Re: Microtonal rhythms

Hi there,

I've been fascinated by something else a bit not so obvious to casual listening
as the rhythm (which also fascinates me of course) - the number of bars you have
in a repeat or other shape or structure of the music.

It's inspired by the Van Eyck music I so enjoy practicing - he often uses phrases
of 5 bars or maybe 3 and 2 bars alternating or maybe 7 bars - as natural divisions
of the melody, or maybe more obviously, by using a repeat of seven bars, say.

Actually not sure if it is him doing it, or the original tunes as his pieces are
divisions of popular tunes of his time.

Often the tune sounds kind of novel and fresh at first listening and unless
you've listened in a rather analytical way you don't quite know why.

In my recent piece posted to MMM I explored that by using a pattern of bars

5 5 4 5 5 4

and I often explore it in my music

See Minor and subminor at
http://tunesmithy.netfirms.com/tunes/tunes.htm#minor_subminor

It's amazing how these kind of long measures, kind of super bars or something,
can add an extra kind of zest or surprise to the music. Here I suppose the super-bar
is 14 beats.

If there are parallels of rhythm and microtones,
I wonder what the microtonal parallels are of these overarching rhythmic
structures are.

Robert

Hello Robert!
I have used long meters as a "unifying" thread tears before i discovered that such was the practice in the music of the arabs/ persians and
environs. It appears that such thing has the same status melodic/motivic development has for the west.
For those interested i have put up the following some time back for one composer who shared my viewpoint of cuktural exchange as a way of
resisting war. It is directly modeled in spirit after Lou Harrison moving and studiing Korean music at the end of the Korean war. we thought we
would jump the gun so to speak and accept the musical thresures left for all
These files start with the simpliest but we are talking long patterns so you can't be in a rush.
Hopefully they might be of use to others as well as yourself , if even for inspiration
http://www.anaphoria.com/arab1.PDF
http://www.anaphoria.com/arab2.PDF

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Robert Walker" <robertwalker@n...> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I've been fascinated by something else a bit not so obvious to casual listening
> as the rhythm (which also fascinates me of course) - the number of bars you have
> in a repeat or other shape or structure of the music.
>
> It's inspired by the Van Eyck music I so enjoy practicing - he often uses phrases
> of 5 bars or maybe 3 and 2 bars alternating or maybe 7 bars - as natural divisions
> of the melody, or maybe more obviously, by using a repeat of seven bars, say.
>
> Actually not sure if it is him doing it, or the original tunes as his pieces are
> divisions of popular tunes of his time.
>
> Often the tune sounds kind of novel and fresh at first listening and unless
> you've listened in a rather analytical way you don't quite know why.
>
> In my recent piece posted to MMM I explored that by using a pattern of bars
>
> 5 5 4 5 5 4
>
> and I often explore it in my music
>
> See Minor and subminor at
> http://tunesmithy.netfirms.com/tunes/tunes.htm#minor_subminor
>
> It's amazing how these kind of long measures, kind of super bars or something,
> can add an extra kind of zest or surprise to the music. Here I suppose the super-bar
> is 14 beats.
>
> If there are parallels of rhythm and microtones,
> I wonder what the microtonal parallels are of these overarching rhythmic
> structures are.
>
> Robert