Crossing the Lines: In Pursuit of (Linear) Freedom, Part 2
Excerpt from, “The Harmonic Perspective of Rhythm.” For Part 1, click here:
Into the Dot: Playing with Perspective
A dotted note figure does not rest in the downbeat or upbeat, but alternates from one to the other, all the while moving its placement within the larger metric cycle. In the exercises above, if we take the last line we see that with respect to the quarter note, the articulations occur from the downbeat, to the next beat, from the offbeat, then to the next offbeat, before repeating. The repetition occurs however, in the middle of the second bar, so that sequence has to be repeated to come back to the proper, ‘downbeat’, or the ‘one.’ But the goal is to internalize this movement, not as a pattern or a counting exercise, but as its own entity, and especially, with its own motion, and, ultimately, its own perspective from which the player may choose to view its interaction with the downbeat/upbeat cycle[1].
One must be able to hear either as the base and either as the complement. From the dotted note point of view, then, we have this (note the bottom line is the dotted note):
Figure 1. The Dotted Point of View, with Eighth Notes (Downs and Ups) in Two.
Audio Example 1. Dotted Point of View 1 (CD Track 39).
This is four dotted notes to one and a half down-up cycles, thus it needs two bars to complete. Seen another way, it is four with three:
Figure 2. The Dotted Point of View, with Eighth Notes in Three.
Here the cycle repeats in one, 12/8 bar, but the top line, and any normal phrase within it, is actually in two, as in the previous figure. The repetition is heard but the two artificial ‘metres’ don’t align until two bars have passed, as above. Here is yet another interpretation:
Figure 3. The Dotted Point of View as Three and Two.
Audio Example 2. Dotted Points of View 2 and 3 (CD Track 40).
This time we see the same figure organized as three with two. The pattern of repetition, down or up motion notwithstanding, is now one and a half original beats (top line) to two dotted notes. But, as always, we must not give in completely to either perspective. These relationships are heard and receive partial focus but without losing the overall cycle of repetition: As seen here in two bars of 12/8, or originally in three bars of 2/4. The cultivation of this multi-dimensional, multi-cycle awareness is the power of the dotted note. It is the same two with three seen throughout this chapter, but the three is a regrouping of a binary structure. Thus, the whole picture and our awareness is ‘turned on its head.’
Because the dotted note introduces a factor of three, we always end up with threes and twos in various relationships. As Toro put it:
ET…by going back to three and two. Of course…You can hear two as a dotted note from three and you can hear three as a triplet from two. It’s just a perspective. What’s the relationship between one and another? Just down beats and upbeats. Gggghh (exasperated sound). Very simple. But it’s so heavy, it’s difficult to see. When I saw the downbeat and upbeat and what it did, and coordination…one thing led to the other, but very fast. It makes a lot of sense. And it’s so simple. It’s really ridiculously simple. But you must have a point of view. You must understand it.
JD: You have the experience.
ET: Yeah. You have the experience. (Toro 2012a)
Toward What End?
For Your Hands Only goes on to work the same material against a sixteenth note ostinato, then works from ternary ostinatos of triplets and sextuplets and puts binary ideas with those. It then moves into a practical section where various Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian foundational patterns are put through a similar process—they act as ostinatos while the downbeat and upbeat combinations and then the dotted note combinations are learned with them. Finally, the ‘standard pattern’ that we saw previously is the repertoire derived, ternary ostinato that is combined with ternary and binary patterns. All of this is meant to be useful for the development of a multi-dimensional, primarily ‘Latin’ musical approach, but also as a model that can be used with any motivic idea against which one wants to learn to improvise freely, within the barline/metric cycle and beyond. Toro gave me an insight into this as an epiphanic process in his own development:
At the beginning, it would take me two or three weeks to get an exercise. One day I came out and it took me only a few minutes and I said, ‘I got it.’ I saw that in the motion of the down beat and the offbeat. I saw that it was the key to coordination. I saw it was the key to the whole thing. And of perspective. The dotted note that I was practicing became very clear. Because it’s a down beat followed by an offbeat. Instead of down beat, down beat or offbeat, offbeat. It’s down beat, offbeat, down beat, offbeat. And it became really clear. Any way you look at it it’s the same thing. It’s a down beat and an offbeat a third faster, or a third slower. Or just a down beat or an offbeat. And I couldn’t believe it. I said it can’t be that easy! It is that easy. And I went to the drum set right after that. And I said if this works, it must work with things that I can’t play, like five. I’d never been able to play in five, in my life. So, I sat down to practice five. I thought of “Mission Impossible,” because that pattern’s very popular[2]. I didn’t know the implications of that pattern. I did it with my feet, simply. Something like (see below) and I applied the same idea.
