Polyrhythmic Frontiers: Eurhythmics Games for the Classroom

I'm talking about poly rhythm today.

Um, and poly rhythm is a huge part of what I do in my, uh,

classes at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Um, and those classes are geared very heavily towards

classical music performance majors.

So it's a very specific context for

how I am approaching poly pool.

Um, we could talk a lot,

but talking isn't going to get us where we need to go.

Alright? So I'm gonna play and you guys are gonna walk

and we're gonna walk counterclockwise just

because we're gonna have some times

where we're not walking counterclockwise.

And so it helps

to make sure we're all going in the same direction.

Okay? We just saw the kids do it so we can do it.

Who wants to stay in the circle probation right now? Yes.

We,

I, there

just

now you're going walk

the Yes,

the,

okay, go ahead.

What The change in the piano,

this frame of,

now one of the things I find

that helps when we start adding some flaps

to do the poly rhythm is that they're quiet, okay?

No poly rhythm is ever aided by clapping louder, I promise.

Okay? So very quietly, very quiet.

The,

and

So three against four

or against three poly, we've done this before.

So again, I love Hollywood.

We do it so much in my class,

and it was a part of my training

as a EU rhythmic teacher in my group, mixed classes.

So the genesis of this presentation is not

how I teach poly rhythm,

but it's something that happened

to me when a student asked a question.

So I'm teaching my peed been pedagogy class.

We're talking about poly rhythm.

And one of my pedagogy students

who was not a traditional college age student,

but was an end of career middle school band director

who was going back to get a doctorate

and very admirable to do at the end of the career instead

of retiring or going back into school.

And he says to me, why do we spend

so much time studying H rhythm?

The music that I did doesn't have that many h anymore.

And at the time I probably didn't say anything as eloquent

as I would have liked,

because it's terrific.

Whatcha talking about? It's cool.

Uh, but that's, we have

to actually think about why you spent so much time now.

Um, so we're gonna take it from the very most

basic level of why we do poly.

And we're gonna try and go deeper and deeper

and find all of the musical goodness

that exists in studying poly so that it can make stronger,

more expressive, more responsive musicians.

All right? Poly is a tool if we use it correctly.

So the first reason you poly

that slides, they might help, they might not.

It's PowerPoint.

The other problem is it very seldom has power

or a point we're gonna try.

Alright? So the first reason, uh, we need to do this

is we're gonna learn the rhythm to perform the rhythm.

And this is the most basic thing that, that we do.

Um, where, okay, we need to learn three against four

or four against three because it is in your repertoire.

You must be prepared to perform it.

And for some students, that's enough.

That's all that, that's all they want is like, okay,

if I'm doing my show of fantasy impromptu,

how do I make sure my fingers are down at the right time?

Okay? Or if I'm playing the Charles sign held,

or if I'm playing the Stravinsky writing spring

or the rebel goes up, I mean the list of repertoire goes on.

If I'm playing in the pit for Hamilton,

or if I have to perform

the backpack song from Dorothy Explorer,

how do I do four's three?

Okay? It is everywhere. It's in the music.

And I think that that, that in and of itself works, right?

Um, there is a part of this that we have to,

uh, well, I hope to acknowledge the fact that students

who are prepared to play poly, just on the surface,

are better prepared for the music that is

of now and of the future.

Um, as classical music

diversifies and becomes more reliant on the music

of the African dacian, it will be more poly written.

So the study of poly rhythm in order

to perform the poly rhythm is

also looking forward, okay?

It's, it's seeing where classical music is going to go.

And I want my students to be prepared to do that, right?

But most of the time they're playing music

that doesn't necessarily have poly rhythms.

So we have to get, go a little bit deeper in order

to aid our discussion.

I just, there's some notation.

Now, this notation is not the only way

to look at three against four, four against three.

This is a way and I think is the simple best way.

When I was playing in four, I was thinking in 12 eight

and I was giving you do,

and when you were clapping the three against it,

you were clapping half.

And when I switched, I switched into three, two,

where you were walking three half notes

and then clapping four dotted quarter notes against it.

Alright? So key rhythms, um,

they positive rhythms in the middle or result in rhythms.

Sometimes the, the word that I used.

Um, and it just helps us make sure that we have the, the,

we're all on the same page.

You might look at this and say, but I want three or

or four against three in three four,

which means my three against four is in 1216.

That's fine, that's fine. Okay?

We could also talk about it as a,

but this is going to help us as we move on

through the exercises to make sure

that we're all working on the same thing too.

Okay? So now the next

reason we learn is vertical alignment.

