The Hemiola in Krush's Kakusei vs. Led Zeppelin's Kashmir

[scrypt]

Disclaimer: In the course of this post, I might refer to an album incorrectly; I might be unaware of current facts in rock or popular music. I leave it to others to correct me in that capacity. I choose to reserve my memory space for facts that bear the most relevance to my ultimate interests.

Quote:

Originally posted by penvzila Damn it! I thought i was done downloading music for a while!

Do understand that Krush's kind of experimentation is in downtempo mode -- his beats aren't intricate; they don't morph ceaselessly in the sense that many IDM artists' beats do. The intricacy is in the combining of rhythmic elements that wouldn't fit ordinarily. That's what Krush does.

Those who know me well realize that I never listen to rock music voluntarily and don't care for it aesthetically. Having said that, I would be dishonest if I failed to give certain rock bands their props in the area of rhythmic experimentation.

Outside of those who have played piano sonatas by Paul Hindemith, analyzed chamber music and ballets by Stravinsky, listened closely to Art Tatum's left hand, become familiar with medieval compositional devices or played talking drums in Senegal or Nigeria, Led Zeppelin fans might be the people who are most familiar with the sound of the hemiola. Here's an example: the LZ song "Kashmir" uses three sets of rhythms at once, all proceeding differently and overlapping -- harmonic rhythm (the rhythm at which the chords change), time signature (number of beats per measure) and an asymmetrical rhythmic pattern, all of which coincide only after several repetitions. The alignment of all three occurs at a point that is called an *elision* (a case in which the last measure is also the first in the pattern) and which adds to the sense of a constantly building climax. The Zeppelin motto seems to have been *if you keep playing against the barline long enough, the downbeat *will* come around*. I suspect their use of the hemiola came from the interplay between a solid studio drummer and a floaty blues guitarist. But that's just my theory.

When I was forced to transcribe and play whole albums by LZ and the Rolling Stones for Japanese Karoake laser CDs in the late 80s, I learned an odd thing about the difference between the use of rhythm in 70s funk and rock. In funk, the goal was to have the bass drums and horns lock, the keys and strings lock, all creating a unified rhythmic concept. But in rock, what I'd always taken for sloppiness turned out to be the source of its rhythmic interest: The different senses of time *clashing* are what create rhythmic tension, or rhythmic dissonance. In the case of the RS, it's the dissonance between time senses of all the players that makes the performance worth hearing (sometimes): the bass is rushing slightly, the drums are a touch behind, Richards is all over the place, the other guitar is somewhere else. The sound of all those time-senses clashing is what makes the sound interesting (to the extent that it is).

What DJ Krush does is similar to the hemiola in Kashmir, the performance style of the RS, but is more severe, more clinical, and was derived from hip-hop's introduction of rhythmic dissonance -- slightly out-of-sync elements -- to counteract the deadening sound of 16th-note-quantized music on computer or sequencer.

Krush's time sense swings, and the sounds themselves are jazzy and synthetic. But the beats Krush plays against are as simple as those in early 80s hip-hop and so bear a certain resemblance to beats created at a time in the early seventies when funk and rock became extremely similar. In that sense, Krush's approach to rhythmic experimentation is reminiscent of certain vintage live players'. Which might be something to consider among people who normally hate hip-hop.

 

[stuartr]

Scrypt, that was really interesting. I have absolutely nothing to add, except:

[size=medium]LED ZEPPELIN KICKS ASS!!!!!!! [/size]

Ahem. Yeah, not so much of a fan anymore, but I respect them. I don't really know Mr. Krush, otherwise I would comment further, but perhaps my comments might be something like:

[size=medium]DJ KRUSH KICKS ASS!!!!![/size]

Anyway, I appreciated your info on the hemiola...any particular pieces where it shows up in Igor's work? Perhaps Le sacre du printemps or zhar-ptitsa (The firebird...it just sounds so wonderfully ugly in Russian).

 

[scrypt]

Hemiolas occur in virtually every mature work by Stravinsky. They're hard to spot unless you're reading the music because he has so many other rhythmic devices occurring at the same time: asymmetrical groupings overlap the barline, but the meter is changing as well, and he is also stacking masses of different meters at the same time. Thus, the hemiola is only one element in a kind of sustained rhythmic cluster that can be too dense (Le Sacre) for the scoreless listener to be able to isolate the elements.

Petroushka can be taken apart more easily. The piece is also a treatise on the polychord and occasional polytonality, of course (the famous Petroushka chord: F#-sharp major over C major).

His chamber and piano music make the device most apparent of all, I think: listen to the Septet (my favorite) and Octet, for example, or his Ragtime for Eleven Instruments, for an extremely accessible example. The Symphony of Psalms is also extremely clear in its use of polymeter and hemiola. Listen to the constantly displaced ostinato in the Alleluia. Stravinsky's use of rhythm is more advanced than anything else we've discussed so far.