Figure 4. “Mission Impossible” Feet Ostinato.
I did down beats and I went (claps the five)…that felt comfortable. Then I did offbeat, both hands (shows), and I went ‘Wow. This is great.’ Then I tried dotted notes, and I kind of stumbled, a little bit. But in five minutes or maybe a little more, I went through. I went (demonstrates) and I got it! Then I tried something (plays doubles on dotted note-skipping pattern; fifth dotted pattern above (seePart 1, figure 4) and I could do that! Then I started playing things that I knew and I could do it. Then in about ten, fifteen minutes, I’m playing in five. I said, ‘My god.’ (Toro 2012a)
This is an example of a transformative process at work. Here Toro seems to be jumping the language analogy so appropriate to learning in a traditional and/or intuitive fashion. That is, instead of taking many, many patterns—by example or intuition—and working them out one by one, as we all did learning our mother tongues, he is working out archetypal, structural patterns. By forming a deep experience of their aural and kinaesthetic essences, he was able to see how they are the basis of much, much more. Once the background work is done, of course, much of the repertoire for the background ostinato or foreground contrasting pattern might come from learned and heard examples, as with early language formation, but the number of examples required to achieve (interdependent) mastery is relatively few.
Manifesting the Vision
And what intrinsic value does the product of this sort of work have? The conception and presentation of a multi-dimensional rhythmic soundscape…and the freedom to be very inventive within it, without getting lost. This multi-dimensionality arises not only from intellectual constructs, but from movement. It is supported by a clear, internal, multi-dimensional grid of time. And again, it is present in one person, not dependent on a group experience.
But they (Indian classical musicians) don’t know the implications of what they are saying. You know? They don’t know that. But, the Hindus discovered with the dotted note, it opens up the thing. They don’t know why, it just does it. And I discovered the same thing…that all you need to do is just play the dotted note. But the dotted noted must have its own motion. Its not a subdivision of this. (Plays briefly) It has its own motion. It has its own thing. And once you can do it, you can gravitate towards it just by letting yourself go to it. And that becomes metric modulation. But, in my idea, my concept, you don’t lose one. If you lose one then you’re lost. You see? And that’s why what you want to develop more and more and more is the feeling of down beats and upbeats. That’s where your gravity is. And that’s your point of view. And that’s Einstein. With a point of view, and before Einstein, with a point of view, you can measure things. You know Newton was there. You have a point. A planet or a star. And so that’s your point of measure. How do you know that an orbit’s elliptical if you don’t have a point of view from somewhere? Where would you start measuring? So, the concept is to have that point of view very, very, very clear. (Toro 2012a)
Toro is clear, however, that this perspective is not essential to be a good or working musician. Rather, it is a new frontier, rooted in the experience of the various, centuries old AT/Music traditions.
