Let's talk some metric modulation

[Clint Hopkins]

I think 'Walking on the Moon' from Richman's "Last Arrival" is available on iTunes if anyone is interested.

[Manu]

Ah right, that. I don't have the Joel Taylor track, but from your example there (I can read it now, thanks!), yeah, that's a pretty typical usage.

Weckl uses the heck out of that particular idea, usually when he's playing an afro-cuban type of thing .. accents on the bell of the cymbal, with the roll doubles split between the snare and the ride body.

Joel Taylor does just that, splitting between ride bell, body and hi hat, latter on that same song. I am gonna check out the sticking see if I can get it.

Joel does that between the bell of the ride and hats at different times during the tune but the time in question is all hats, I'm pretty certain. I really like the outro when he uses the china on the accents and the downbeat coincides with beat 2 instead of beat 4.

Yeah I was meaning he does the ride bell thingy later on.

And I think Joel does a great job in that album.

[Gaddabout]

I don't think metric modulation has to be a mathematical challenge to be interesting or musical. One of the most common forms is going from regular time to halftime or vice versa. Or mixing double time with any of these. I employ all three quite a bit to give a song direction -- something I've learned from Steve Gadd. If you start at the most simplest point, like halftime, and build on it, you can maintain the energy in a song over a much longer time.

As for the gymnastics, I've learned three things have to be happening to make it work:

1) The drummer has to own both starting meter and new meter
2) The musicians he plays with have to be able to keep time on their own
3) It has to make sense somehow, perhaps not rhythmically, but maybe at least at a moment in the music after everything common has been stated and you're going to use it to transition to something else. I think of it like that brief floating pause in a moving car when you drop the clutch to shift it into overdrive -- the rhythm of the car is off-kilter for just a movement, but it feels natural when the next big gear drops in smoothly.

When those things aren't happening it brings everything to a halt or it usually just feels like bad wanking to me. Since the concept and the terminology has become so widespread, I've heard more poor uses of it from the local crew. But not so much in the big dollar productions. Not yet, anyway.

[circh bustom]

Gaddabout- #3 s one of the best analogies Ive heard in a long time. Kudos!!

[Josiah]

surprising this book hasnt been mentioned yet

'Illusions in Rhythm for Drum set by Osami Mizuno in collaboration with Vinnie Colaiuta'

http://home.att.ne.jp/delta/osami/Illusions-RD.htm


also the UnReel DrumBook

http://www.amazon.com/Unreel-Drum-Book- ... 0757917410


between those two, years of study, both in learning how and seeing the applications by vince

in my experience most musicians cant handle true modulation, they just dont have the internal time confidence and it throws them in a playing situation. the most applicable stuff that seems to be able to be used is more accenting odd rhythms inside whatever is going on. marking out various groupings in the common values.

as far as using the tool, i think it has to be instinctive and internalized so that its simply part of the flow of musical ideas, if your consciously thinking about doing something, then its no longer an auto response to the music, its a premeditated wanking

[Manu]

"in my experience most musicians cant handle true modulation, they just dont have the internal time confidence and it throws them in a playing situation. the most applicable stuff that seems to be able to be used is more accenting odd rhythms inside whatever is going on. marking out various groupings in the common values."

That's my case at least, I can accent an odd pulse over a regular beat but not shift the whole thing towards it. I guess it takes true mastery to pull it off and make it musical. Vinnie is the drummer that pushes the envelope with it the most that I have witnessed, even sometimes to the point of barely making it through.

[Gaddabout]

"in my experience most musicians cant handle true modulation, they just dont have the internal time confidence and it throws them in a playing situation. the most applicable stuff that seems to be able to be used is more accenting odd rhythms inside whatever is going on. marking out various groupings in the common values."

That's my case at least, I can accent an odd pulse over a regular beat but not shift the whole thing towards it. I guess it takes true mastery to pull it off and make it musical. Vinnie is the drummer that pushes the envelope with it the most that I have witnessed, even sometimes to the point of barely making it through.

