5041  5/8s

Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:55:12 -0700
From: "Igor Polk" <ipolk@virtuar.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] 5/8s
To: <tango-l@mit.edu>

Konstantin wrote:

.. alternating or mixing 3-long and 2-long rhythm blocks is
something common in African drum lines) which was something
incomprehensible, with its implied 5/8 time signature, to western
Europe.

Konstantin,

Can you give me some examples, I mean what records are records available, of
this 3 and 2 drum lines and 5.8 time signature musical pieces? I am very
interested.

Others might be interested as well, so I am asking it through the list.


Igor Polk

Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:36:47 -0700
From: "Konstantin Zahariev" <anfractuoso@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] 5/8s
To: Tango-L <tango-l@mit.edu>
<ade549600707181036x715beff4v2c55ba480b563719@mail.gmail.com>

Dear Igor,

Someone wrote a whole PhD on these drum lines (or was it D.Mus.); I
just have to find my notes and the materials at home. Will follow up
soon.

Konstantin
Victoria, Canada


On 7/18/07, Igor Polk <ipolk@virtuar.com> wrote:

> Konstantin wrote:
>
> .. alternating or mixing 3-long and 2-long rhythm blocks is
> something common in African drum lines) which was something
> incomprehensible, with its implied 5/8 time signature, to western
> Europe.
>
> Konstantin,
>
> Can you give me some examples, I mean what records are records available, of
> this 3 and 2 drum lines and 5.8 time signature musical pieces? I am very
> interested.
>
> Others might be interested as well, so I am asking it through the list.
>
>
> Igor Polk
>
>
>

Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:08:53 -0400
From: Jeff Gaynor <jjg@jqhome.net>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] 5/8s
To: Tango-L <tango-l@mit.edu>

Konstantin Zahariev wrote:

>Dear Igor,
>
>Someone wrote a whole PhD on these drum lines (or was it D.Mus.); I
>just have to find my notes and the materials at home. Will follow up
>soon.
>
>Konstantin
>Victoria, Canada
>
>
>On 7/18/07, Igor Polk <ipolk@virtuar.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Konstantin wrote:
>>
>>.. alternating or mixing 3-long and 2-long rhythm blocks is
>>something common in African drum lines) which was something
>>incomprehensible, with its implied 5/8 time signature, to western
>>Europe.
>>
>>

Nope. It was not popular because it was not regular. Heck, the Russians
were doing it and Luigi Madonis (1690 - 1767), a pupil of Vivaldi wrote
a piece in 5/8. Many, many great old hymns and chants are in anything
other than regular meter. One that pops into my mind is a choral by
Phillip Nikolai (1556 - 1608) in 13/8, written it was said after the
Plague had wiped out almost everyone else in his town. The point is that
common folks running around a long time ago often wrote very irregular
music. It is a fiction that nobody knew about it until Africans
introduced it. Generally it came about in an attempt to mimic very
closely the rhythms of speech, which are notoriously irregular. (There
was even a very highly developed theory on this in the spoken word in
the Baroque and I remember a particularly intriguing class based on the
writings of Georg Lessing as applied to Shakespeare -- much more
dramatic done that way.) Africans just made it a whole lot more fun and
sexier which does wonders for anything's acceptance.

As for a very famous example -- which has no influence at all from
African rhythms -- look no further than the driving 1st movement of
Holst's "The Planets -- Mars, the Bringer of War." It not merely is in
5/4 but also has hemiolas in 5/2 at the same time. Listen to that and
you will pick up on the "limping" feeling it gives and then you will be
a bit more likely to perceive it in other music. Try to march to it.
You'll see. [Footnote: One of the most beautiful pieces written is
Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead" in 5/8. Get the old Fritz Reiner
recording. Very sad and tango-like in its ethos.]