That doesn’t mean that people that have (a) point of view very clear can play. I can mention many drummers that have (a) very clear groove and point of view but they can’t play around it. That’s not their interest. Their interest is just to play the one. And that’s ok. But if you want to do more, then you must develop a (larger) point of view. And a point of view is to go from that, and what we do in the western world is to learn patterns…and pattern and pattern and patterns…you haven’t done anything! Because if you work out the downbeat and the offbeat and the dotted note, it gives you a perspective, so that you can move on, or around with this perspective. And you apply (it) to anything you want to be proficient at, or be able to play…or to play from, or to play with. If you don’t want to develop that, you don’t need to do that at all. All you need to do is to play patterns, and you’ll play linearly correct. See? The thing about it is that all ethnic music is dimensional. And it’s composed of different motions at the same time. That’s why it sounds the way it does. If it didn’t, you would put all the patterns into a drum machine and when they spit it out it would sound good. But it doesn’t! Why? Because everything has its own motion! And those are different times and that’s Einstein. And that’s the whole basis of the concept. (Toro 2012a)
Linear Freedom
Being very clear on the dotted note, downbeat and upbeats allows one to mix them up, of course. This is what all patterns are made of—twos and threes—as mentioned elsewhere. Therefore, to play groupings of five in a binary rhythmic structure, we just think, dotted, non-dotted, dotted, non-dotted, etc.
Figure 5. Sixteenths in Two, Grouped in fives (dotted + non-dotted).
Audio Example 3. Linear Fives in Two (CD Track 41).
Now, we must suspend our need for resolution, and keep each motion on its own trajectory, for five measures instead of three.
To take a slightly more practical example, here is the tresillo on, presumably, one foot, and the two to a bar beat on the other (feet/ostinato stems pointing down), with ‘down’ eights in the hands (hands’/variable patterns’ stems are pointing up). The limb/digit combinations are a matter of preference, but this is an obvious starting point. It should be easier to feel the motions of whole limbs versus fingers.
Figure 6. Tresillo and Two, with ‘Downs’.
By learning it well, then proceeding to this, the upbeat motion,
Figure 7. Tresillo and Two with ‘Ups’.
and then, the dotted note motion,
Figure 8. Tresillo and Two with Dotted Notes.
without a great deal more effort, one can progress to the pattern below: linear groups of seven with the same tresillo/two beat ostinato.
Figure 9. Tresillo and Two with Groups of Seven.
Audio Example 4. Tresillo Downs, Ups, Dotteds, Linear Sevens (CD Track 42).
Incidentally, I learned this at my desk while writing, just to make sure I could ‘walk the talk.’ Having practiced the preliminary exercises before, it took just a minute or two to work it out. Then, after notating it, I tapped the seven with my finger, my foot keeping ‘normal’ time, my eyes on the notation. Then I realized I had left out the tresillo. I added that to my feet and then, I struggled. Perhaps my mind was distracted by the notation, I thought, then I realized I was not using motion; I was not consciously generating the different elements each with their own kinaesthetic sense, tied in the middle by a wider awareness. I was focused on the details. Once I regained the motional approach, it fell (happily) into place again. This is one of many experiences that for me points to the potential conflict between corporal (assumed in this case to be synonymous with ‘natural’) and intellectual understanding. Toro told me on several occasions that he sees no conflict.
“There’s no conflict between intellect and the natural world…at all! There’s no conflict! And intellect adds to the natural ability. Intellect it just doubles…it just doubles your understanding of what is natural, and it adds, it embellishes, it enhances the natural.” (Toro 2012m)
Nevertheless, I maintain that the potential is there. Even some of his observations seem to point to this but his vision is that these potentially separate aspects function in interdependent harmony. The positive aspect of this gradually emerging realization is that, for me, the enabling mind state is very much akin to that used in meditation. It is an open, broad awareness, centred in the body, not in any one part or limb. I believe the implications of this realization go far beyond musicianship, into the realms of health, psychology, spirituality, neurobiology, perhaps even the elusive evolutionary basis for the development of music.
