Transcript and Sources: Fundamentals of Rhythm for Electronic Music
Added 2024-08-21 15:25:46 +0000 UTCTHIS IS SET TO PRIVATE NOW AND WILL BE PUBLIC ON FRIDAY WHEN THE VIDEO RELEASES.
From this video: https://youtu.be/JE3QM_9sljI
character visualizer: https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Rhythm/
circular beat visualizer: https://hy-plugins.com/product/hy-rpewin-mac/
INTRO
Rhythm is the most fundamental aspect of music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7HL5wYqAbU
Every event you hear in music must happen in time for you to perceive it, and rhythm is the placement of sounds in time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0345c6zNfM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuo0rzL-J_U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqoieg0Vqag
From the humble 4 on-the-floor kick of a house or techno track to the skittering hi-hats of a trap beat to the repetitive structures that make a melody stick in our head, rhythm is intrinsic to the music. While some music defies rhythmic structure, such as drone and some noise or ambient music, you’ll probably find some form of rhythm in almost every song that’s ever gotten stuck in your head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZHfmgIb4mc
Today I want to talk to you about the fundamentals of rhythm, what makes a drum beat work, and why different instruments on different parts of the beat give different feelings to the listener.
This video is aimed at beginners and intermediates, but I’ll admit that even as someone who has been using these techniques for decades, I learned something through researching and producing this video, and I hope you stick around to do the same. Let’s tuck in.
TIME SIGNATURES
In Western music, rhythms are usually arranged within what’s called a time signature, and the speed of the underlying pulse of that time signature is called a tempo. Time signatures are organized with one number over another, like a fraction. The top number is how many of the bottom numbers there are in a measure of music. For example, 4/4, probably the most common time signature, has a 4 on top, meaning there are 4 of the bottom number in a bar of music, which is also a 4. In most cases you can take the bottom number and think of it as the bottom of a 1 over number fraction, so ¼, which means the value of the beat we’ll be counting is ¼ note and there are 4 of them in the measure. When we pick a tempo, let’s say 120 beats per minute, and turn out a metronome, we can count 1, 2, 3, 4 and that would be our four quarter notes for our measure.
Other time signatures work the same and lead to similar ways of counting. 3/4 , common for waltzes and that one goo goo dolls song, is 3 quarter notes per bar. With a metronome on we count like this. 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3.
Another fun one for electronic music is 6/8. This one is different because it counts 8th notes instead of quarter notes, and with 6 of them in a measure, has more of a triplet feel than the other time signatures. Latch by Disclosure and Tainted Love by Soft Cell are in 6/8, and we count those like this.
Within each of these time signatures are smaller values of notes that we can access in our rhythms. From 4/4 we can divide a quarter note into 8ths, of which there are 8 in a measure, 16ths, of which there are 16 in a measure, 32nd, 64th, so on. There are also triplet versions of all of these, where instead of addressing the grid of notes in 4s, we use 3s.
There’s one more thing that can have a big effect on the feel of our beat that’s fundamental to how we play each measure’s rhythm back, and that’s swing, or shuffle. This is where we change the length of each underlying note value to create a sort of push-pull groove. House music commonly uses a 16th note swing, which elongates the 1st and 3rd 16th note while shortening the 2nd and 4th. Using 16th note swing is key in nailing the feel of house, tech house, some techno, some forms of hip hop, broken beat, and uk garage. It’s also very common in Jazz and big band music. You can also swing 8th notes, which at extreme amounts begin to sound like triplets.
ANATOMY OF RHYTHM
So now that we understand the basics of the container for our rhythms, the bars and beats, and the tempo, how do we use rhythm in our compositions?
First, let’s define some terms. Beats, the things we count when we are counting, are arranged into measures as defined by our time signature. The first beat of every measure is called the downbeat. This is the strongest beat we have access to. From there the strongest beats are the other ones we count, 1 2 3 4. Putting hits on these beats will create a very rooted, steady pulse that we can use to ground our beat, but we’ll generally need to add more rhythmic interest around that to make the music sound good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC0iqsQ0J-k
The last beat of the measure is called the upbeat, named so after how a conductor usually moves their hands up at the last beat of the measure.
The backbeat is a rhythmic accentuation on even beats. This is usually where we’re going to put our snares or claps.
When we start to divide beyond this, we start getting into weaker and weaker beats, but ones that can provide an enormous amount of propulsion, groove, and interest in our rhythms. The simple offbeat 8th note, for instance, placed between the kicks and snares of our strong beats, bridges the gap and creates a simple but effective energetic gel that keeps the beat propelling forward.
The more we access rhythms on the weak beats, the more we great a rhythm that’s said to be “offbeat”. If we put strong sounds with strong fundamental frequencies like snares and kicks and low toms on these beats, we’re going to make a beat that feels off, one that loses coherency. If we’re smart about using sounds on those parts of the rhythm, we’ll create groove and interest in our beat.
