Polyrhythms

[arin]

What exercises would you recommend to practise polyrhythms?

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[Steve Holmes]

Thats a tough one.
Unfortunately I don't believe there's an excercise that will make all polyrythm's easy, they must be approached individually. However once you learn a useful approach, you can use it on all of them.
One of the reasons polyrythms are so tough is because they involve a little math and are hard to learn "from ear" which is how a lot of drummers try to learn things (myself included). You'll need your ears for sure, but a little brain power as well. The good news is the math is simple.
There are misconceptions about polyrythms I think. They are not limnited to difficult and odd rates over eachother. The relationship between a quarter note and two eighth notes is 2 over 1 (or 2 against 1). This is a polyrythm too.
My favorite polyrythm is 3 over 4. I talk about this in great length on my video actually. Wer'e in four and I want three over it so I double 3 to six. Six over four is quarter note triplets, easy enough. Play quarter note triplets and start accenting every other one, you'll start to hear the three. Now play only the ones you're accenting. Bam.

There is actually a mathmatical formula for figuring out anything over anything. Say you want "A" rate over "B" rate.
A x B = C
A= the rate youre trying to play over the metyer you're in.
B= The meter you're in. It ALSO equels the amount of notes you must begin accenting on when you find out C.
C= The amount of notes required in the bar to calculate the polyrythm. (The subdivision like 8th's 16th's etc..)

FOR EXAMPLE: 5 over 4.
Wer'e in four and want 5 over it.
5 x 4 = 20 so we need 20 notes in the bar. That means playing quintuplets (five even notes per four quarter notes is 20 total).
Now you accent every fourth note on the subdivision and those accents are your polyrythm. Five over four = every fourth quintuplet. Learn how it sounds and then only play the accents.
This applies to all polrthyms you want to figure out.
I should note that I learned all this from RALPH HUMPHRY. Check out his book, "Even in the odds".


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webmaster, www.houseofdrumming.com

[This message has been edited by Steve Holmes (edited January 21, 2002).]

[jonthibault]

Yeah, check out Steve's video. He does metric modulation, and really breaks it down, goes over groupings of fives (phrased in sixteenths). I learned a lot from it.

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Jack

[TooJazzy]

If you have a computer and some kind of MIDI program you can learn polyrhytms lot easier..
just put the lick there and play along. It helps alot.. with quintuplets and stuff. Counting can be very difficult first but it helps too.

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[PETELEGG]

I have found that to really play these things its better to find the pulse which is somewhere in there. You gotta feel it inside without thinking like its just playing n your head. Also, no matter how much you practice these you gotta just do them with other musicians otherwise that won't mke sense to you. Try playing with your favorite record. Maybe its a Britney Spears song(ha ha) then hear it in your head because you know you've sung it and heard without even thinking. Then just imply shit over the bar. It took me a while. You just can't really think about it. You gotta just do it.

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