Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago

Turning the Analysis around: Africa-Derived Rhythms and Europe-Derived Music Theory
Author(s): Jay Rahn
Source: Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 71-89
Published by: Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago and University
of Illinois Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/779378
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 TURNING THE ANALYSIS AROUND:
AFRICA-DERIVED RHYTHMS AND
EUROPE-DERIVED MUSIC THEORY

JAY RAHN

As Samuel A. Floyd Jr. (1993, 1) has emphasized, analysis is an activity

that was developed as a way of examining chiefly Europe-derived work
of music. Susan McClary and Robert Walser (1994, 77) have stressed fu
ther that the Europe-derived discipline of music theory has notoriousl
neglected rhythm in favor of abstract patterns of pitch and form. I fe
that Europe-derived theory and analysis have not handled well the fol-
lowing topics, long and widely acknowledged to be important for Africa
derived traditions: constant syncopation, off-beat phrasing, turning the
beat around, backbeat, cross-rhythm, anticipation (as contrasted with re
tardation), constant repetition of rhythmic and melodic figures, the rela
ed phenomena of call-and-response phrasing, riffs, vamps, time-lines,
particular additive rhythms, metronomic pulse (or approximately, wha
ethnomusicologists have referred to as the metronome sense)-all th
grounded in the unique forward momentum of unflagging rhythm
highlighted by Floyd (1991, 268, 279; cf. Floyd 1993, 1, 4).
Attempted below is a technical account of Africa-derived syncopatio
that might serve as an alternative to orthodox, Europe-derived accounts
Rather than depicting syncopated rhythms merely as deviations from
four-square metrical hierarchy, I try to show how they can be portraye
as highly integrated wholes in their own right. Such wholes favor a dif
ferent aesthetic imagery than has been usual in Europe-derived analys
of rhythm: specifically, (1) an imagery of complementation, long esta

JAY RAHN is associate professor and music coordinator, Fine Arts Department, Atkinso
College, York University. His writings include A Theoryfor All Music: Problems and Solution
in the Analysis of Non-Western Forms (University of Toronto Press, 1983) and, with Edi
Fowke, A Family Heritage: The Story and Songs of LaRena Clark (University of Calgary Pres
1993).

71

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72 BMR Journal

lished in Europe-derived discourse on pitch structure in post-tonal music

(e.g., John Rahn 1980) but little developed in orthodox rhythmic analysis;
(2) metaphors of braiding and circularity, only recently developed by the
technical apparatus of post-tonal theory; and (3) pendularity and cyclism,
long recognized as central values in the aesthetic of Africa-derived music
that Floyd has identified by the expression "Call-Response" but largely
neglected in Europe-derived analyses. Such images contrast with con-
ceptions that presume as central such metaphors and concepts as the fol-
lowing: relentless linearity; the arrow of time; immediate expectancy;
constantly frustrated, teleological, goal-directed processes (e.g., of desire
in Schenkerian analysis); segmentation; and asymmetric hierarchy. These
two conceptual groupings greatly differ in their possible analytic conse-
quences and can thrive independently. Nonetheless, I try to show that
one can shift from one to the other, in whole or part, or even hold to both
at once, without contradiction.
There are at least two reasons for seeking such multiplicity in analysis.
First, as Floyd has outlined, interactions between audience and perform-
ers, and among performers themselves, are important components of the
Call-Response aesthetic. Second, reception and appropriation of Africa-
derived idioms and genres have been persistently multiple in their sensi-
bilities for at least a century. Thus, Gary Tomlinson (1991, 240), for exam-
ple, advocates decentered analysis of jazz to admit a variety of vantage
points rather than legislating a singular, authoritative perception.
By contrast, Europe-derived music theory has tended to eschew inter-
pretative diversity in favor of readings that are convergent, singular, un-
ambiguous, exclusive-indeed, it could be said, canonic, authoritative,
correct, or to use a long discredited term from the early decades of eth-
nomusicology, authentic. In intercultural settings, intracultural ensemble,
self-delectative solo performance, even reading or listening to perfor-
mance that is mediated (e.g., by recording or notation), one can find com-
munity where one might have been led to expect, as a musico-social
value, conformity (cf. McClary and Walser 1994, 79). Decentered analysis
would reserve a spot for the interlocative self that can change places with
another (Holquist and Liapunov 1990, xxvi; cf. Bakhtin 1990, 22-23), even
if the acts of others, which can comprise invention, sounding, moving,
and, of course, listening, are merely imagined or recalled on the basis of
sounds or other signifiers.
Quite early in the history of African-American music analysis,
Winthrop Sargeant (1938, 58-64) identified the rhythm of Figure la as es-
pecially typical of jazz and other Africa-derived styles. Jazz analysts long
have recognized that this basic 3+3+2 rhythm also can take such forms as
those notated in Figure lb. Ernst Bornemann (1946), Gunther Schuller

