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Exploring the World of Music: Rhythm — Transcript

by Walter Brath · 2,409 words · 372 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00[Music]
0:06Annenberg media music and time are
0:25inextricably linked in fact one of the
0:32primary aspects of music is that it
0:34divides time into patterns of sound and
0:37silence this division is what is known
0:42as rhythm rhythm is rhythm is rhythm but
0:50in each part of the world they have a
0:52way it will stay here and express rhythm
0:56dancing singing walking praying rhythm
1:01is the way we do it
1:07[Music]
1:35rhythm is the temporal organization of
1:38music
1:38it's how music is organized in time it
1:45divides time into an organized series of
1:49moments periods durations without rhythm
1:55we wouldn't know how to perform the
1:57series of times rhythm you can consider
2:02fluctuations or pulsations in time but
2:08forgetting the whole technical thing
2:10rhythm is feeling in its motion and
2:14rhythm hits you at your core at your
2:17physical core rhythm is probably the
2:20most physical element of music for much
2:27of the world's music the foundation of
2:29rhythm is a steady reoccurring pattern
2:31or pulse pulse in music often evokes a
2:37physical response moving us to dance
2:39march sway or tap our feet
2:49pulse is the regular occurrence of
2:51rhythm in time it um ffice eyes one
2:56after another
3:00undivided in many instances we want to
3:04organize that pulse in western music
3:07we'll use an accent on every - for
3:10example if you watch a marching band
3:21you'll probably see a lot of duple time
3:25or time divided by twos or fours if you
3:28watch the way they move the way they
3:29step it's often divided
3:34[Music]
3:44if you watch somebody dancing to a waltz
3:47for example you'll see the emphasis of
3:49their bodies moving on the first beat of
3:51every three one two three one two three
3:54and the choreography or the movement
3:57corresponds to that emphasis in time
4:02[Music]
4:10pulse is also something that people
4:12perceive as an audience not just the
4:15musicians using accents to organize time
4:18but when you listen to music you feel
4:19music and start to dance so you start to
4:22move you can see it in a large crowd of
4:24people at a concert and everybody seems
4:26to be moving together
4:31the rhythm also is sort of a glue that
4:34holds the band together it keeps
4:36everybody playing in time as they say
4:38and it keeps everybody thinking about
4:41the music the same the beginning of the
4:44melody is here you know the beginning of
4:46the song is here and the end is here and
4:48the the rhythm and the organization of
4:51it through the use of accents provides
4:54all of that framework
5:05you
5:12while the rhythmic framework for much of
5:14western music is based on groups of two
5:16three and four beats other cultures may
5:19use larger units in the classical music
5:23of North India for example rhythm is
5:25organized into structures of up to a
5:26hundred and eight beats the most common
5:29being a 16 beat cycle called teen tau
5:33[Music]
5:39in Indian classical music rhythm is
5:42organized into tall or taller this is
5:46the name Tala is a rhythmic cycle in
5:51other words if you think of you
5:53visualize and think of a rhythm in the
5:57West you may think of a time signature
5:59and some bars but for Indian music
6:02you must envision a circle it's a cycle
6:06or a circle and we start at one part and
6:10we go around and we always come back to
6:14that same part the first beat of the
6:18cycle is called the sum and it's the
6:21most important beat
6:22[Music]
6:26when we improvise we start from the sum
6:31and we go out in our improvisation and
6:34come back to the Sun
6:37[Music]
6:45when I go on my individual rounds of
6:48improvisation I have to keep count and
6:52land back in an interesting manner so
6:56that that particular note on my main
7:00theme lands back on the first beat of
7:03the cycle if it does not that is a very
7:08distributed state of affairs
7:11[Music]
7:29basic beat is called the take-up in any
7:31tall team tall tayka it has 16 beats 1 2
7:373 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
7:53[Music]
8:03roll up table player in north to do
8:06classical music is basically an
8:09accompanying us bro we are not
8:13considered the main artists that would
8:15be the singer or instrumentalists unless
8:19we are in a situation of playing a table
8:21solo otherwise or a supportive
8:24instrument we provide the rhythmic
8:26structure and we should provide some
8:29sort of artistic support rather than
8:33getting in the way of the main artist
8:37[Music]
8:44[Music]
8:47there are many musical traditions in
8:50which rhythm progresses freely without a
8:52regularly reoccurring beat in the
8:54Japanese shakuhachi tradition rhythm is
8:57guided by the breath of the performance
