Re timbre and polyrhythm

Hi there,

Saw an interesting post recently in PostTonality
about African drumming as using timbre as a form
of melody, and idea of resultant of polyrhythm
as more than the sum of its parts.

"
However, the vast majority of our traditional polyrhythms required that 4,
5, 6, sometimes as many as 12 different instruments and parts play together
before the resultant people are looking for arrives. In that sense, nobody
can play the resultant, which is the closest one could get to a melody
line, and therefore it is simply not possible to think of the melody as
somehow 'resulting' from one person playing 'an instrument' in the same way
that someone could play the melody of Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, say, on
their guitar.
"

/posttonality/topicId_unknown.html#946

Robert