I *love* Gavin's term "illusion" because I think it perfectly illustrates what it is: Just an illusion. Metric modulation sounds more dazzling than I think it really is. The question is how much time have you spent training your body to feel quintuplets or septuplets? Probably minimal to no time at all, if you're even aware of their existence. But I bet you've got quarter-note and eighth-note triplets down to the point of being able to pick them up mid-phrase against an eighth-note pulse. It's exactly the same process, but we've just come to take for granted triplets and don't think of them as exotic like any of the other odd-value groupings. Everyone had to count triplets to start, but I bet you don't even THINK about how to count them now, not even when everything else is squared in 2s and 4s. You just play them. You know where the notes fit against the pulse, so you just play them as you feel them. Same goes for duplets against a dotted-quarter-pulse in 6/ or 12/8 -- you just feel those, even though to the listener you've completely hi-jacked the meter.

Where I think Vinnie raises the bar on all of this stuff is how much space he'll create in between metrically modulated fills. It's one thing to command the whole meter, but it's another thing to do it in a fill or for a couple of measures while comping against a burning solo and do it without playing many notes. To me, that's when he's really going WAY out on a ledge. A lot of guys can go for MORE notes, but Vinnie often dials it backwards, and that's what makes a lot of his playing just breathtaking.

[DeeP_FRieD]

It all breaks down to asserted time feel...

If you play the metric mod like your still in the previous tempo, it will sound like the previous tempo with some weird stuff happening.

If you play the mod like it is it's own organism, then it will take the listeners ear to there, which is where Vinnie's stuff happens. It's not about more or less notes, but rather pure accuracy in regards to time and intention.

[Clint Hopkins]

I really like this quote from drum guru Richard Wilson:

"Drums are a matter of feeling, so if you use intellect to learn first, you will not be as good an improviser.
The student should learn how to intellectualize after."

Matt, great point about internalizing the subdivisions.

[Manu]

"in my experience most musicians cant handle true modulation, they just dont have the internal time confidence and it throws them in a playing situation. the most applicable stuff that seems to be able to be used is more accenting odd rhythms inside whatever is going on. marking out various groupings in the common values."

That's my case at least, I can accent an odd pulse over a regular beat but not shift the whole thing towards it. I guess it takes true mastery to pull it off and make it musical. Vinnie is the drummer that pushes the envelope with it the most that I have witnessed, even sometimes to the point of barely making it through.

I *love* Gavin's term "illusion" because I think it perfectly illustrates what it is: Just an illusion. Metric modulation sounds more dazzling than I think it really is. The question is how much time have you spent training your body to feel quintuplets or septuplets? Probably minimal to no time at all, if you're even aware of their existence. But I bet you've got quarter-note and eighth-note triplets down to the point of being able to pick them up mid-phrase against an eighth-note pulse. It's exactly the same process, but we've just come to take for granted triplets and don't think of them as exotic like any of the other odd-value groupings. Everyone had to count triplets to start, but I bet you don't even THINK about how to count them now, not even when everything else is squared in 2s and 4s. You just play them. You know where the notes fit against the pulse, so you just play them as you feel them. Same goes for duplets against a dotted-quarter-pulse in 6/ or 12/8 -- you just feel those, even though to the listener you've completely hi-jacked the meter.

Where I think Vinnie raises the bar on all of this stuff is how much space he'll create in between metrically modulated fills. It's one thing to command the whole meter, but it's another thing to do it in a fill or for a couple of measures while comping against a burning solo and do it without playing many notes. To me, that's when he's really going WAY out on a ledge. A lot of guys can go for MORE notes, but Vinnie often dials it backwards, and that's what makes a lot of his playing just breathtaking.

Great post, you are right, quintuplets and septuplets are kinda exotic for most folks in regular musical genres.

Also Clint, that quote you posted, that would annihilate the current teaching paradigm, yet i must say I agree with that wholeheartedly.