9:01in shock watching music time doesn't
9:04really force its way forward in a
9:07marching way it's more that you are
9:15enjoying the sounds and the shapes
9:17within the moment of time there is free
9:23rhythm in shock watching music
9:25we don't have strict down beats
9:29we're not playing with anyone else so
9:32there's no reason to be precisely in
9:35time with someone else you're playing
9:37just solo in shock watching music
9:44the silence is just as important as the
9:49notes were playing and if we can somehow
9:54see the parallel in in Japanese painting
9:57if you imagine where the canvas is
10:02completely blank on three-quarters of
10:06the silk
10:14[Music]
10:20the breath which comes from the Zen
10:23meditative style is what each phrase is
10:29built upon
10:33we have the inhale and then the note and
10:38the end of the phrase and in between
10:46each phrase we have silence and then the
10:49taking in of the breath this is actually
10:53the pace of all of the units and how
10:57they connect
10:58[Laughter]
11:14[Music]
11:24when you watch a West African percussion
11:27ensemble you'll find family of drums of
11:30different sizes each of these sizes of
11:36drum have a different pitch associated
11:39with striking the drum sounds a
11:42different pitch when put together an
11:44ensemble these relate to each other at
11:46different pitch levels it may be
11:54difficult to hear something like a meter
11:57in the music of something one two three
11:59rather what's heard is it is the
12:02relationship of the tones of the various
12:04drums in their own rhythmic
12:06relationships one drum may be doing
12:08something as simple as data data and
12:11another might be entered entering with
12:14something a little bit more complex dr.
12:15dr. dr. Tata and the relationship
12:19between the two would be done a bit up
12:21but but up up they converse in this way
12:26[Music]
12:29the drum is an extension of the human
12:32voice it is used to communicate but you
12:36must know the language to communicate
12:40many times when they are dancers
12:42involved the music will change and will
12:45tell the dance of when to change to step
12:47when to move how to move when to stop
12:50when you travel from ethnic group to
12:53ethnic group you will find that let's
12:55say in Nigeria with the Yoruba where
12:57they have a very tonal language they
12:59might in there they might say hello mo
13:01do play so there's a lot of variation in
13:03tone so many of their instruments in
13:06their drums like the dono in the talking
13:08drums that they sound just the way they
13:11talk you might do do do-do-do do-do-do
13:14do-do-do do-do-do in in in in the
13:17Senegal the Wolof the people of the
13:20mundane culture was just a sousou
13:22malinka bommana they they speak very
13:25fast you might hit look at that so you
13:28have break it up mungus rekt glod up
13:31bracket so you can see there's a direct
13:36connection with the spoken language and
13:38what is being played and how you express
13:39it on a drum when Johnny is a rhythm
13:46that comes out of the old Malian Empire
13:48the drums and instruments that they use
13:50for the for the rhythm in Johnny come
13:53from the gym bag Orchestra djembe
13:57Orchestra encompasses maybe two or three
14:00djembe is usually one principal musician
14:02and the base this is the JunJun and this
14:07is the song ba you have the bottom here
14:10which would be considered the one with a
14:14downbeat so that's more of the gravity
14:23part of the rhythm this is the up side
14:25of the rhythm
14:32then you have the Bell part which is
14:35playing what I learned as an African six
14:39and usually is one two three four five
14:41six one two three four five six put all
14:48the parts together it's always the
14:59principle musician will give the cue to
15:01start to stop and to change the rhythm
15:04he is the conductor of the orchestra all
15:07the cues come from the principal
15:09musician when the person who was playing
15:10the improvisation he plays what we call
15:16a break or musical cue and that will
15:18sound different depending on whatever
15:21style they're playing but basically we
15:23hear the cue it's an established rhythm
15:25and once we hear we know to start rostov
15:40you have to follow the feet you know how
15:43do they hang some more and now if it did
15:47this ain't gotta move like that you
15:48gotta make sure you got a connection and
15:50the language the language you have to do
15:53from from all her movement for the body
15:56you have to go together maybe you can't
16:16there is a direct relationship we'd like
16:19to say a marriage between the music and
16:22the dance the musicians actually control
16:28the tempo the man Johnny is a social
16:35dance which means that it's not
16:38ceremonial or ritualistic I like to say
16:42that man Johnny is like doing our street
16:44dancing you know when we're yes hey
16:46that's what we do here to self entertain