NOTE: Tango rhythms are syncopated but within a regular framework. You
will find driving 2/4 pieces with 3+3+2 (candombe) rhythms all over the
place, but this is very different from a piece written using 5/8 as the
main time signature which is too irregular to dance to. People who are
not too familiar with music gets this wrong all the time. Snarky
comment: Doesn't matter because they also tend to ignore it and dance it
regularly anyway...

One more cultural aside for those slightly bewildered people from
Argentina. There have been many instances of African influence in
American culture. Up until the 1960's when the Civil Rights movement
came into full swing these influences were completely and unjustly
ignored. The style of corrective scholarship, as we may call it, that
came into being tended to overstate the case to make it at all (does
anyone remember the serious attempts to prove Beethove was Black?) This
looks very odd to non-Americans who are a lot more comfortable with
their history. Case in point is that quirky book by Robert Farris
Thompson "Tango the Art History of Love" which leaves one with the
distinct impression that tango is all but an African dance and that
nobody white danced tango until very recently.

Cheers,

Jeff G

Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:49:29 -0600
From: Tom Stermitz <stermitz@tango.org>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] 5/8s
To: Tango-L <tango-l@mit.edu>


On Jul 18, 2007, at 2:08 PM, Jeff Gaynor wrote:

> NOTE: Tango rhythms are syncopated but within a regular framework. You
> will find driving 2/4 pieces with 3+3+2 (candombe) rhythms all over
> the
> place, but this is very different from a piece written using 5/8 as
> the
> main time signature which is too irregular to dance to. People who are
> not too familiar with music gets this wrong all the time. Snarky
> comment: Doesn't matter because they also tend to ignore it and
> dance it
> regularly anyway...
> ...
> Cheers,
>
> Jeff G

Yes, tangos play with various rhythmic counterpoints, including 3-3-2
and others.

It would be incorrect to say it is impossible to dance in 5. 5/8 is
pretty fast, but 5/4 is certainly a dance rhythm. Eastern European
dances often have very complex and fast rhythms.

The half-and-half is a well-known (or not) ballroom dance in 5/4 from
the teens and twenties. It is fun to play a half-and-half for tango
dancers and watch them figure it out after struggling for a little
while.

Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 15:39:09 -0700
From: "Konstantin Zahariev" <anfractuoso@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] 5/8s
To: Tango-L <tango-l@mit.edu>
<ade549600707181539o2c1b0cd6h25100109788423d4@mail.gmail.com>

Dear Jeff,

I appreciate your examples. Perhaps I should not have mentioned a time
signature, as this was really irrelevant to the point I was making
about the suspected morphing of the 3-long block into a 2-long block
in the habanera in the process of oral transmission of music by
sailors and other travellers. I don't think providing some examples of
possibly related irregular rhythms in eastern Europe and elsewhere
necessarily discounts the possibility that this process occurred.

I have also not claimed that 5/8 and other irregular rhythms only came

>from Africa or that they did not exist anywhere else. This would be an

absurd claim for me as I am Bulgarian by birth, and for me it is
natural to function in compositions in 5/8 (2-3), 7/8 (2-2-3 or 2-3-2
or 3-2-2), 9/8 (2-2-2-3), 11/8 or whatever else irregular rhythms you
may think of. I consciously excluded a discussion of the
Bulgarian/Balkan contribution to that as the context was tango (and
western Europe). In that regard, your Russian examples are also not
completely on point geographically..

A separate point is that it matters how the rhythm pattern or accents
are spaced. The time signature by itself does not provide that
information. So it is possible to have a piece in 5/8 or 5/4 that is
fundamentally different from a 5/8 or 5/4 piece that has a 2-3 rhythm
division, i.e. only two accents (strong pulses) that come at uneven
intervals. Another example, in Bulgaria a 9/8 would commonly be a
2-2-2-3 division (4 accents, irregular), whereas a 9/8 in western
Europe would commonly be 3-3-3 division, waltz-like and perfectly
regular.

