Meshuggah don't actually use polyrhythms much, they use polymeters. That's where the notes inside the bars all click to the same grid (as opposed to the flammy weirdness of these polyrhythms), but the bars themselves are running against each other, starting and stopping in different places. But it's an extremely common mistake. I'm not sure if I have the numbers right (someone else can correct me), but I think the especially famous pattern in Bleed has Tomas playing 3/4 on his feet, against 4/4 on his hands. If I have that right, then every twelve clicks the feet and the hands will match back up. Polyrhythms are usually played between each click, as in this video, and they're all weird and flammy because the grids snap to different places, whereas in Meshuggah, it's the bars themselves that usually move around, but ultimately everyone is playing along the same sixteenth note grid.
African music is basically polyrhythmic and its a up to listener to figure out what the downbeats are. And some of the rhythm are internal. It's why you can dance to any African song.
It's easier to understand this kind of theoretical aspects of music from videos like this on RU-vid then music theory manuals like We had in school.Nice job...really good job
I agree but I can't hear the separate notes (or rhythms) at all when he asks to try to pick them out separately. I just hear everything that is being played every time so what's the method or trick to hear or concentrate on them separately?
This was fascinating! It just goes to show how a simple change in sequence creates such a profound difference. Just that slight offset in the melody forms a separate rhythm, hence polyrhytm? I must know, those triplets... were they all the same note? (E-flat?) It was hard to tell at times because the quarter note (C-flat?) sounded very much a part of it at times. This could be one reason you emphasized listening to each one separately, in order to get a better understanding of what's happening. Music is very inspiring and it's never too late to learn! Thank you for this video!! 🙂
I had to research this because of a freestyle rapper. reactors and comments talked about how he pretty much does whatever he wants at this point but still sounds good.
I love your method of explanation. As a music teacher, it loans a lot of perspective to me as far as answering the question "what is the easiest and most universal way to describe something to someone who knows nothing?" - That being said, as a music lover, I find your familiar background music very distracting!
I have noticed that as I practice Chopin, my polyrhythms get to mathematical precision. First place I encountered polyrhythms is in Chopin's Nocturne in Eb. Before that, when I was playing Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach, while I did encounter triplets for example, in the second movement of Piano Concerto no. 21, those triplets were always over quarter notes or longer, thus making it not a polyrhythm so much as giving a more waltz like feel to a time signature like 4/4. I can play short bits of polyrhythms, like what I find in Chopin's Nocturne in Eb faithfully. But when the polyrhythm becomes a whole section or piece like in Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu, I get intimidated by just how long I have to play that polyrhythm. Sure, short bits of polyrhythm, I can get to mathematical precision, but as the polyrhythm gets longer and longer, that mathematical precision becomes less and less, and at some point, I go from the polyrhythm to no polyrhythm, as my hands catch up in note speed. And guess what? It is those long lasting polyrhythms that I need to have at mathematical precision throughout the section with the polyrhythm, like in Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu. Something like 3:8 that I find in Chopin's Nocturne in Eb, can just be estimated, because it is only for 1 measure
@@kivantaleschian9269 I’m confused,it can’t be 6/8 bc triplets count as 1 beat, there is 4 triplets so it makes 4/4 . There would have been 2 more triplets to make it 6/8 and 6/8 means six beats in a measure and the 8 note gets 1 beat
Ngl, I came here from Marine. Outside of Mori, she might be the most ambitious member of hololive. Not only are all of her songs radically different despite basically being about the same thing: but her song Unison actually uses Polyrhythms and sounds like almost nothing i've ever heard before. But yeah, thank you for the explaination. :)
I stop at 13. What about irrational rhythms? Taking the four beats and squeezing in another note for example, keeping the total time the same. With sufficient practice, playing polyrhythms can be done by feel.
My favourite illustration of polyrhythm is Bernstein's dissection of a single page from Le Sacre du Printemps ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OWeQXTnv_xU.htmlm10s
okay but two rhythms against each other that are in different time signatures? Is that still a polyrhythm? I get the different subdivisions in the same time signature.
Bleed uses polymetres which is different to polyrhythms. The conflicting rhythms are using the same subdivision but resolve over several bars, where as a polyrhythm uses conflicting subdivisions that resolve usually within a bar or a few beats. I haven't deeply analysed the whole song, but I know the framework of most of the song is using herta patterns that don't resolve in a single bar. Just analysing the first 8 bars before the vocals come in, you could say it's a polymetre of 12/8 (guitar/kick) against 4/4 (snare/cymbals) that resolves every 3 bars. (only the first few bars, there's a lot of varying parts.) The herta pattern used here is 2 32nd notes then 2 16th notes. To simplify it, that's a pattern fitting in the space of 3 16th notes. A bar of 4/4 fits 16 16th notes, so a repeating 3 pattern is going to go over the bar line. The pattern won't start on the 1st beat again until 3 bars of 4/4 have passed. That's just the rhythm of the guitar though, the melody has those bends coming in on every 2nd bar, making the whole thing more complicated. If you want to be thorough and treat melody and rhythm combined as a whole thing, the guitar part is really this big 6 bar monster. As a listener though it's easier to think of it as a 4/4 with a bunch of syncopation. That's just the intro though, the song mixes it up a lot but seems to mostly stick to this idea of using hertas to displace the rhythm against 4/4.
