Ways of Thinking about Rhythm

[rikhyray]

It is mainly South Indian -Carnatic system, even Ravi Shankar or Zakir Hussein studied it to get better in rhythm.
Since these guys come from musical families they start even earlier I saw 2 years old grandson of Vikku Vinayakram keeping the beat while his uncles practiced.
That mathematic is like second nature. i noticed that SelvaGanesh who worked in my band before joining John Mc. was even using the formulas for every day tasks like memorising phone numbers -taka tom taka takitetakadimi taka takita takadimi tom ta-dhi-gi-na-tom takita takita takadimi iwould be 212 7549335

[andydes]

Of course, the 332 pattern is most obvious and prevalent in dancehall and reggaeton beats, which are practically gauranteed to make you want to move your body.

Well, that's a matter of taste. Dancehall never makes me want to dance. Ponding techno all the way. But each to his own.

Great tips though guys. Sorry I don't have anything constructive to add, I'll leave it to the experts.. Carry on.

[MrYellow]

I've heard Steve Smith (a fusion drummer) talk about an Indian system
he's discovered which thinks of polyrythyms as waves.

When playing 5/4 6/8 4/4 together, instead of practicing 3 over 4 and 5
over 3 and 5 over 4.... He sees waves of which show where the patterns
match up together, so it's a lot less to think about.

-Ben

[kennerb]

I'm no tabla pro but I will say that rhythm and timing suddenly made a lot of sense to me once I started playing them. I have a hard time with the western way of looking at timing and meter. Once I got my head around phrasings and how they are open and closed and work in cycles I noticed a lot of my counting hang ups fell off. I also found that having a system of being able to speak the phrasings while I played helped immensely. I feel like just speaking them is practicing. I am not a slide rule kind of guy and the usual counting while playing was always something that was unnatural to me. It's interesting because I notice a lot of musicians mouth the sounds that they are playing. It seems like it is more natural to some people. I know it is for me.


this is a great post. I'd love to hear a lot more input on this.

[rikhyray]

If you cant say,sing it you will never be able to play it, be it tabla or mrdangam, MPC pads or whatever instrument.. "bol" or "konakol" is using easy sounds that can be spoken easily even at high speed:
1-ta
2 taka
3 takita
4 takadimi
5 tarikitatom or takatakita (2+3) or takitatake (3+2)
6 takitatakita
7.takitatakadimi
8 takadimitakadimi or even faster takadimitakajunu
9 takadimitarikitatom
these are just basics, then you can "funk" them up through gaps like
ta-ka-di-mi for 7 or tadhi-ginatom or ta-dhi-ginatom for 6 etcetcetc

[njh]

you people think to much

[MrYellow]

Speaking of tabla...... I hear traditionally they practice vocally for 8 years
before being allowed to touch an instrument.

-Ben

[kennerb]

Speaking of tabla...... I hear traditionally they practice vocally for 8 years
before being allowed to touch an instrument.

-Ben

I've heard something like that myself. All I can say is my teacher got pretty ticked when he saw me trying to write down a tala. He insisted everything be remembered by it being spoken rather than just memorizing the words by looking at them.