contrapuntal independence

this is a drum post.

i think the only time i’ve heard the phrase contrapuntal independence is when i was studying with a jazz drummer in Lancaster many, many moons ago. he had binders and binders of these rhythms. the left hand plays a pattern, and the right hand plays a different pattern, and the two mesh. apparently that is the core behind the phrase “contrapuntal independence”, independent rhythms that mesh to form one larger rhythm. here’s the quote from Oxford:

“for music to be truly contrapuntal there must always be a balance between independence and interdependence”

okey doke. and that was that. i had done it, i’m sure it helped, but the concept was dormant for a long time. enter a night of internet browsing on african drumming.

in modern western music, a lot of what you hear are two rhythms put together in a way that meshes. i’m not calling them contrapuntal, but i know that if you take a bass line and a guitar chord progression, you’ve got a song (they mesh). if you listen to Aerosmith or Guns and Roses, you’ve probably got a second guitar interacting with the first by playing a different line that meshes.

in traditional african music, they don’t use a lot of things you have to plug in. makes sense considering. they use drums - drums that have interesting tonal properties.

and so i stumbled upon a set of rhythms that were presented as coming from different regions in the continent. they are offered as the leading rhythms from different peoples, and they come in two parts. drummer #1 plays a rhythm, and drummer #2 plays a rhythm. that didn’t strike me right away. at first i thought it was the top two rthyms from an area. choose whichever you like best.

i programmed some of these into a sequencer. took me forever to remember how to use the damn thing, my industrial metal days are long gone i guess. but i fire up rhythm #1, and it sounds like someone beating on congos. not special at all. and i add a second rhythm, and it turns into what i thought was a “comes with the box” quality drum machine pattern. if i had come up with it myself i would have been proud.

once i adjusted the pan, and made one come out of the left speaker and the other rthym come out of the right speaker – BINGO! the whole room came alive. i get it

and so two things hit me:

- i just stumbled on to the feed for a great drums and bass jam.

- I can do this on a kit.

i’ve been pecking away at that second part ever since. the deal is that if i play it all flat (no accents), i’m not banging out the rhythms. each of the rhythms has two or three voices. i think each rhythm would be on one drum, so it’d be like finding three sound zones for this rhythm:

- – - - – o o – High
- – x x – - – - Mid
X – - - – - – - Low

that’s 1 e & ah, 2 e & ah and you’re done. terribly simple, right? that’s the left hand part. the counter rhythm is:

x - - x x – - - High
- – - - – - X X Mid

just two voices, with the right hand.

if i had a mandala, the left hand part would be different zones on it and it would be godly.

at any rate, last night i finally made it all come together. i kinda sat down and decided i wasn’t going anywhere until i got it, even if it took days. i have a loose grasp on it now, after pecking away at it forever. yay. AND . . . as i’m tapping on everything, it strikes me, this is some bad-ass contrapuntal independence going on!

so that’s my intro to african rhythms. it takes me three or four weeks to digest the first one. and it’s in 2/4. god help me when i like, bring triplets into the equation, lol.

February 24, 2010 Posted in: Drums