I want you guys in this next
demonstration to pay close attention to
the feeling of the polyrhythm of four
against five against six four evenly
spaced pulses in the same amount of time
as five evenly spaced pulses as in the
same amount of time as six evenly spaced
pulses pay close attention to how the
polyrhythm makes you feel then I'm gonna
speed it up and then like magic it will
turn into a major chord I might have
just ruined it for you but let's let's
try it so this is a regular kick drum
I'm gonna layer in the polyrhythm feels
pretty cool actually when you speed it
up
I always found that funny that it's such
a triumphant rhythm the major chord has
such at that data it sounds like a major
chord and you know this is the case for
any chord any harmony anytime you have
more than one note you can break it down
to its polyrhythm and here's the thing
poly rhythms that are easy to feel are
easy to hear when they sped up we had a
good time listening that got that got
that da da da da da da da
so that means consonants the idea of
something sounding good that's a like
kind of a oversimplification but
consonants is just Pali rhythms which
are easy to hear slash feel that's all
it is any time that you hear something
that sounds good to you and sounds
stable it's just a poly rhythm which is
easy to hear slash feel now I mean the
term good sounds good is I mean it just
in the sense of something that sounds
rested there's no tension maybe tension
feels good to you maybe tension sounds
good to you so if tension sounds and
feels good to you maybe you need a poly
rhythm which creates tension so we're
going to start with a perfect fourth
which if you think about a perfect
fourth it's not particularly there's not
a lot of tension to it and if you look
at the ratio of a perfect fourth four
against three that's not particularly
complicated but if we then listen to a
major seventh there's a fair amount of
tension in the interval of a major
seventh fifteen against eight and when
you compare the two of them and we put
the two of them layered on so in the key
of C this would be a C and F and a B
it's gonna be a pretty spicy sort of
chord so I want you to listen when we do
this next demonstration to first the
where I'm gonna layer in the perfect
fourth so it's just gonna be this like
nice consonant four against three
polyrhythm and then I'm gonna layer in
the fifteen against eight and then
you're gonna hear cacophony it's gonna
be really dissonant it's gonna be a
dissonant polyrhythm and then we're
gonna speed it up and then you're gonna
hear the Harmy that's the result and
you'll hear that dissonance so
feels good all right
15 against 8 it's not gonna feel good if
you really spend some time with it you'd
be able to hear it maybe but god it's
hard it sounds like popcorn going off
when you speed it up
so Paulo rhythms that are hard to feel
are hard to hear when they're sped up so
dissonance is just Polly rhythms which
are hard to hear
/ feel we like the sort of the
juxtaposition of tension and release
we like the release that comes from
being able to hear when the polyrhythm
resolves like in the major chord that
the duck the duck at that duck at the
Villa we like to hear the beginning of
that phrase that can that that kind of
that decade that duck at that diagram
but we also like when there's tension
because then it makes those those
moments of resolution so much sweeter
and we just heard it play out on two
planes we heard it play out on the
rhythmic plane and then also on the
pitch plane and I found that really
really interesting when I was first
getting into this stuff one book that
sort of illuminated a lot of things for
me was this book by henry cowell new
musical resources and he talks about
something called tempo scales in this
book it's a very influential book for a
lot of different thinkers of the 20th
century including a you know Conlan
Nancarrow who's a pretty amazing if you
don't know Conlan and crow it's probably
the most insane music you'll ever hear
but he was very very influenced by this
book in the idea of tempo scales poly
rhythms beats per minute and notes are
all the same there's this chart in this
book where he basically says this is the
ratio from C these are the tones of the
chromatic scale these are the equivalent
BPMS all of them are the same we just
think of them slightly differently
depending on our musical needs and you
know here's the question though what
does this have to do with Isaac Newton
we're getting there guys we're again
there we're building an argument from
scratch that everything is the same
essentially the point of this lecture is
that everything is everything and Isaac
Newton is the key to it so we just
figured out that Polly rhythms are pitch
and rhythm is harmony and there's all
sorts of things we talked about but you
can kind of you heard everything so far
so I'm gonna kind of like take it take
those ideas and build on them a little
bit so part 5
it gets crazy now
you didn't think everything else was
crazy oh it's a lot crazier so