16:50or to have a house party or to celebrate
16:52in some fashion
16:57we have to remember what we do in this
17:00country is but a stage yes this is great
17:03thank you very much we applaud the
17:06entertainment of it traditionally this
17:10is how people explain their existence
17:13this is how they honor Holy Spirit this
17:15is how they honor their own life force
17:18and their connection in spirit this is
17:20not a performance for them this is
17:26[Music]
17:40[Music]
17:57[Music]
18:09company Matanzas is a province where a
18:12group of friends from my neighborhood
18:14the neighborhood of Simpson we always
18:16enjoy ourselves with a Roomba
18:20we're always ready to put a Roomba
18:21together at a moment's notice
18:37Caribbean is a very vibrant area of
18:40musical encounters for the past 400
18:43years encounters primarily between
18:45musics of Europe and musics of Africa
18:50you have in the Caribbean types of music
18:53that are very close to African
18:55prototypes in rumba especially the best
19:01known example in bagua Juan Cole you
19:03have a couple States man and a woman
19:05danced together and a dance that
19:07pantomimes courtship
19:10the man attempts to get close to the
19:12woman the woman and coquettish Lee
19:15dances around him and avoids his efforts
19:26the woman that's dancing moves this way
19:29and that she covers herself so that she
19:32doesn't get in you have a clapping the
19:51glove a pattern is the key to the
19:54rhythmic structure of the ensemble in a
19:57room bagua Montcoal the claw vase sounds
19:59like this the first side if you divide
20:07this pattern in half has three beats and
20:11the second half has two beats and this
20:16is an asymmetric pattern and it's
20:18asymmetry is critical to the sound of
20:21the entire ensemble the musicians have
20:23to take this key and relate their
20:26drumbeats to this fundamental pattern
20:28that structures the entire musical
20:30ensemble
20:33[Music]
20:47[Music]
20:51African musics and afro-caribbean music
20:53is have had a profound influence on the
20:55development pop music's throughout the
20:56world notably in the development of the
21:02rhythm section african-american
21:04musicians who were marching in the early
21:07brass bands new orleans used bass drums
21:11snare drums cymbals put them together
21:16into repeating rhythmic unit and later
21:20on when this music moves indoors
21:23musicians put these together into a
21:25single set the drum set
21:28[Music]
21:36the drumset and the bass are called the
21:39rhythm of unit in a band and they
21:41interact in much in the way the
21:44percussion ensemble would and African
21:47percussion ensemble would and they
21:48provide the rhythmic drive and the
21:50rhythmic vitality to popular musics and
21:52jazz rhythm is something which is
22:06important in all musics but in jazz it
22:10may be even a little bit more important
22:12because rhythm is at the heart and soul
22:15of jazz and a certain way of phrasing
22:18rhythm a certain approach to rhythm
22:20which we call swing is at the heart and
22:23soul of jazz it's very difficult to
22:30define what swing is you can technically
22:33try to define it in the sense that swing
22:38is a subdivision of rhythm which is in a
22:44certain way off-center it's it's uneven
22:48if I play a series of notes eighth notes
22:53very straight let me do that those
23:04eighth notes are played straight there's
23:09no swing involved now if I put a swing
23:13feel on those eighth notes they're gonna
23:16become uneven one is going to be a
23:18little bit longer than the other and one
23:21is going the shorter one is actually
23:23going to have a certain accent that the
23:25longer one doesn't have
23:28[Music]
23:41the rhythm comes alive it dances a
23:44little bit so we can take that concept
23:57of the swing rhythm and apply it to any
24:00melody or just about any melody and turn
24:03that melody turn that composition into a
24:06jazz performance a jazz interpretation
24:10and that gives it a jazz flavor and so
24:15that swing element is one of the key
24:18things which defines jazz and one of the
24:20key elements in the language of jazz
24:23[Music]
24:42when you perform music you do it across
24:45time and you do it in organize the units
24:49this is what rhythm is it can be
24:53extremely regular it can be extremely
24:55irregular it can be extremely
24:57complicated or very very simple how you
25:01break up the units is extremely
25:03important because when you enter musical
25:05time your watch that's working you're in
25:09a different zone of human experience and
25:12the music takes over your sense of how
25:16time is going by
25:17[Music]
25:41[Music]
26:09[Music]
26:21[Music]
26:25Annenberg media
26:34for information about this and other
26:36Annenberg media programs call 1-800
26:39lerner and visit us at WWE

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