Hemiolas are more recognizable in work by Hindemith: listen to the development section of the first movement of the Second Piano Sonata, for example -- the 3/8 RH against a 4/8 LH ostinato (root, major second, minor third) should be obvious to nearly anyone.

Artur Honegger is also important in this regard. Are you familiar with Pacific 231, in which the sound of a locomotive is suggested by moving the tempo and subdivision of beats per measure in opposite directions simultaneously? Thus, quarter notes become quarter note triplets become quarter notes in 3/4 (triplet in 4/4 now equals 3/4 quarter note) become[] eighth notes in five become triplets become sixteenth notes and so on -- all while the tempo is growing slower and slower.

The piece I recommend most highly by Honegger is the 5th Symphony, which explores gradations of *minor* chord polychordal progressions, which few other composers of that time had done to such pessimistic effect.

Certain of Bartok's rhythm-intensive pieces in Mikrokosmos are also illustrative of the hemiola, as are his larger pieces. They are also a mini-treatise on counterpoint.

Webern's use of the hemiola (if it can even be called that, in his case) goes beyond mere rhythmic groupings: his later music is like an extension of the hemiola principle structurally; it involves the sustained displacement of rhythmically augmented or diminished mirrored symmetries, often through the use of a contrapuntal device such as retrograde crab canon, so that the rhythms of the parts almost *never* overlap, or overlap only once.

From there it's a small jump to Stockhausen's Kontrapuntke or Boulez's Le Marteau Sans Maitre, in which the tendencies in Webern become even more complex (though not nearly as elegant or perfect).

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Led Zepplin can also be interesting harmonically. "Friends" makes pleasant use of combined synthetic scales (cello line is in lydian mode with a flat II; guitar is Lydian with a sharp II; vocal is in pentatonic scale with flat VII, IV and III). My sense is that it all comes from the use of cross-relations in blues (one ancestor of which is Mozart's Dissonance Quartet).

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One reason I like IDM so much is because the composer, freed from having to play the music live, is free to think purely as a composer. Which is why IDM can be more complex and off-kilter rhythmically than previous non-through-composed music. DJ Krush, too, partakes of the composer's edge despite his turntablist virtuosity.

With rock, one gets the point; for me, the climax isn't even necessary because I see where the ship is going; the crescendo is more pleasurable to perform than it is to hear casually.

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Stuart: Do me a favor and look at my comments about aggressive (idea-based) as opposed to passive (equipment-based) listening. It's a bit OT for the Best Sounding SACDs thread, but I really wish that that kind of listening were encouraged more on Head-fi. People who get involved in listening to content are less likely to get trapped in an upgrade cycle, simply because the focal point is elsewhere (as it should be, if we're not reducible to a luxury-distracted labor-class-driven society (Adorno by way of Marx)).

 

[stuartr]

With respect to the discussion on hemiola, it will take me a bit of time and listening to hash it out, as my training comes only from interest, not from ever having played an instrument seriously. I learned a lot when I was doing my thesis on Shostakovich, but it was basically learnt with specific cases in mind. That said, if I hear the hemiola, or see it visually on a score, I am confident that I could find it fairly well by ear in many of the works. I will have to give it a try.

As for aggressive versus passive listening, I cannot agree with you more. At this point, I have no desire whatever to convert to SACD because I know that it will be a long long time until Oistrakh, Rostropovich, Richter, Starker and Fournier make their way to the format; much longer than that until we see Casals or Rachmaninov playing and conducting his own pieces. I have two recordings of Rachmaninov's preludes and etudes, and I invariably prefer the one where Sergei is playing himself...even if it sounds like he is playing inside a four inch music box. The fact that the superiority of his playing can transcend such a dramatic difference in sound quality clearly demonstrates how much more important performance is.

 

[scrypt]

Using five of your fingers on your left hand and four on your right, tap out simple quarter notes on any flat surface (you can even use your thighs). Go from pinky to thumb with your left hand, thumb to fourth finger on your right. Notice how it feels when your left pinky and right thumb finally coincide. That's the starting point of the hemiola coming back, and it takes five measures of 4/4 (and four of 5/4) to occur -- twenty beats in all. Can you feel it, Stuart?

Here's the fingering:

LH: 5-4-3-2-1-5-4-3-2-1-5-4-3-2-1-5-4-3-2-1
RH: 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4

 

[stuartr]

You are being very scryptic my dear friend.

Quote:

Go from pinky to thumb with your right hand, thumb to fourth finger on your right.

Quote:

Using five of your fingers on your left hand and four on your right

Quote:

RH: 5-4-3-2-1-5-4-3-2-1-5-4-3-2-1-5-4-3-2-1 LH: 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4

Does the left have four or five? Is "1" my pinkie on both hands, or my thumb? I am sorry, I am somewhat of a yokel when it comes to thinking for myself. I think I have got down what you mean though...

 

[scrypt]

I'd forgotten you'd never played piano before and so weren't familiar with fingering numbers.