At some point in your development as a musician,

it was a new thing to say that this happens

and this happens and they're aligned at to some degree.

Um, polyrhythms gives so many opportunities to explore

that vertical alignment relationship

between no values, right?

In order to explore vertical alignment,

you need to be in a trio.

A trio that's three people go

trio.

Okay? So in your, if you have a quartet,

that's fine, you just have to have a standpoint, okay?

So you guys will double it stand.

So this exercise, uh, I call that we're going

to be doing, um, I like space a lot.

Just got a new puppy. His name is Kepler, all about, uh,

planetary laws of planetary orbit.

Anyway, um, so here's what we are going do.

This, this just is there to help you so

that like in the middle of it with your like, wait, what,

what direction I supposed to go again, this will help.

Um, so we're going to do four

or three against four, which means we're gonna have

to four dotted quarter notes in our, and we're,

and we'll build from there.

You need to be shoulder to shoulder with your

line and you're gonna walk

around the circle counterclockwise as we do it.

So this is great.

Just turn the other way and you'll be good right now

your feet, your feet will always be the pulse

of our four dotted quarter nodes, okay?

So your feet will always be in alignment

with everybody else in your group.

You should be walking together,

let there be no one left behind.

Now the person who is closest to the inside of the circle

does the very difficult for against for,

alright, Hey, citizens are hard, okay?

But you've got this going. Now

the person who's at the center of the group, the middle,

you've got well against four,

those are our subdivisions.

Oh, and then the person on the outside just has

to do the three against you, okay?

Now the way I want you to think about your line is

that your line is a peanut butter sandwich.

Alright? If you have a peanut butter sandwich

with no peanut butter, it falls apart.

Okay? I know this from experience when I've packed my

children's lunch and just thrown bread in

instead of making exam.

Okay? Yeah, they were real happy about that

and then I did it again Anyway, so the 12 person

is the peanut butter that holds the sandwich together

of our poly rhythm.

All right? The four

and the three need to line up with the 12, right?

This is our vertical alignment, right?

So you're gonna walk me hands, it's gonna be great.

And then I'm gonna say switch.

And when I say switch, the person who is

on the, in doing the four next four walks behind the roof

and all of the rhythm stretch that

lie down, okay?

What could possibly go wrong? Here we go.

So when we, it's almost like there's not enough time

to get where you need to go, which means

you never stop moving.

Alright? Remember the space thing,

orbit and rotation.

Okay? So you're thinking

1, 2, 3, 2, 3.

And your group is making a circle

as it makes a circle, okay?

Continuous slowing movement while you keep track

of your vertical alignment.

Okay? Here we go.

Go ahead and just get established. And

it would be so interesting to see it from above

to see the dots move.

That's great. So that's one way that we can really reinforce

that vertical alignment.

Alright? What we're doing here right now is figuring out

placement of eight nodes in compound meters, right?

Which we've all been there where we're trying

to teach placement.

This is one way to reinforce where, um,

each articulation occurs on the pulse

because poly rhythm gives you an articulation on

every division of the pulse.

All polyrhythms have articulation

and every rhythm of the pulse,

if we put them into time signatures, like,

like I have, okay?

There's another way that we put in vertical alignment.

And for this, I need your trio to join another trio so

that we have a sex tech.

If there's one trio left over, just hold up.

But I think, I think we're we're good.

Very nice is

what I call tables.

We don't need this

because you guys are the right number of people.

So awesome. I,

so in your sense text, you're going to pretend

that you're sitting at the table

for dinner, you're standing, right?

You're at a table, one person is going

to be at the head of the table.

There will be two people on one side of the table

and three people on the other.

Okay? Go ahead and get yourself set up with that. Okay?

Now it sort of looks like we might be getting set up

to rumble here a little bit.

Um, and we do say that it is three against four

and four against three.

So it sort of has the, you know, a connotation

where there could be some conflict there.

Um, I've had students ask me,

why can't it be three with four?

That's so sweet.

So maybe it, maybe it should be,

we started here looking anyway.

So here's what's gonna happen.

The person who's head at the head of the table,

you're our downbeat, okay?

Congratulations you guys. Absolutely.

So this is a saving still clapping, guys,

what did you call the downbeat?

So you guys are the four,

you guys are alright Now shall we switch

it to four against three?

We're just doing three against four and 12.

Eight, four against three and three two. Why?

So why don't we get established with the three?

So it will be 1, 2, 3, 1.

You just do two, three, yep.

1, 2, 3.

You see how that is? Just do your part

good.

No, no, no, no, no. So you had some good exploration

moments there, right?

But you see those, that orange.

That orange, which protein?

