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

["loop.pool" <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Kevin wrote:
"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,...

********
personally, I think it is a good idea to keep the syllables more closely 
together (until you are working with
the onomotopoetic syllables of specific drums in the Indian or other 
traditions).

I honestly think having tried many different counting systems that you can 
trip your tongue up going
from a T sound to a G sound at very high speed  but it's all good.

Amplifying on this concept a little:

The Indians use these  four subdivision:
>
Ta-ki   (pronounced Taw kih)                                        TWO
1  2
>
Ta-ki-ta   (pronounced Taw kih tuh)                              THREE
1  2  3
>
Ta-ki-di-mi (pronounced Taw kih dee mee)                   FOUR
1  2  3  4
>
Ta-ki-di-na-tom  (pronounced Taw kih dee nah tom)      FIVE
1  2  3  4  5

Interestingly, they stop at the threshold that Western psychologists in 
the 
latter 20th century  discovered.:   the number 5 .
>From what I've heard,  human beings can keep five things in their heads, 
concieved of as separate things but that the minute we get
to larger numbers we are forced to begin grouping into smaller increments. 
The Indians have known this intrinsically for hundreds of years.

The emphasis always being on the 'Ta' or first syllable


In this way you can make a practise matrix of any time signature you want 
to 
take on and just sing the syllables

for example:

                2 + 2 + 3           or      Ta ki Ta ki Ta ki tuh
                2  + 3 + 2                   Ta ki Ta ki ta Ta ki
                3  + 2 + 2                   Ta ki ta Ta ki Ta ki

7/8  =       3 + 4                          Ta ki ta Ta ki di mi
                4 + 3                          Ta ki di mi Ta ki ta

                5 + 2                           Ta ki di na tom Ta ki
                2 + 5                           Ta ki Ta ki di na tom


Sing these combinations over and over, making sure that ever syllable 
takes 
exactly the same amount of time.
There are more sophisticated games to play with this material and you can 
syncopate or leave out notes internal to each
phrasing but this will give you all the basic phrasing possilities of each 
odd time signature you want to play in.

Warning:   If you are playing, say the first excercise above as an 
ostinato 
that your whole band is playing..................
it will really throw people if you use any of the other phrases 
simultaneously so you will need to check it out and
also practise it with them if you plan on doing it live.     One long band 
practise or two playing different time signatures against
each other will usually do the trick to learn how to do this (but you have 
to have relatively sophisticated musicians with a good
internal sense of time and also, more importantly,  their willingness to 
go 
along with these games that sound like gibberish
until you get to know them better.