Re: POLYRHYTHMIC COUNTERPOINT

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

  Andy said,
"It seems to me that all the examples quoted here
involve the explicit playing of the underlying sub-division
...all the time.
d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-
Are there any examples where this is not the case?
(for me that would make it *much* more interesting/enjoyable
for listening)"

This is one of my pet peeves about most experiments with odd time 
signatures
and their juxtaposition, Andy.   I also, however, think that this is 
natural when
people are first experimenting with these concepts.

Go give yourself a treat and listen to the body of work that Nik Bartsch 
has put
out (some 10 CDs)...............he's really gone deep with this 
concept.   I just love
his last CD on ECM.

*******************

Another aspect of this phemenon is  that when when odd time groupings 
are juxtaposed, the brain has a tendency to hear one of them as the 
'pulse'  and the others as
syncopations against that pulse.    I think this tendency is  a natural 
extension of the way our brains perceive information and it's tendency 
to find pattern in things we experience (the natural extension of a 
binary mentality-----synapses that connect (ones) or  don't (zeros) on 
the physiological level.

Here is a hip writing exercise that points this phenomenon out 
dramatically:

Try to write a tune, with a melody against an ostinato line with two 
poly-rhythms in it,
say 3 and 4 (with a common denominator of 12 notes).

First write a song where you think of this poly-rhythm as 3 against 4
In other words,  in 4/4 using triplet eighths as a subdivision and
then accenting every fourth triplet eighth note to produce the '3' of the
poly-rhythm......................write a couple of melodies thinking in 
this way.

Now turn the time signature around and play in 3/4 using 16th notes as
the 'subpulse' with an accent against this 3 pulse every 3 16th notes.
It will produce an entirely different piece of music depending on what
the pulse is and what subpulses are accented creating the polyrhythm.

Dramatically different feeling songs will result from this exercise.

Now try the same thing with more esoteric (by pop standards) 
juxtapositions:
3 against 5,  7 against 4

and into really wooly territory
5 against 9,   7 against 5, etc.