SYNCOPATION
The next step in our journey comes from syncopation. Syncopation is the utilization of the weaker, subdivided beats in our rhythms. This creates a sense of rhythmic tension or surprise. If the 1, 2, 3, and 4 of our beats are the strong rhythms, the next weakest are the offbeats like we experienced before. From there we access what I call the “ee” and “uh”. Think of a 4/4 beat like this: 1, 2, 3, 4 are quarter notes. Then in 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and we have the ands: those are offbeat 8th notes. Finally, we have 1 ee and uh 2 ee and uh 3 ee and uh 4 ee and uh. The ees and uhs represent the in-between 16th notes, and these are generally the “weakest” beats you will address when making most beats.
You can do a lot with these parts of the rhythm to give a sense of interest and groove. For instance, one very common thing is for drummers to place what are called “ghost notes” there. These are quieter versions of the drums played on stronger beats. One of the most common drums to do this with is the snare, which leads to a richer, more interesting beat, and is common in a ton of the most famous breakbeats.
In a house or techno beat, you might not address the 16th notes with the same instrument you’re using for your main beat, or spine beat, as I call it. You’ll have strong, recognizable kicks, snares, claps, and hi-hats on your quarters, backbeats, and offbeats respectively. Then you’ll address the weaker beats with things like percussion, toms, synthetic sounds, or even vocal hits.
The frequency response of the sounds you use to address the weak beats will go a long way in defining the groove of your beat. Here’s a beat that uses a lot of low mid and mid-range sounds on its weak beats.
And here’s one with all high-mid and high-frequency sounds.
Finally here’s a mix of both, which I believe is the best way to go for these types of beats.
If you want to practice this yourself, try making a spine beat of kicks on 1, 2, 3, 4, a snare or clap on 2 and 4, a closed hihat on the ands (offbeat eights), and then add some hits around these on the eehs and uhhs. If you’re using a pre-made kit, like an 808, try moving these accent notes to different instruments in the kit and see how the feeling changes. If you’re not, bring in different sounds while the beat is playing and see how it feels.
LEARN WHAT DRUMS ARE CALLED
This is a great segue into mentioning that it’s good to get to know the names of different types of percussion. If you’re watched my pitched percussion video… wait you haven’t? Oh, well, there’s a link in the description. I’ll wait, you click it and queue it up next. Yeah just open it up in a new tab and you’ll have it waiting. All good? Ok cool.
https://youtu.be/6ikARx35U5A
So if you’ve watched my pitched percussion video you’ll know just how many weird and wonderful drums there are in just that category, and that’s barely scratching the surface. My first suggestion is to get to know the sounds of the classic drum machines. The ones I suggest are the:
Roland 808, 909, 606, 707 and 727, and CR-78
The Linn LM-1
Oberheim DMX
E-mu Drumulator
Sequential Circuits Drumtraks
Yamaha RX5
Karai R-50
Akai MP-60
These are drum machines that shaped the sound of music throughout history, and in some cases are still being used today. Some of them, like the 606 are very simple but have an iconic sound you’ll still want to reach for in a variety of genres. Others like the Rx5 and R-50 have more sounds to choose from while having specifically iconic sounds for genres like industrial.
Through the process of listening, you’ll encounter sounds beyond kicks, snares, claps, and hi-hats. You’ll start to notice there are usually a high tom and low tom, sometimes also a midrange tom. This is important for doing things tom fills, of which ya’ll know the most famous one. If you listen closely you can hear the different pitches at play here, and you can take this concept and apply it to your tom fills. We’ll talk about fills in a little bit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxsqGWhZvgQ
There are a ton of traditional percussion sounds you’ll probably want to know, and the easiest way to get to know their names are through studying what’s in the general midi drum map. This ancient tome defines what drum sounds should go on what key when making a MIDI-compliant drum kit. You won’t find every kit laid out like this, but a lot are, and it can be very useful to get to know how to play a kit like this with your fingers for natural-sounding drums.
https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/General%20MIDI%20Standard%20Percussion%20Set%20Key%20Map.pdf
For instance, if you want to make any kind of Latin-sounding beat, you’ll want to know what a clave is. Additionally, if you want to make the bes t beats, you’ll need to know what a FLEXITONE IS.
Once you’ve gotten to know the names and natural real-world versions of the sounds here, you can start to appreciate the diverse landscape of synthesized versions of these sounds and their completely synthetic counterparts. This will give you a massive palette of instruments to choose from when making beats.