Toward Harmonic Freedom: Healing the Body/Mind Schism
This approach and perspective can also act a precursor to the harmonic perspective of rhythm discussed in other sections (“The Harmonic Perspective of Rhythm Revisited,” page 84; “Polymetre,” page 84; “The Harmonic Approach,” page 89). In playing linear combinations whose period of resolution extends well beyond the limits of one measure of the predominant metric cycle, we must reconcile divergent rhythmic trajectories. If we manage this with the body and mind simultaneously—with comprehension and motion—we have set the stage to begin working with multiple, simultaneous metric conceptions. Of course, as we have seen, the dotted note within a binary feel produces two with three, or four with three, in the larger cycle of resolution. This is akin to the linear approach of generating multiple metres discussed in the section called, “The Linear Approach” (page 88), where we examined the process and limitations of counting and regrouping subdivisions. However, with careful attention to the development and application of motion, the limitations of intellectual processing are distributed to the body. This is reminiscent of the physics/kinaesthetics/sports lesson challenging us to imagine how many calculations and re-calculations would be required for a baseball or cricket fielder to catch a fly ball, all in the second or so it takes from him/her seeing it leave the bat to its arrival in his/her hands. It is, literally and figuratively, ‘mind-boggling’. It also brings to mind the observations of Robert Jourdain that, despite our notions to the contrary, the primary, evolutionary, purpose of the nervous system (including the brain) is movement.
One of nature’s most basic facts is that animals have brains and plants don’t. Animals need brains, and much more, because they gather energy by searching for things to eat; plants just lie around sunbathing all day. There’s no point in evolving a brain just to look at things and think about them. The whole point of a brain is to move. This isn’t very intuitive from a human perspective. We can use our brains intensely without budging, as when we listen to a favourite recording. But ultimately there is no aspect of our mental life that is not founded upon, and devoted to, motion. Movement is the concern of the whole brain. (Jourdain 1998, 206–7)
We tend to think of our great human achievements in mathematics or art or rocket science and other such brainy stuff, but, despite the ease with which a simple computer can beat world champion chess players, we would be hard pressed to design a robot that could keep up with a six-year-old in a forest (much less an antelope or leopard!). Movement is arguably more cognitively demanding than calculation and analysis, though we often do not realize it because we are extremely well adapted to movement challenges. That the lion’s share of our evolutionary development favours this conclusion seems obvious enough. I believe music—especially music that requires study and the digestion of cognitive structural patterns, be that learning to read, memorize and improvise on chord progressions, compose, etc.— presents one of the most complete marriages of the corporal and intellectual realms, or, if you will, modes of being. Toro’s work is an attempt to bring this marriage to the practice of rhythmic multi-dimensionality. It uses universal technique as the basis for a more universal understanding.
ET: You see when I started doing this I noticed the two…I’m doing two motions. And I noticed…what people call independence. You see? Because right here, there’s two motions. This hand is going like this, a third from the pulse. It’s its own motion. And now I could see the one clearly! Very clearly! And I could see two motions. That’s…they’re like two different tempos. That’s Einstein. They’re two different times within you. Clearly! And I… it’s just very clear to me. I understood. Bingo. The dotted note takes you to a place…that if you do it correctly, using the downbeat and your offbeat, it has its own time! And it gives you the feeling of independence. You see? Where, the other way, you are a subdivision of this. And that’s linear. Ggghh. That’s gravity, heavy gravity! This other way, there’s no gravity! All of the sudden, there’s no tension! It goes ‘thghhh’ (makes a sound of connection, suction, docking). If you develop it further, you can do four. Because you’re doing two. If you bring out the offbeat, in this hand (RH), like you’re doing here, you’re immediately doing four and six! With its own motion. No tension. Do you understand? Heavy for me. Very fundamental. Very heavy.
JD: And what if the approach was to figure that out somewhat intellectually but then to just rest with it and to let your body find these motions?