In each case in piano music, the thumb is called 1, the pinky, 5. Parallel movement (both sets of fingers moving in the same direction) looks like this:

Left to right movement:

Right Hand: 1 (thumb)-2-3-4-5 (pinky)
Left Hand: 5 (pinky)-4-3-2-1 (thumb)

Also: Due to a night of eye-straining copy editing, I wrote what you quoted initially but meant this: "Go from pinky to thumb with your left hand, thumb to fourth finger on your right."

If you look at my previous post, you'll see that it's now consistent.

Have you conducted the experiment in question? (Yes, I know I'm rushing you -- I want to see if I've been sufficiently clear.)

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By the way: For anyone who might have noticed that stuart and I have been spelling pinky/pinkie differently: both spellings are correct.

 

[stuartr]

Ha, I did not even notice the difference in our pinkies! Mine is a little more knobbly and old world...
Anyway, I have successful completed the experiment, despite the best efforts of my fingers. It is cool. I see exactly what you mean about the progression. It reminds me (rightly so, I am sure) of ending a piece on the tonic. Ludwig's 5th symphony would sound wrong, even to an earwig, if it wasn't DA DA DA DAAAAAA..Other variants just sound wrong. A side note, Jim O'Rourke has a great album called Bad Timing, in which I think all the pieces end off the tonic...it is pretty weird. The music sounds phenomenal, and then it's ending is just wrong....it is funny how ingrained these things are in Western culture even for people who aren't even readily aware of them.

 

[scrypt]

Excellent. You can do the same thing with three and four to get a preview of what happens in the Hindemith sonata I mentioned before:

RH: 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3
LH: 4-3-2-1-4-3-2-1-4-3-2-1

This time, it takes twelve beats for the cycle to come around.

The first thing you notice about the hemiola is the sense of finality when the two kinds of bars resolve. The next thing for you will be the fun of getting there. You'll begin to really hear the clashing points at which the bars *don't* coincide, which is the point of the hemiola, of course, since it's no fun to return to the rhythmic tonic, as you call it, if you haven't gotten away from it first.

The psychological principle of all of this is, of course, tension and release. In music, the principle operates on every possible level of technique: harmonic (consonance and dissonance, the direction and tonal reinforcement or lack thereof in chord progressions), melodic (wider gaps as opposed to smaller ones), rhythmic, dynamic, timbral, structural (as in the case of the Jim O'Rourke), contrapuntal (increasing number of voices), orchestration (the most obvious example being baroque music's "terraced dynamics"). I could go on and on.

It's the same principle as the so-called complication in fiction: to create knot after knot of anxiety-inducing problems that require resolution. Long ago, I was watching a suspense film and was struck by how the Rube Goldberg sequences of calamity are exactly like constantly unresolved chord progressions in Wagner.

Of course, I also happen to love music and writing that is 95-100% tension with very little resolution (if any). I'd love to make an aestheticized film about people who are half-submerged burning in lakes of fire in Hell, in which you identify with the sufferers even though relief, each time it comes, turns out to be an even worse form of torment. Salo's a bit like that, as is In the Glass Cage. So, in a way, is early Penderecki.

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By the way: In music camp, they often awaken everyone by playing a movement from a Bach partita or organ prelude or some such and leaving off the last chord, so that students shift about restlessly until someone finally screams "I can't stand it!" and plays a disgustingly full-voiced triple-forte cadence. I've heard it happen more than once.

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Glass use insane amounts of hemiola? To the point where, there almost isn't any other point?

 

[scrypt]

Actually, Glass tends to use two rhythmic units against each other *within* the bar and also modulates rhythmically in really obvious ways. He's a big fan of using agogic accents (short long long short, short long long short) over a 9/8 sixteenth note left hand and then switching to four quarter notes (long long long long) over 12/8 -- numbingly easy stuff that I always thought sounded like Hanon exercises made useless (in that they don't strengthen the hand in practical ways or reinforce fingering patterns but are still numbingly repetitious). He also likes three over four (as did Beethoven, for that matter). So no, I haven't heard the hemiola used in a lot in his pieces, not even in the one I was forced to play briefly (the Photographer). Funny, isn't it, how Glass ascended primarily in an age of stiffly sequenced synth music (late seventies, early eighties)? He was the precursor in the sense that he began writing that way long before. But he became popular when people hadn't yet learned what to do about quantization; they heard 240-sequenced eighth notes as perfect as opposed to stiff.

 

[pikawel]

This has nothing to do with anything:

I really like the strange synth on the Who's "Baba O'Reilly." Thanks.

 

[scrypt]

In a way, it does: You're thinking of non sequitur aesthetic musical value in old mongrel bands apart from any extra musical mystique or pop history importance.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must try to catch forty flinches because the inconceivably callous human testicles who are operating the pile driver outside seem finally to have given up. They seem to resume at the moment when I've finally relaxed. They might as well be pulverizing the skull of a girl scout with that device because they couldn't possibly be any more sadistic.

Night night.