POLYMETER and POLYRHYTHM
Before we move on to phrasing your drums and fills, I want to talk a little bit about meter. Meter refers to the grouping of beats into recurring patterns of strong and weak pulses. Some common ones are the
Duple meter (groups of two)
Triple meter (groups of three)
Quadruple meter (groups of four)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB63_-zitwM
This leads us to a fun thing you can do with rhythm, and that’s polymeters. These are often confused with polyrhythms, so let’s define the two:
A Polymeter occurs when two or more different meters (time signatures) are played simultaneously, but each time signature agrees on the length of the beat. The grid lines (beat divisions) are aligned, but the downbeats aren't. For example, one instrument might play a repeated 4-beat pattern while another plays a 3-beat pattern, creating a 3:4 polymeter.
It can be thought of as a "compound tuplet" where micro-subdivisions are made up of rhythmic figures from smaller tuplets. A common example is a 3:2 polyrhythm, where three notes are played in the same time as two notes.
Using polymeters in your music is a fun and easy way to create shifting relationships between musical elements as their downbeats shift in their relationships. Polyrhythms are cool and intrinsic to certain types of indigenous drumming but should be approached by a novice with care so as not to make their composition sound messy or confusing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8upXAChK-g
So, to recap, we’ve got, in a single bar of music, a series of pulses that represent our tempo and time signature. We’ve got strong beats and weak beats. We’ve got different types of sounds that can be put on these beats to create different types of grooves. What about beyond one bar? How does rhythm express itself throughout 4, 8, or 16 bars? How can our rhythm tracks help support the movement of our songs? How do we use fills? Great questions. You’re so smart and good-looking.
PHRASING YOUR RHYTHMS
I think of making music in expanding structures of repetition and variation. You have a core structure of repetition, like a four-on-the-floor kick drum. On its own, since this repeats the same way every beat, it has no concept of phrasing. However, if we were to add a second kick on the last 8th note of bar 4, the phrase of the kick, and subsequently the drums, just jumped to 4 bars. This is the point at which the listener will recognize repetition.
I generally define my rhythms with an A B A C A B A D structure, with each letter representing 1 bar of music.
A-sections define the core rhythm, the main structure that we will use to build variation around. B-sections will have one small change, an addition, a subtraction, or a substitution. We return to the A-section for bar 3, and then at the end of 4 bars we hit the C-section. This will introduce a slightly bigger variation from B. It doesn’t need to incorporate B’s changes, but it can.
At the end of our 8-bar phrase, we hit D. D is where we might introduce a fill or empty, depending on the vibe of our piece. A fill usually incorporates extra syncopation. Extra snare hits on the weaker beats, a couple extra kick drums on the 8th notes, and may also incorporate toms. We want to increase the energy in anticipation of the next phrase’s downbeat, which generally will incorporate some larger changes in the music. The larger the change in the next section, the more anticipation you can create for it.
The opposite of the fill is the “empty”, and while this can include a few extra hits for anticipation, it must include the subtraction of most if not all of the main rhythmic elements before the next downbeat. This creates a different form of anticipation, what I like to call a “de-coupling” of the rhythmic elements between large musical sections. The most basic form of this is dropping the kick drum out of 4-on-the-floor music, which destabilizes the low end of the track and creates a vacuum that the listener will anticipate coming back.
You can use empties wherever you want in your track, even if it’s just as simple as taking the kick out for 1 beat at the end of a bar. Listening to a lot of techno, especially harder genres like shranz or banging techno, taking the kick out and putting it back in is almost everything the genre does for song structure.
If you’re looking for a way to know if you should use fill or empty, it’s going to be mostly up to your taste and song type, but one thing to consider is if you’re going to go into a big breakdown, use a fill to run the energy up to the next downbeat. If you’re going to keep the groove going and want to create fun anticipation, use an empty. If you’re sassy, use both.
OUTRO
I know it can be intimidating to try and make your own drum beats, but I promise you it’s worth the effort to get to know how rhythm works and what drum sounds work best. In the end, almost all music is rhythm, and if you’ve ever spent time banging your hands on a desk or steering wheel along to a song, you’re already on your way to making beats.
I hope this guide has helped set you up with the fundamentals of rhythm! I’ll put some further resources in the video description if you’re interested, but the most important thing is to use your ears to listen to the things you want to understand, and then practice them in your DAW or instrument of choice. The connection between your ears, mind, and ability to execute in composition is the most powerful thing you have.
Thank you so much for watching this video. I would like to give a special shout out to my patrons, as theyre the ones who make these most research-heavy videos possible. Thank you all, you’re rad. I’ve started creating patreon-exclusive content as a thank you, including a monthly series going over some form of music production technique and a follow up answering questions on those videos. If you’d like to be part of that and a great community of weirdos, link is in the description.
That’s all from me today. Thanks again. My name is jeremy, this is red means recording, and I hope you have a wonderful day.
Additional Citations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbultyEVOqw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVO2bGRItVk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drs_uqFG-to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHaw0P6__g4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlbdu78FFhE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJIbf4nMG3Y
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/understanding-rhythm-in-music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JISh_c8oUsw
https://www.skoove.com/blog/rhythm-in-music/
https://content.westmusic.com/the-basics-of-rhythm/