ET: No! That’s not my experience. My experience is that I did it…
JD: You have to have the right motion from the beginning…
ET: If you have the right motion (repeats), this (shows hand) is your one. Once you develop that, you can do things with it—people say against it, but it’s the wrong concept—you do things with that, but, with its own motion…ahh, you could do whatever you want. But, once you do this, as a subdivision of this (indicating the two hands), it takes this, and it becomes linear, and you can’t do anything. It becomes very difficult. With a lot of strength, you can manage to do certain things…it’s not the same thing. It’s not what I’m talking about. It’s not the realization. You can eliminate and don’t use motion at all. Just go ‘dadadadada’ (holds up arm moves wrist) this from here (wrist) you know? Like single motion, not dimensional motion. You can do things but it’s not…it’s not what you want. You want to have a body that is going with its own motion because the offbeat is a support of the downbeat, you see? And it creates its own thing. (Demonstrates, points at right arm, smiles.) That’s its own motion. And it has nothing to do with this except that it’s a third from this. That’s not the way we learn to do things. You know? This is a way like…naturally, to split the thing. So I stumbled onto this all at the same time. And I could see it clear. And so, I know that it works. I know. (Toro 2012a)
I am reminded of a story I have told many times. A friend and I were in a large, open park-like section of the Arcata Community Forest in Northern California, on a beautiful spring day. We were talking about rhythm, enjoying ourselves, and working out some West African phrases we had recently learned in a workshop with some ‘master’ drummers from Guinea or Senegal. Another drummer turned up wanting to play with us. He was a quintessential ‘hippy’ type—young, lots of colourful clothing, long hair, perhaps some dreadlocks, necklaces and bangles, and an open attitude, ready for a jam session. He made a few attempts to play along with us, but we were adamant to continue our work, with a possible undertone of rhythmic snobbery. We started and stopped several times, working out the complicated phrasing. This obviously frustrated him, because he finally said, with an exasperated teacher’s air: “Dude. Just swing your arms! It works! Really!”
I have told this story on many occasions while teaching, the lesson being that whatever you want to do in music, you must hear it in your mind first; we work toward perfecting the connection between the inner voice and the hands (or feet or fingers or voice) so that we play what we intend, and do not ‘just swing our arms,’ to see what comes out. Another intended message is that African traditional rhythms are serious, intricate music, not just (random) jamming in the park, as some people seem to think. This is still my position. However, since working with Toro I have come to see that there is another wisdom in listening to the body and striving to let it move as freely as possible. I see now that we were both right, or both half right. I knew the importance of relaxed technique long before I had ever heard of Toro. The message was there, knocking on the door, especially in piano lessons and books on technique, and even my own reflections, but I was too consumed by information and information processing, to pay it full attention. I now see in finer detail that the natural movement of the body in the execution of music is an awareness that never stops deepening, and is never to be taken for granted, if one wants to continue to progress. The first line of my first transcribed lesson with Toro reads, “Start from zero every time is the way.” (Toro 2012a) This means to check your motion, to check the connection between your core and your fingers (or hands or feet). If you give the signal for a certain movement, does the body come near to executing that movement itself? Can it be more so? If you give the signal to go one third faster in another limb, does it happen naturally and freely, with awareness in between, not with one as a calculated result of the other? This may sound esoteric to some, but with experience, these questions seem more and more normal. At my level, there are no pure answers to those questions, only observations and intentions. That is, old habits die hard. I still do rely on calculation, sometimes, to figure out difficult combinations. But my capacity to perceive and direct independent, interdependent motion is becoming clearer. The motion feels independent when comparing limbs but interdependent in the core of the body, where the motions must, by necessity, interact. It is more than necessity, however, it is a great pleasure. When it works—and the difference between working and not often depends only on remembering to use my awareness in this way—it is dancing. It is the best kind of dancing, from the core outward, but then I have always been an Africanist at heart. For Part 1, go here.
[1] Note I am using the terms ‘down beat’ here, as Toro often did, to indicate strokes with a down motion, usually this also means just on the beat. This is not to be confused with the conventional meaning of downbeat as the first beat of the bar.
[2] The theme from the popular television and movie series, composed by Lalo Schifrin.
Bibliography