I agree that the 3-long 2-long blocks are likely to have to do with
speech patterns. I also agree with the substance of your last
paragraph about the tendencies in first completely discounting and
later seemingly over-stating the black influence. We seem to be moving
towards a more objective view, however.

With best regards,

Konstantin
Victoria, Canada


On 7/18/07, Jeff Gaynor <jjg@jqhome.net> wrote:

> >>Konstantin wrote:
> >>
> >>.. alternating or mixing 3-long and 2-long rhythm blocks is
> >>something common in African drum lines) which was something
> >>incomprehensible, with its implied 5/8 time signature, to western
> >>Europe.
> >>
> >>
> Nope. It was not popular because it was not regular. Heck, the Russians
> were doing it and Luigi Madonis (1690 - 1767), a pupil of Vivaldi wrote
> a piece in 5/8. Many, many great old hymns and chants are in anything
> other than regular meter. One that pops into my mind is a choral by
> Phillip Nikolai (1556 - 1608) in 13/8, written it was said after the
> Plague had wiped out almost everyone else in his town. The point is that
> common folks running around a long time ago often wrote very irregular
> music. It is a fiction that nobody knew about it until Africans
> introduced it. Generally it came about in an attempt to mimic very
> closely the rhythms of speech, which are notoriously irregular. (There
> was even a very highly developed theory on this in the spoken word in
> the Baroque and I remember a particularly intriguing class based on the
> writings of Georg Lessing as applied to Shakespeare -- much more
> dramatic done that way.) Africans just made it a whole lot more fun and
> sexier which does wonders for anything's acceptance.
>
> As for a very famous example -- which has no influence at all from
> African rhythms -- look no further than the driving 1st movement of
> Holst's "The Planets -- Mars, the Bringer of War." It not merely is in
> 5/4 but also has hemiolas in 5/2 at the same time. Listen to that and
> you will pick up on the "limping" feeling it gives and then you will be
> a bit more likely to perceive it in other music. Try to march to it.
> You'll see. [Footnote: One of the most beautiful pieces written is
> Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead" in 5/8. Get the old Fritz Reiner
> recording. Very sad and tango-like in its ethos.]
>
> NOTE: Tango rhythms are syncopated but within a regular framework. You
> will find driving 2/4 pieces with 3+3+2 (candombe) rhythms all over the
> place, but this is very different from a piece written using 5/8 as the
> main time signature which is too irregular to dance to. People who are
> not too familiar with music gets this wrong all the time. Snarky
> comment: Doesn't matter because they also tend to ignore it and dance it
> regularly anyway...
>
> One more cultural aside for those slightly bewildered people from
> Argentina. There have been many instances of African influence in
> American culture. Up until the 1960's when the Civil Rights movement
> came into full swing these influences were completely and unjustly
> ignored. The style of corrective scholarship, as we may call it, that
> came into being tended to overstate the case to make it at all (does
> anyone remember the serious attempts to prove Beethove was Black?) This
> looks very odd to non-Americans who are a lot more comfortable with
> their history. Case in point is that quirky book by Robert Farris
> Thompson "Tango the Art History of Love" which leaves one with the
> distinct impression that tango is all but an African dance and that
> nobody white danced tango until very recently.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jeff G
>

Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:18:26 -0700
From: "Igor Polk" <ipolk@virtuar.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] 5/8s
To: <tango-l@mit.edu>

Dear Jeff,
Thank you for the great examples of 5/8 music !
I have listened to Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead" just for a few seconds
on Amazon, and yes, it resembled tango for me ( remotely ). When I get the
complete records, I'll probably find out more about it.

"Isle of the Dead" was written in 1908 as far as I know. This is the time
when tango already appeared in Europe, and the idea that Rachmaninoff was
influenced by it should not be denied: first of all, he was a young man at
the time.

Let us take the slightly later time. European tango is darker. It was
propagated during and after the terrible WWI ( just 90 year ago, by the way
). Countries were falling apart, life itself was dark. Contrary to Argentina
at that time...

Igor Polk