Re: Re: OT The Sub Pulse was West African/African Diaspora rhythms:3/4, 4/4, 6/8, 12/8

["Mark Showalter" <folkstone57@operamail.com>]

> 
> 
>   On 11:59 AM, Mark Showalter wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Ok, let me see if I have this now.
> >
> > The pulse is 4/4 because of the drums on the beat, but the 
> > "sub-pulse" is the bass&  the palm muted guitar because they play 
> > on the sub-division of the beat?
> >
> > When you count to the music (let's take good old 4/4)
> the numbers you count     1,    2,     3,      4
> are the PULSE   (In this case,    the 4 pulse)

Let's make sure we're clear here. 4/4 means:
4 beats to a measure & each beat is represented by a 1/4 note.
> 
> The way you subdivide that pulse so that all of the notes in the 
> ostinato rhythm (repetitive syncopative
> or non-syncopative rhythms)  fall on the subdivisions (in the case 
> of our example,   the 8th notes)
> is what I call the SUB PULSE

Ok, so in the case of the song we're talking about, you're calling the 
first sud-division of the beat the sub-pulse. Is this always the case? For 
instance, what about the "sub-pulse" being an accented 1/16 note pattern & 
no 1/8 note pattern? If I understand your next part, then this answer 
should be yes.

> In a typical 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 7/4, etc. tune you might have a subpulse
> that is 8th notes,   triplet 8th notes,  16th notes,  triplet 16th 
> notes or even 32nd notes (Mbalax from Senegal,
> or grooves from the hip hop producer Timbaland as the rare example)

 
> Any embellishment that occurs (as distinguished from what we call 
> fills,  or breaking from the pattern
> at the end of every 8, 16 or 32 bars, typically) at a faster rate 
> (smaller note value)
> and in this particular case, 16th notes what I call
> EMBELLISHMENTS
> They are specifically played at a faster rate than the subpulse

So what would you call embellishments that aren't played faster than the 
sub-pulse?

> In groove playing or groove arrangement,  it's extremely important 
> to understand what the
> SUB PULSE is.   if you ignore it or use a note value that is either 
> too high or too low, you run the risk
> of not understanding how the listener hears the music;  how the 
> dancer dances to it.

Not being a dancer I must admit this is getting a bit obscure for me. Am I 
to assume that the concept of "sub-pulse" is raelly only important in 
regards to dance music?
 
> Though 16th notes are played periodically as embellishments by the 
> drum or the 'pick bass' guitar lines
> in this case) the 'feel' of the music is NOT 16th notes, but rather 
> 8th notes (the note value of the syncopative
> bass line that drives this song.

Sorry, but as far as I could tell, there was no syncopation in the 
bassline or the muted guitar part whatsoever, although I might have missed 
it.
 
> People frequently mistake the PULSE for the SUBPULSE,  the SUBPULSE 
> for EMBELLISHMENTS.
> This is why so many guitar and keyboard players (sorry for picking 
> on you guys) write such horrible
> drum machine patterns for their songs.

This would not be me since I've never really thought about the "sub-pulse" 
issue other than when some of my drummer/perc guys tried to explain the 
concept to me.....& hence this entire discussion.
 
you only need to add one 16/th note 
> offbeat snare drum hit to the drum beat of Queen's 'We Will Rock 
> You" to realize that the original and the embellished versions 
> sound completely different to the the listener.

I would have to mildly dissagree here as I doubt that most people really 
notice much differnce in an arragement, especially dance, since if you 
play a song in 4/4 the majority of people are dancing to that only & don't 
notice any additions or such.  Now, if you are referring to professional 
dancers then I would certainly agree that they would pick up on any 
changes & could then incorporate those changes into their performance. The 
common everyday folk however........  
I would like to add that I have been a performer for over 30 years, 
although the majority of my music is not dance oriented. I do have some in 
my bag, like early Beatles, Clapton's "wonderful Tonite" & such, but my 
work ( both arranging & performing ) on dance material is rather limited.

> Lastly, it should be said that this is a very effective map for 
> arrangement, composition and even real time
> improvisation.
> 
> As Alfred Korzybski said,  "The Map is not the Territory".

Picasso: "The picture is not the thing."

> Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that by merely observing, 
> on a sub atomic level, that
> we change the nature of the thing we observe (okay, this is a very 
> simplistic understanding of his
> principle but a useful one).

Not sure how this applies to any of this discussion....... and that is not 
actually what the Uncertainty Principle states: When cannot know the 
values of complimentary aspects of a particle beyond the limits of the 
principle or the Heisenberg limit. So, you can get a good idea of the 
speed of a particle or it's position, but not both & the more you know of 
one value the less you can know of the other. So, I'm lost as to why you 
brought this up.........


> My mentor, the amazing maverick scientist Gregory Bateson said,  
> "We are doomed to make
> imperfect maps of reality due to our inherent neurophysiology.  He 
> said that, however, there
> is such a thing as a better map.
> 
> So,  this is a small part of  the best map I can offer and I try to 
> constantly find holes in it and accept any critiques of it.  (lol, 
> after thirty years of teaching it,  a student last week informed me 
> that there isn't a word tertiary but that the two correct terms are 
> binary and ternary................you learn something every day,   
> hopefully.

Your student was wrong:

•The Tertiary is a term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.588 
million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the 
superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary




Mark Showalter
Minden Jot!

myspace.com/folkstone57
http://www.last.fm/music/Mark+Showalter
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