Re: Maybe why Avante-garde looping in US...

[johnsrude@peak.org]

> By the way, if soloing over 7/8 seems daunting  write me off list and 
>I'll
> show you some really simple exercises
> to get free in that rhythmic space........................you'll see 
>that it
> is actually no more complicated than playing in 4/4..............you just
> haven't done it since you were a kid like they have there.

You can actually get the hang of odd meter really fast if you don't count 
in
numbers but in syllables, which takes advantage of our speech centers.  
Just
about all European odd meters can be broken down into groups of two and 
three
beats.  For the two beats say "Taki" and for the three beats say "Gamela". 
 So
for two seven beat patterns:

Taki-Taki-Gamela, Taki-Taki-Gamela,...
or
Gamela-Taki-Taki, Gamela-Taki-Taki,...

If you ever hear Garaj Mahal perform "Poodle Factory" live, you'll hear 
this
to hilarious effect.  They get the _whole_ audience to sing along at the
maximum physically possible tempo the following loop:

Poodle poodle factory, poodle factory
Poodle poodle factory, poodle factory
Poodle poodle factory, poodle factory
Poodle factory, poodle factory, poodle factory

which a musicologist might call three bars of 11/4 followed by three bars 
of 5/4.

Cheers,
Kevin
www.TheNettles.com