. If there is something that can be completely messed up at various internet forums, it is what modes are. Therefore I am going to start a lesson series starting with the truth about them and their origin. So here is that for a starter. Hold on.

MODES
Once upon a time way back in history there was a man who invented the piano. There it stood right in front of him. He and others sat down every evening and glared at it for centuries, until one of them said “Hey, why don´t we try to play it?”. “GREAT IDEA!!!” said the others. However, the piano had both white and black keys, and the white ones looked more beautiful and were more easy to hit. So for many centuries to come musicians played all the white keys. However, one day someone came up with an even greater idea: “Why the frigging, flying, farting fck don´t we play the black keys too?”, he said. Then they began to play the black keys too, and everyone was happy. Now, for some unknown reason someone named music made with white keys “modal” and that with black keys too “tonal” as if the former is atonal. What a drunken idiot, especially because many thought music made with black keys too sounded like sht. We shall not call it that.

Conclusion of the day:

So basically; if you make music with the white keys only, you are making MODAL music. If you use the black keys too, you are making TON…no, I mean…I dunno…jazz or something. Who gives a fck anyway?


So now you know. If you understand any of it and want more, give me a request in this thread or I will keep it all a secret. And my name shall not be Gothi, but Honorable Teacher, so now you know how to address me.


Have a wonderful day
Honorable Teacher

Basically, modes:

Scales + common practise of how to use them = modes
A scale itself is just like an alphabet, you can write anything with it, but a mode is like a genre, there are recipes when using them, a form, a structure, habits, principles and restrictions, which reflects the musical styles of their time.

Church modes are the most well known and founded modes. And of course, the piano organisation arised from them and not the other way around.

Not all those arising on the piano are used frequently in Western music, e.g. Locrian has a diminished fifth and thus no working tonic. Yet you may hear some moves in techno, goa and industrial basses.

The phrygian mode, ditto, you need to go to spain, eastern europe or middle east to find its most frequent uses.

Aeolian and mixolydian are pretty nordic sounding, mainly because the seventh degree is major, which works perfectly as both a destination for modulation and as cadance VII-i or VII-I.

Lydian is called the film music mode.

Ionian and aeolian are our standard major and minor.

However, we have also practise attached to our use of scales today, e.g. raising the seventh degree of an aeolian or mixolydian scale to get a major dominant V-i or V-I at end points (cadences) and a lead tone from the dominant’s third to tonic of the mode. These are thus chromatic alterations of the original modes.

Kindly
Gothi

My appreciation for the details of music came through my study of counterpoint. I started with Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum. This lead me, about 10 years on, to getting a master's degree in music composition.

The info in Gradus ad Parnassum, written in 1725, is universal and still relevant.

Combine this with a knowledge of harmony, and you're on the way.

Hey classmate. Gradus and Knud Jeppesen’s Counterpoint here.

So it seems like @ Sharp11 has gone teacher about learning modes in a dedicated thread. Cool, then I can skip that and instead give some examples of how you can use modes in the context of older folk- and classical music (on an electronic ground in our case ).


1. Pure Phrygian with no modulation. The root note does not change apart from a brief cadence at end measures. Neither does the key nor scale.




2. Mode change on same root note. Phrygian - Mixolydian - Phrygian - Mixolydian. Modulations are kept within the modes. In mixolydian there is one chromatic alteration at end measures, raising the 7th degree, which allows a cadence with a major dominant in mixolydian (V-I) instead of the minor (v - I) given by the mode.




3. Mode change with modulation outside the mode (from tonic to sharp sixth). Aeolian - modulation- Phrygian - Aeolian- modulation - Aeolian (also meter shift from 6/8 to 4/4 and back again). I addition this tune is multi-modal because there are phrygian moves in the bass in the A part while the melodies are aeolian with same root note.


Kindly
Gothi

Nice Writing snd production, Gothi!

Double thanks, kind sir (deep bow)

Greetings scholars
If you like to get confused try google polyrhythm vs polymeter and you will be. It really should not, so I will give it a shot.

Let’s by example move from the use of polyrhythm to polymeter to clarify.

