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

[David Morton <dmorton@gmail.com>]

Fascinating stuff, thank you so much for taking the time to type all this.

On 2/3/06, loop.pool <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:
> 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.
>
>