So you're going through around, can I ask a question?

Yes. Did you want,

so everybody takes only one clap, is that correct?

Yes. Okay. Yes. Alright.

And downs to both groups,

not so

go through two repetitions

and then in time everybody moves one position.

Counter clock every, every,

but don't drop any beats.

Don't get me set. Move time.

Alright, go ahead and work amongst yourselves.

We'll see how messy it can be. Don't

now at this point really clear

where the table is, okay?

Having the clarity of position really helps this exercise be

you have to try

every measure ahead.

Alignment really helps us see the relationship of the pulse

and that cross against the pulse, okay?

Um, it also requires a huge amount of like

personal accountability for making sure you know

where the rhythm is.

Okay? So, so when I'm working with students, people

who can do the whole rhythm by themselves perfectly fine.

All of a sudden when they only have one stinking part of it,

it becomes so much more challenging.

I wonder if our threes are stronger than four. Okay?

I wonder if that's because we're starting out a three.

If we started out a four

and would be, I get our fours would be solid.

It's all perspective, right?

There's a perspective issue there.

Um, if I sat down

and play the three, you might actually switch it out.

Good.

Three, I play your

Right, like

I like to embrace chaos just a little bit sometimes, okay?

But you can embrace, okay?

So those are two ways to work on our vertical alignment.

The next thing is horizontal sensations.

Alright? Um, if you're teaching poly rhythm

or you're learning poly and you're only thinking about

vertical alignment, you're missing the point

of why we have poly.

Poly is a different way to move through the space, alright?

And composers exploit that poly rhythm in order to mess

with the sensation of the music moving around.

Alright? So you need to have part,

you can feel free to break out if you

just go first next to you.

So with your partner, we're going

to explore the space in various different ways.

We're gonna go back to being in 12 eight.

So four is going to be our frame of reference.

We're going to clap with three hack notes against our four

dotted quarter notes.

When we, sometimes we might not be

first no hands, one of you

will be walking the dotted quarters, one

of you will be walking the half max.

You can walk anywhere on the stage.

I don't need my pretty circle,

but I need you to take the same amount of space

regardless of which note value you staff in.

Now we have to think about, oh, this person's taller than me

so I have to take bigger or whatever.

That's fine. Just be aware of the space. Alright?

When I say switch,

you switch which rhythm you're doing, okay?

Think about how this moves you fold.

You want us to be side by side, right? Yes. By side.

The

I love,

good.

Now face your partner, you're not walking

Anymore, You're gonna explore the

space in a different way.

One of you going to clap the other going clap,

but I want you to build up.

So the measure build up from the bottom.

Now around,

you're gonna mark in the space in front of you.

The most common way we do this is conduct.

So one person can conduct or the other person conduct three.

If you don't just mark the space in front

of,

in one hand.

And what I tell is, is I say, well, it's career prep.

If you need to, you can

work at the works for you.

So in a student studying poly rhythm learns the rhythm,

understands the vertical relationship

and the horizontal sensations you're doing pretty good.

Alright? The, the student has

had some quality musical experiences,

but there's more that can be gotten from us

and we want to keep getting deeper and deeper.

So the next level

of learning is plural attentions.

Plural what? Plural Attentions. Okay.

Your ability to pay attention to lots

of different things at the same time, right?

Poly rhythm in and of itself is plural, right?

We've got these two opposing, or not opposing,

but coexist rhythms, alright?

Um, that you're, that you're paying attention to.

But we're gonna do an exercise now where we're going to try

and pay attention to both the horizontal

and the vertical at the same time.

And if you thought the tables were chaotic,

this is really gonna get you going.

You need to be in a trio. Trio.

It can be a different trio than your other trio.

If, if you want to switch it up, go ahead, get it in tree.

1, 2, 3, go. 1, 2, 3.

I'd like this Next exercise

is called a machine,

which doesn't sound very eurythmic istic,

but we're gonna, we're gonna do something called machines.

And the reason for this is our polys are going

to interlock like the gears in a

machine and it will create

this sense of forward movement while you're paying attention

to the vertical placement.

The easiest way to explain this is that you're going

to be doing a poly rhythm in your group in canon

with each other, displaced by one beat.

But if you say all of those things

together, that can happen.

That can cause a express reaction, um, in some people.

And I don't want them to be.

So I, I, I did some analysis.

This is sort of what look for one

we'll be performing the first one

where you've got your four dock quarters against the three

half, the second person is going

to do the same exact thing, but starting on the two

and the third person's going the same t thing,

but starting on the three.

But I look at that and I'm like, what?

This one looks a little bit better.

This one satisfies the percussionist in me, okay?