I ask a piano player perform a little tune where he has a bass line going in 3/4 in left hand and a 4/4 melody line above it in the right. I tell him that the 3/4 is the base of the rhythm and that he shall make an accent on 1 in his left hand to emphasize it. The melody line is played without accents. To avoid that he shall read two meters at the same time, I write the figure in 12/4, because it can be divided with both 3 and 4. We now a have a 4 against 3 polyrhythm with 3 as the dominant base rhythm, and 4 the counter rhythm, written in 12/4.

Next I decide that I’d rather give a basson the bass line and a violin the melody line. So I drop the 12/4 and let them play in each their meter, 3/4 and 4/4. Now the tune is written in polymeter.

However, sonically the rhythm is still the same unless I do one final thing, namely tell the basson to drop the accents, so there is no longer a dominant base rhythm, but equality between the meters. They run the same time with none demanding more space than the other. Now it sonically makes sense to call it polymeter.

Lesson over

Kindly

As a pianist/keyboardist, I'd like to chime in on this...

Whether we're talking about polyrhythm or melodic polyphony (or both), it's crucial to conceptualize them as integrated rather than independent. It's more about interdependence than independence. Listening to a great pianist perform a Bach fugue can seem dizzying and overwhelming, like the player is splitting the brain into three different parts, but I promise the pianist isn't feeling it like that. They'll be hearing and feeling things as interconnected and integrated, all serving one cohesive concept.

I'm a terrible drumset player but the best drummers I know think similarly. The most intense polyrhythmic groove sound and feel like one big beautiful interconnected musical concept, and that's how the drummer is feeling it as well, guaranteed.

@ Gothi my friend. I remember that this was the discussion we had when we first met a few years ago!! Brings back memories!

I'll chime in with the best way I can by showing the difference by using simple music notation. Hope this will most easily exemplify the difference.

This may make it even easier to understand:

We have to remember that a true polymeter has no base. In polyrhythm there is usually a base rhythm and counter rhythm. Thus in a 3 against 4, one of the them would be the base. However, if none of them are marked as the base, your brain will try to pick a base and should be able to freely shift between the feelings of either 3 or 4 or end in a state where the flow is constantly ambiguous. A minimal definition of polymeter would just be writing something in different meters, but that is notation only. One of them could still be the base unless you eliminate it as such to equalize the meters and open them to different interpretations by your brain, e.g. a Piano player´s personal way of conceiving them integrated.

Let me give an example of how polyrhythm and polymeter analytically can make sense.

This tune opens up in 6/4 with the guitar and drums. However, there are toms making a 4 against 6 counter rhythm to that. Soon these are followed by a cello slightly to the right. That cello is not playing in 6, but 4. Notation wise, I could write the 4 within the 6 and stick to 6/4 or I can simply write it out in 4/4 because I want the cellist to stick to that feeling and not accidentally fall into the 6. So in isolation the relation between the guitar and cello is polymetric.

When the horns are introduced a second time, you will hear some strings to the left. These are playing a polyrhythm within the 6, namely 2 against 3. So these strings take both meters and should be notated in 6/4 to make things easy. The guitar takes the 6 only, and the cello the 4 only.

However, speaking of integration, the polyrhythms of this tune are mainly to subtly color the 6, not to change the base feeling, so all in all we end up with a polyrhythm with 6 as as base and not polymeter, sonicially speaking.



Kindly
Gothi

Great song like always my friend!!

Yes, I agree most with your final statement. The song has a strong 6/4 base, with a strong 4 against the 6 in the bass drum and other low percussion. This percussion is playing polyrhythmically against the 6/4 time signature.

A 4 against 6 polyrhythm is pretty easy to establish though. Just look at it as 12/8 and the "6" part would be playing 2 tied eighth notes and the "4" part would be 3 tied eight notes. Or even easier 6/4 time with quarter notes playing the "6" part and the "4" part designated as dotted quarter notes.

I don't really hear any polymeter element in this piece however. If I did it would need to be something outside the 6/4 main meter that would come around and repeat itself after many measures of the 6/4. I don't hear any instrument part doing that sort of thing. If there was some other instrument playing let's say a five quarter note melody pattern, it would repeat itself 6 times after 30 quarter notes or 5 measures of the 6/4 time. This would be something polymetric in the piece if it was there.

