Zoomusicologists are just now beginning to understand the enormous influence non-human animal music has had on the development of human animal music. The three traditional aspects of music―melody, harmony, and rhythm―are not uniquely human at all, and were in fact copied from our fellow animal musicians. Songbirds showed mankind how to whistle melody, in Major […]
Archive of posts tagged Drum Beats
King of Off-Beat Samba Limbs
Occasionally, this blog is relevant―like really really relevant. Topical too. Like when a new Radiohead drops, and the hot new beats widget is up within the week! Track 2 off King of Limbs is a syncopated little Mixolydian tune called “Morning Mr Magpie”. Here is a little loop of the first couple measures to give […]
The Heart Shuffle ♥
The Human Heart is our natural metronome. It kicks like a bass drum anywhere from 60-80 beats per minute. In Italian, this tempo is called larghetto. It is no coincidence that the moderate rock tempo (120 bpm) – the cut-time of our heartbeat – is the standard tempo for Pop Music. The pitch of our […]
♪ Little Notes ♪
The ictus is the Moment of Music, the vertical dimension, the instant of the beat, the flick of a conductor’s hand. The flam is an ictus split into two. Drag over the noteheads to hear a flam of snare drum rimshots. In Percussionese, the flam is pronounced “Plah!”. Now try it at home: Exectue a […]
Percussionese
Little Richard speaks percussionese—the proto-language of drums. Check out his impression of a drum fill in Tutti Frutti for your MP3 player. Drag over the black stemmed noteheads… Drag over that final “boom” a few more times. Listen to how Little releases that note. He is very great. The people of Percussionesia speak a peculiar […]
