Techno hits basic beat - Musical analysis unveils a hierarchy...

[Ediacara]

Techno hits basic beat
Musical analysis unveils a hierarchy of sophistication.
7 January 2004

PHILIP BALL


A form of music known as Javanese Gamelan has won one of the top prizes for rhythmic complexity, according to a novel kind of musical analysis1.

Heather Jennings of the Federal University of Alagoas in Brazil and her colleagues conclude that Gamelan - an Indonesian style of music featuring gongs, drums, wind and string instruments - is as sophisticated as Western classical music in terms of its variations in volume. And both of these styles tower in complexity over modern techno tracks and Forró, a form of traditional dance music from Brazil.

Jazz, rock and roll and Brazilian pop music lie between the two extremes, the researchers say. They are "complex enough to listen to, but periodic and rhythmic enough to dance to", they write.

More at Nature

[Squeech]

1. What are their metrics?

I'm at my day job and don't have time right now to read the article, so what I'm really doing is kicking this, hoping I'll be better able to find it again when I get home.

But the notion of musical complexity is a real big topic, and what metrics you choose to *define* complexity have serious ramifications in terms of taste. So, while I'm not surprised that techno doesn't score very high (by definition, it repeats itself an awful lot), I don't see that gamelan, where all rhythmic sub-cells are defined by simple binary divisions, is all that more complicated-- whereas I would rate Brazilian music more highly, since the samba subdivisions are more like 3-3-3-3-2-2 (written in 16th notes). Then there's the whole topic of syncopation, hemiola, jumping ahead of the beat, and all the other stuff that makes swing and R&B so exciting (and so hard to analyze).

But I've already bloviated too much, for someone who hasn't even read the article :-)

[Laughing Mirror]

2. and how measure effects that a DJ throws in from the decks

such as scratching?

I'm curious about listening to Javanese Gamelan. If anybody familiar with this music can point me to some kind of introductory guide, it would be much appreciated.

The way those of us who play music measure music to be danced to is by BPM, beats per minute. Techno follows a basic 4-4 beat on upwards of 120 beats per minute to as high as 140 or more, whereas hip-hop R&B might be half or a third slower, 65 to 98 bpms, let's say.

Dancing, you can't get as much range of motion from techno than you can from hip-hop because the faster the bpm the less the human body is capable of executing anything much more than a shimmy or a shake.

Interesting article. Thanks for posting it.

[NashVegas]

3. Speaking as Someone Who Used to Shake My Booty Every Weekend ...

Beat speed was secondary to groove. Actually, beat speed didn't matter at all if there was a good groove. I've heard Einzturzende tunes that were better for dancing than techno :)

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. Go buy yourself some balinese gamelan music

and take a listen.

Better yet, if you are in a community that has a gamelan, or if a set of performers come through, GO HEAR IT!

I've always loved gamelan music, but after finally hearing a live performance a few years ago, I'm really hooked.

It is VERY complex musically - obviously, not so complex that it can't be performed, but way more than rock or even jazz (unless one gets into some of the more complex jazz, like Don Ellis, but even then, it isn't like gamelan, since gemalan is also 20-30 people all playing, in essence, one instrument, so you can't play around with the beat, and there are always a number of metrical patterns being overlaid on each other and floating around, etc.)

The closest equivalent in "classical" music might be Glass's early music in which players are playing overlapping layers of phrases made of different numbers of beats, or Reich's "drumming" or "Piano phase" etc., in which patterns are repeated over and over by players, but are phase-shifted beat-wise from each other.

The gamelan performance I was at was when the University of Hawaii had the inaugaral concert for the naming of their gamelan that had been given them by, I think, the balinese government (though I could be wrong). The UH gamelan is a true community instrument - at the performance, they had a range of people, from a young girl (maybe 6?) to some elderly people. One piece really amazed me - the small girl was put in the front of the gamelan for this one, and for the approx. twenty minutes of the piece, her sole role was to be the metronome - she hammered on her gong/block/whateveritscalled from start to finish, with no variance in her tempo, and no breaks or pauses. It was ASTOUNDING to watch her do that.

I would agree with the people who say its the most complex - it's a counting nightmare, and everyone has to be on the beat, know what they're doing, and count count count.

DJ effects are not complex at all - it's all random (obviously thought out by the DJ, but it's not like the DJ being off by a beat on a scratch is gonna through twenty other DJs off track). I would never have thought of techno as a complex music.

[Richardo]

6. Don Ellis! I always think no one else has ever heard of him....

...he was my guru for both trumpet playing and composing.

"Bulgarian Bulge" in 33/16 time... yeah baby!

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. sadly, I only have one album by him, but I love it!

I have the "music in 3 and 2/3 quarter time" mostly all live stuff. he has a brililant rendition of some stock big band tune - I can't remember which, Bill Bailey? Maybe not... - anyway - that he rewrote to 7/8. Excellent!

And I love his music becuase not only does he use weird meters, but he also maintains the groove and does relevant soloing over the meter; some jazz guys that use odd meters don't groove with it. That I don't like.

If one isn't going to do something with the chosen meter, then be intelligent and just throw meter out the window altogether, like Coltrane, who did it so bloody well.

[Richardo]

9. His classic "Tears of Joy" album is NOT on CD (Thanks a lot, Sony)

But if you can find it, listen - you'll like it... :thumbsup:

[Squeech]

8. Gamelan etc.

I think the first recording I ever heard of gamelan music was the old Nonesuch record entitled Music from the Morning of the World, and it's still a pretty good introduction.

I got to play some gamelan in college, and I was once privileged to hang out with the people who ran the American Gamelan Institute-- which still exists, and is a tremendous resource, but they've moved to the opposite coast :-(

Got this from a quick Google: http://www.gamelan.co.uk/faq.html

Balinese gamelan uses similar ingredients-- lots of gongs and chimes and other metallic noises-- but it's a lot more abrupt. The Javanese vibe is incredibly stately and languorous. Hope this helps.

Regarding the tempo of dance music, it's been increasing over time, hasn't it? I know that the old disco hits, even the ones that didn't suck at the time, now all sound quaint and stodgy. I used to think that it was because of aerobics; dancers have grown used to peppier tempo because they got accustomed to it in the gym-- but I don't think so any more, because as far as I can tell it's still going up.

Steve Hillage, who's the brains behind System 7 and a fellow traveller of the Orb, has a concept of a "spectrum" of tempo-- he says the transition from a relaxed 100 BPM groove to a superfast 200 BPM jungle workout isn't as jarring as you'd think, because the 200 BPM could be perceived by the dancer as an "octave" of 100 BPM. It's an intriguing theory, but I think I place it in the same theoretical dustbin as the notion that some day I'll learn to hear Schoenbergian tone rows!

[Richardo]

4. Here's my erudite and highly informed opinion...

techno blows. x(

[TrogL]

10. Indian tabla and tambura music gets up there

I used to listen to a lot of it and got used to thinking in seven against four and eleven against four.

[TrogL]

11. oh, and I love techno

It's a pity the clubs are the only place I get to hear it.

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Ah yes, the Indian traditional music also complex

I like how the players sometimes shout out when they've cycled back into a phrasing, to help the listeners follow along.