That would not be the definition I have learned and would not make sense to the logic, I am afraid. You got a simple 4 against 6 polyrhythm here with the guitar taking the 6 and the cello the 4. Their cyclus is 6 x 4 = 24 beats before they meet again. If you had a 5 against 3 against 7, they would meet later, but that is not relevant to the definition how long the cyclus is. The 4 can be noted within the 6 meter or it can be notated on its own in which case you get polymeter notation wise by simple definition, namely poly and meter. You can notate and instruct in different meters if wanted. However, if you aim for a true equal and ambiguous feeling between the two meters, you would have to eliminate the base as such.

It is a simple, logical and usable approach and the reason I do not trust the internet on this. It is theoretically seen a fact that if you heard the guitar and cello in isolation, you´d hear two different meters interacting, 6 and 4, no matter how long their cyclus is.

Kindly
Gothi

Yes I can easily hear the guitar playing the quarter notes in the 6/4 measure. I can also faintly hear the cello play the dotted quarter note figures (along with the deep toms) in the 6/4 measure.

Yes, you could write the guitar part in 6/4 and the cello/ drum part in 4/4. But I have never seen it done this way before in my entire life. As a drummer, if I was to be given sheet music for this song, it would be presented in 6/4 with the low toms and bass drum rhythm notated in dotted quarter notes.

Although, like you said, it could be presented to the guitar in 6/4 and the cello/drums in 4/4. However, it would be a nightmare for a conductor to direct and the musicians to follow as the conductor would have to direct in 6 with one hand against 4 with the other!!

Yes, that is the bane of notation in general, what is the best way to present it to the performer. However given I really wanted two or more feelings to be equal and ambiguous I would certainly choose polymeter notation.
Problem with writing e.g. a 4 against 3 in 12/4 is that it hints that the feeling is 12, which is not the case if equalized. Thus in polyrhythms one should be aware what the base feeling is. If 4, it may be better to choose 4/4 as base and notate the above in triplets instead of straight 12/4.

Yes of course. It could be notated that way also. But this piece has such a strong "6" pulse to it, I would notate it in 6/4 and have the "4" pulse - toms/bass - notated as dotted quarter notes.

I believe we came to the same conclusion the last time we discussed this in that it was based on how we were taught to understand such things. Your teaching was based on understanding the rhythm of the individual parts independently, while I was taught how to identify different rhythms within the context of the whole.

The main thing is that we know what we are doing, and it sounds really cool when we do it!!

Me too. And it is in the sequencer. It was just for illustration of principles. Any four is here taken into the six as dotted notes. Six rules too hard to take it further than that, but is a a polyrhythm nonetheless, tho a subtle one..

Yep, 6 against 4 or 3 against 2 is pretty simple to deal with. Dotted notes can make things work pretty easily. It's when you get into 5, 7 ,11 against 4 that things start to get a bit more interesting and a lot harder to notate!!

“Poly rhythm” is a valid term, but “Poly meter” must be a new term, we always simply called it “rhythmic displacement” - which seems more accurate to me.

Don´t know how new, but It is obviously infused with more confusion than poly rhythms on the net. I think I have heard one piece where the term made good sense. A piece without drums, where melodies looped in different meters ran a cyclus together. Thus the loops were that which hinted their meter, not any drums. They ran displaced rhythms until their cyclus ended and started all over. The variations in harmonies created were very interesting, how these shorter loops would create different complexities by displacement alone during their cyclus.

In case you haven't ever seen any of the great drummer Ari Hoenig's classes on this stuff, they're really excellent. His concept of metric "sleight-of-hand" is great. He emphasizes this point for sure: there will always be one "real" meter happening, and everything happening over it is an illusory meter. Gives the impression that there are two meters happening simultaneously, but one is certainly the reference point to which the others are playing around.

Here's a clip I found after a cursory search. Ari's the man!

Here is a really good explanation with a lot of real-world musical examples on how polymeter works. Polymeter is a real thing and is used quite often. It's just that most people don't realize that it is being done! Polymeter is also a lot easier to do compared to Polyrhythm.

If we’re talking drummers as well, I cannot recommend Gavin Harrison highly enough: he does all kinds of crazy stuff with polymeter and displacement, and it is so musical!

Well, glad this topic made this sleepy forum come alive for a while. I am trying to find the software vs hardware debates of music theory to get something going, any suggestions?

I'm happy to talk about the various modes of melodic minor and their utility over altered dominant chords all day, but somehow I don't think that'll be appealing to people who would rather compare Neve clones all day...



But I also don't think there's anything wrong with having a relatively sleepy little corner of GS that's inhabited by civil and smart people who can help with questions about the creative side of music! There are plenty of places where people can discuss hertz and sample rates, I'm glad there's a place where folks can ask questions about melodies, harmonies, and rhythms if they want to.

Oh, you would be so welcome. Ascending or descending melodic minor, I am here to nerd with you.

Hi fellow students

We can all have this urge to write long posts about gear we love regardless of what others may think of it. Likewise with theory for my concern. That is the way I feel about counterpoint, species counterpoint in particular, as I have learned it from Gradus Ad Parnassum by J.J. Fux,(1725), which both Mozart and Haydn are raised with. It also known that Lorenz C. Mizler´s translation of the latin edition of it was the only surviving theory book from J.S. Bach's personal library.

Renaissance Polyphony
Well, before going further, I will have to make a little prelude to set the theoretical context. Though Fux published his work late into the Baroque era of classical music, his aim was to understand music from the view of renaissance polyphony in particular. His “idol” was Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594), and Gradus is written like a dialogue between a teacher, Aloysius, and a student, Josephus, who wants to learn counterpoint. These represent Palestrina as teacher and himself as student. His aim was educational, namely to establish a basic system, from which students could learn composition easily. At Fux´ time, educational textbooks in music were sparse. Like so much other craftmanship the oral tradition and local practise were the ways you would learn the deed. Gradus is known as one of the first educational books in composition and set the standard for many books to come.

Species versus Chords
One important thing to understand about taking the renaissance polyphonic approach to music is that at Fux´time, there was not this massive knowledge of chords and harmony progression we have today. Today the standard formula of music is a melody with harmony and rhythm. Thus we are trained to think in chords, chord extensions, functional harmony analysis (e.g. tonic, subdominant, dominant) and more. This is NOT how you would understand music in terms of counterpoint. In species counterpoint, every voice is considered an individual melody. What we understand as chords would be translated into “first species counterpoint”, namely when different voices fall exactly on the same rhythm. Also called Note-against-note. A chord on a guitar would be 6 strings in note-against-note relations. Next species is two notes against one, e.g. a horn holding a note a measure, while a flute above it makes two notes of half a measure each. Explaining the species further will have to wait, for we would easily be lost in the details, and I am not finish making my prelude.

Vertical versus Horizontal approaches
Thing is that while we may understand harmonies or chords “vertically”(e.g. on a sheet), species counterpoint aims to understand music “horizontally”, as individual musical lines in different types of movements, which entangle with each other and create harmonies from "below" in contrast to chords blocks from "above" by a chord instrument. Basically this is still the way that classical music understands itself for a big part, not only as knowledge of harmonies, but basically the merging of many individual melodic themes into a whole.

A powerful example
I may return with further technical details in another lessen, but for now the most important thing is to understand the basic principle. To this end, listen to these works of Palestrina. Note the interaction between voices: Sometimes they meet in harmonies and cadences, other times they break free and establish many individual melody lines, imitate and support each other in the most wonderful harmonic constellations. To me, he really hits something sacred and powerful with these polyphonic techniques. Mesmerizing.



My own music is likewise based on polyphony much more than chordal harmony, though it is there too in subtle amounts. Well, I am actually glad it is, for I have a much better overview over the basics of counterpoint than chord theory, in which I am trained , but is insane to me now a days with all kind of chord extensions and possible scales. That I learned from lessons in Jazz harmony in which the chromatic options soon went way above my head. Give me 7 modes and species counterpoint, and I am safe. I really like jazz too, but theoretically it makes me panic.

Kindly Gothi