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Re: Rhythmic Randomness vs. Melodic Randomness
to this:
"Your suddenly have a funk rhythm that has a completely different feel
than the original rhythm."
Toby Graves responded:
"Yes, but that feel is gonna depend on how much it swings or how much the
beat drags. Lars Ulrich
could play that pattern and fit it in a Metallica song."
Obviously, the feel of a rhythm can morph depending on it's use of swing;
playing ahead or
behind the beat, Toby.
The distinction in the cased you are talking about, however, is timbral
and NOT rhythmic.
Looking at the history of the developement of syncopation in pop music in
the United States in the
20th century, the first example I wrote came first and was associated
with rhythm and blues or
soul.................it has an 8th note syncopative resolution.
The second example introduces an implied 16th note syncopative resolution
and occurred
several years after the advent of the first rhythm; first with James
Browns' drummers and then later
with the style that came to be known as Funk.
Metallica could play the second rhythm, but it's roots would still be in
Funk as a style from a
rhythmic historical perspective and NOT in Rock and Roll (the genre
associated with
Metallica)...............the fact that they'd use liberal use of
distortion and James rough vocal approach
(and I dig Metallica, by the way) only changes the timbre of the piece,
not the rhythm.
If he were to swing it slightly (or even greatly) it would merge into hip
hop as a style (and this is
largely due to the fact that inexpensive drum machines used in early hip
hop, had 58% swing
capabilities that were used by the early producers to get a different feel.
As soon as Bonham started introducing 16th note funk rhythms into hard
rock with Led Zepellin or
when Quiincy Jones put a rock and roll 8th note groove under MIchael
Jackson's decidedly funk/r&b
rhythmic approach (and then added icing to the cake by having Eddy Van
Halen play a blistering
heavy metal lead over the whole stew), the styles of rock, jazz, r&b,
soul and funk began to merge
all over popular music.
Now you have heavily EBM/Industrial influenced Samba
records...........they fit into the Industrial sub
genre, stylistically because of the way they sound, but their historic
rhythmic roots are still in Afro-
Brazilian music which further illustrates my point:
In repetitive 'groove' oriented syncopated rhythmic pop music, each
individual rhythm has a distinct
personality and affects the nervous system in a different way.
Even by changing only the voices in a rhythmic arrangement (think playing
Cream's 'Sunshine of Your
Love" with the backbeat on the 2 and 4 ---- thank you Earl Palmer instead
of the way Ginger Baker
played it on the 1 and the 3) you have a distinctively different rhythm.
If Metallica played both rhythms in back to back songs on the same record,
the songs would each
have a distinctively different feel.
Does that make sense?
--