Because I can see where the line is.

So if we're performing this correctly,

you will never be clapping with anybody in your group

that you'll fill in all of the subdivisions.

Now, in order to make this work really nicely,

you have to be stepping the pulse, okay?

You're gonna be stepping in place.

I don't want you to have

to worry about long on the stage just to happen.

Step in your pulse and your feet should always be together.

If your group has a pulse, you have a chance,

but if you have no pulse, you are dead.

So please have a pulse right?

When you're getting the set up, it can be a little like

who starts first, where we go?

Um, mess around, see if you can get it to work.

I'm gonna float around and see if we can get,

are we all the same thing

but just starting at a different time?

Yes. And what are we clapping? Four against? Three.

Okay. Right. Clapping. Four. And we're stepping three.

Stepping three together.

Should I do it with the group to Yes.

Will you guys

group extra practice?

Yeah. So give the three going your feet. Two, three.

So they've got the, the three going their feet.

And the way I count this off when I'm performing it is I

give two measures just to get,

make sure everybody knows when we're starting.

And the first time I might think I might say like this

1, 2, 3,

I say 1, 1 1

and I'm handing that person a different down.

So the burden of figuring out

what the rhythm is is not actually on any individual.

We're still just doing the four against. Okay, let's try it.

Three. 1, 1, 1.

Okay, that was good. That was good.

We were like, where you, you heard where the notes were like

where they locked in a little, let's try it.

That's

that was okay.

Should be gonna be messy and that's okay.

Messy

machine like that.

Yeah. If you have the

different elements possibly attention to right

now for today, that is the hardest group exercise.

But the next area we're going to is the area where

no one has gone before.

This is our poly frontier.

So if I can get Stacy with you, not like,

uh, not the musk space,

but more so

in any amount of time, there are an infinite number

of ways to divide that time.

And if you want to think about cosmology,

that time is being divided in all

of those infinite ways at the same time.

Simultaneous. Okay?

If we think about the infinite,

it gets a little problematic.

So, so we're just going to think about

how we can have simultaneous divisions of time into threes

and floors, which is what we've been doing.

But instead think about note values or placement.

We're going to think about it as simultaneous occurring

tempos where we are really experiencing

temporal relationships.

If I were to, if somebody were to say,

why do you think composers use polyrhythms?

Who've got 30 seconds to go, I would say

to imply multiple tempos at the same time.

Like I think that would be my general causality.

It's an assumption. And we never try

to assume why composers make any decisions.

'cause that's a dark, dark road to go down.

But, um, these temple relationships are I think one of the

most valuable things that we can experience.

And also one that I don't necessarily expect my students

to ever understand that they're experiencing

it at that time.

Because if you think about the infinite, it's problematic.

Okay? So you may have seen in music something

that looks like this, okay?

Sometimes we call this the metric population where we use

a note value to establish a rate of movement

and then change what

that node value is while keeping the rate of movement

the same, right?

I like to call it temporal modulation

because we're not necessarily changing leader,

we're changing temporal, right?

And so this is going to be a temporal modulation exercise.

If we're doing, we're in our four

and we're doing R three, gets the four,

and then this becomes

the four and all of a sudden being slowed down.

Okay? So we're gonna, we're gonna mess around with that.

If I move this way, it's a reduction temp by 25%.

Does that matter? 25%? No.

I hope you never see music that says slow down 25%.

But like I said, if we go the other way,

if we go the other way, it's an increase of 33%.

Alright? So we'll get slower and, and faster.

Now stop thinking about this. Don't pay attention to this.

Just listen and go. Okay, here we go.

So we'll start, here's your core

In your hands.

That's, but also you

Can About

Now Even slower

One

Guys. Nice guys, thanks

for experimenting.

Do how

and your perspective, thanks

for being rhythm nerds with me guys.

Ooh, are there any questions or thoughts?

I would've guessed getting slower would be easier,

but I found slower to be way harder.

Slow is almost always hard.

Yeah, I, I, I, um, the way we move through space,

I love slow movement,

but it requires so much more effort

to do with integrity and placement.

So I'm, I'm not surprised with that.

The other, uh, thing that happens

is when we were getting faster,

we were dividing our beats into fours, which tends

to be more comfortable than when we were getting slower.

We were dividing our beats into threes, which is

just a little bit more unnatural to us.

So my slides are in the,

is gonna be sending out in case like you want

to look at the diagrams and try and adapt

and use any of the, of the materials.

And if you have any questions, my email

addresses also in the slides.

I'm, I'm happy to correspond with you

and help you figure out how to continue finding new ways

of thanks.

So.