source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 10:29:14 -0800 Subject: Re: mod groups & rhythm From: Matt Nathan PAULE wrote: > >[Matt Nathan] > >I forget which of the mainstream music newsmagazines > >lists the tempos of the most popular dance tracks in fractions of beats per > >minute, like mm 125.2, so other musicians, and DJ's, etc. can tune in to > the > >narrow bands of most-fashionable tempos that people are responding to. A > >tempo difference of 125/124 can apparently affect the popularity of a tune. > > Er, I don't think so. Dance club DJ's like to "mix" different tunes together > and segue from one to another without disturbing the beat. They speed up or > slow down their turntables by considerably larger fractions than 125/124 to > do this. Ah, but they do this to bring the tunes to within the critical tempo bands that the dancers in their clubs prefer! :) Do a test yourself, like I did, and listen to the local rap/urban/house/dance music station with a metronome and write down the tempo of each tune that comes along. You'll see that they fall into about 3 separate narrow bands, separated by wide bands in which no tunes are played, something like the emission bands given off by elements in a flame, if I might be so analogistic. > >The problem with tempered rhythms is in their combination. Tempered > triplets > >say > >would drift if played against quarter notes; they wouldn't line up at the > >measure length. If this is what you want, then cool. An irrationally > related > >duration set could give a nice effect of non-groundedness while retaining > >self consistency. > > One wouldn't necessarily have to keep the 3-against-2 going for long enough > to hear the phase drift at each modulation. In fact, one could just switch > to triplets suddenly, and later establish the basic pulse as an even number > of these notes, without any drift occuring. You might as well use real triplets or n-plets for each base tempo, and temper only the relationships between base tempos when modulating. On a related anecdote, I often hear drummers on recordings and those who I play with live speed up when they play fills involving faster notes. It's only the really good drummers who keep comfortably consistent time no matter what rhythmic octave they are playing in. Another anecdote, someone once wrote to me about the possibility of a software module to process a quantized midi file to slow down the tempo at parts where a real pianist would have to move one or both hands far across the keyboard, the amount of slowing depending on the distance traversed, to make the track more human-sounding. There's also that process where you delay each note by a small amount relative to the volume of the note, since some musicians who use their hands like percussion players will bring their hands farther away from the instrument in preparation for a harder striking, and take a little longer time to reach the instrument. Good players will of course compensate for or avoid this unconcious habit Matt Nathan Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 8 Jan 1997 19:27 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA06012; Wed, 8 Jan 1997 19:30:37 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA06005 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id KAA13951; Wed, 8 Jan 1997 10:30:25 -0800 Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 10:30:25 -0800 Message-Id: <32D3E6A5.2220@ix.netcom.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu