hey, welcome to 12tone! we talk a lot about harmony here, but that's just one part of
music, and today I'd like to look at another aspect: rhythm. for the most part, modern
rhythms are all about groups of two. we have the whole note (bang) which we can split into
two half notes (bang) each of which splits into two quarter notes (bang) and then eighths
(bang) sixteenths (bangs) and so on. but, as most mathematicians could tell you, two
is not the only number. why can't we divide by 3? 5? 7? 41?
well, let's just start with three. if, instead of dividing a quarter note in half, we split
it into three even parts (bang) we get what're called triplets. triplets are a fairly common
rhythmic feature: they're different enough that they catch your attention, but because
3 is still pretty close to 2, they're not so alien that your ear can't make sense of
them. in fact, triplets are so common that some songs are written entirely with a triplet
feel. for instance, many songs are written in what's called ¾, which means that each
bar of music has three quarter notes in it (bang) instead of the usual four. you can
also find triplet feels within the bar, thanks to time signatures like 6/8 (bang) or 12/8
(bang) where the 8th notes are grouped in patterns of three instead of two.
and triplets don't stop there: they're also responsible for one of the most iconic sounds
in jazz: the shuffle or swing feel. this is a lot like 12/8 except that, in each group
of three notes, we skip the middle one. (bang) this gives you a sort of bouncy feel and makes
the whole thing sound a little more loose and free. you can even emphasize those off-beat
attacks (bang) if you really want to drive the point home.
but triplets are just one example of a much larger group of rhythms collectively known
as tuplets. tuplets are what you get when you break up a rhythm into groups of… well,
anything but two, really. you can use any number you want, as long as you divide the
space up evenly between them. for instance, instead of four eighth notes (bang) you could
break that middle section into five eighth-note quintuplets (bang) which is a little harder
to process, but still not too difficult. you can also break it into seven (bang) called
septuplets, or you can do 11 (bang) 13 (bang) or, well, you get the idea. the higher you
go, the less it sounds like normal rhythms, and the harder it gets to track the beat,
but theoretically at least, there's no limits besides your ability to actually count it
out.
tuplets can also be combined, to form what are called polyrhythms, which are exactly
what they sound like: multiple rhythms played at the same time. for instance, if one player
plays quarter note triplets while the other plays plain old quarter notes, we get a rhythmic
pattern called a hemiola (bang) which we can describe as a polyrhythm of 3-against-2. again,
there's no limits to this: you can stack 5 against 4 (bang) 7 against 8 (bang) or even
combine more than two, like this 3 against 4 against 5. (bang) these can get a bit cacophonous
if you're not careful, but polyrhythms are the basis of a lot of really interesting rhythmic
music.
but that's not the only way to combine tuplets, and this is where things start to go off the
rails. so far, we've only been applying these tuplets at one level at a time. we may divide
the quarter notes into five (bang) but if we want to add 8th notes, we'd still just
cut those quarters in half. (bang) but where's the fun in that? why can't it be tuplets all
the way down? here, for instance, is a set of quarter note quintuplets with some eighth
note triplets thrown in for fun. (bang) these are called nested tuplets, and they're not
for the feint of heart, but they can add a huge amount of rhythmic depth to your composition.
of course, they can get incredibly hard to read and play, and the difference between
a complex nested tuplet rhythm and a much simpler pattern can be almost unnoticeable,
but that's not really a composer issue. we just want some pretty-looking math.
speaking of which, we can go deeper. let's say we take this triplet phrase (bang, this
one has two sets of eight-note triplets back to back fyi) and we nest in a different tuplet
over these middle three notes. but we're not gonna use a normal tuplet here: instead, we'll
say that we're taking this three-beat rhythm and dividing it into two even parts instead.
that gives us this (bang) and, yeah, those are just regular 8ths again. we've gone back
to a normal rhythm, but it's embedded inside a group of triplets. these are called fragmentary
or discontinued tuplets, because we've effectively taken three triplets and spread them out across
the bar instead of playing them all at once. they're an absolute nightmare to play faithfully,
but again, that's not our problem.
so, yeah, triplets may be the only kind that gets a whole lot of actual use in the real
world, but tuplets as a whole are one of the most powerful and complex rhythmic devices
out there. from loosening up a jazz song to constructing rhythms so intricate they make
even people like prog legend Steve Vai cringe, there's a lot that tuplets can do.
anyway, thanks for watching! if you want to help make these videos possible, please consider
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