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Rahn * Turning the Analysis Around 73

(1968, 24), and Marshall Steams (1956, 142) traced such 3+3+2 patterns to
African musical traditions. Don Knowlton (1926, 581), quoting an
unidentified African-American guitarist, had used the expression "sec-
ondary rag" for rhythms of this sort. Shortly thereafter, Aaron Copland
(1927, 10-12) noted that the temporal organization of these "foxtrot" pat-
terns contrasted with Europe-derived practice, suggesting unsyncopated
measures of I, ], and A as notationally preferable to syncopated measures
of t. Referring to the basic pattern of three syncopated tones within four
quarter-note beats, Sargeant designated these rhythms "three-over-four,"
and like later analysts traced them to Africa, crediting this important hy-
pothesis to the much earlier, prodigious investigations of Nicholas J. G.
Ballanta-Taylor (1922).1

Figure 1. 3+3+2 and close variants

a. Basic 3+3+2 rhythm

J. J. J

b. Close variants

J. J f J J bJ. JJ m; J

As in such parallel cases as the so-called S

flings and the canzona rhythm of Renaissa
strumental music, one can ask whether th
special or privileged. Or does this figure s
cause of its disproportionately frequent oc
and the African diaspora? Is this rhythm,
to be understood in its own terms, or only th
rope-derived common-practice rhythmic t
interpretations of this and other, cognate
rope-derived framework of common-prac
emerging paradigm of recent music theory
In a Europe-derived, common-practice co
3+3+2 rhythm can be considered both dot
tional terms, the beginning of the second
because no note appears on the second q
there is no note on the third quarter. Exte

1. Ballanta-Taylor, who had just arrived in the United

Bac. degree at Durham University and studies of har
see Cuney-Hare 1936, 347-348), published his pathb
and closely related jazz rhythms partly in response t
in both the Boston Transcript and the Negro Musician.

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74 BMR Journal

the attack of the second dotted quarter can be considered to be both pre-
pared and resolved texturally if the part containing the 3+3+2 rhythm is
accompanied by another portion of the texture that has notes starting on
the second and third quarters-as in a walking bass line in swing and
later styles, a stride bass in piano rags and other march-related forms, or
steady strumming in quarters by banjo or guitar in New Orleans, Chica-
go, and other early jazz idioms (see Fig. 2).

Figure 2. Preparation and resolution of syncopation of the basic 3+3+2 rhythm

Basic 3+3+2 rhythm J. J. J

Quarter-note pulsation J J J J

Combined rhythm J J

In a monophonic break or unaccompanied introduction, the second

dotted quarter is not prepared or resolved explicitly-neither within the
3+3+2 line itself, nor in another, simultaneous portion of the texture. If an
immediately earlier or later passage has established a quarter-note pulsa
tion, the second dotted quarter could be considered prepared and re
solved in an extraordinary sense; that is, implicitly, or to use a logical
term, modally, i.e., by virtue of notes that could have begun on the sec-
ond and third beats and thus could have formed time-interval matchin
relations with earlier or later pairs of notes. Even without a preceding or
following passage of pulsating quarters, one can understand the second
and third quarters as being modally implied by the end of the 3+3+2
rhythm, providing an instance of what Sargeant appears to have meant
by "internal" syncopation; that is, syncopation relative to a metrical hier-
archy which can be inferred on the basis of the rhythm's own notes, irre
spective of other passages or parts of the texture.2
Sargeant's observation that anticipations are more frequent in the early
jazz he surveyed than are retardations can be understood in at least two
ways. Disregarding such pitch structures as chord progressions, one can
take his generalization to mean that an anticipatory transformation of a
measure of four even quarters into an eighth, two quarters, and a dotted

2. Such inferrable pulses, which can be "generated" in theory via a modal axiom, e.g.,
along the lines of Jay Rahn (1978), could be considered to correspond to the metronome
sense in ethnomusicological accounts.

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Rahn * Turning the Analysis Around 75

quarter, for example, is more usual than its retardative counterpart (actu-
ally, its temporal inversion or retrograde) consisting of a dotted quarter,
two quarters, and an eighth (see Fig. 3).

Figure 3. Variants of basic quarter-note pulsation

Basic quarter-note pulsation J J J

Anticipatory variant b J J

Retardative variant J J J b

Widely affirmed since 1938, Sargeant's hypothesis also c

stood in terms of both pitch and rhythm. If so, it would p
monic or contrapuntal anticipations are more frequent tha
The second dotted quarter of a 3+3+2 rhythm might anti
of chord on the fifth eighth from a chord on the first eighth
solve, in retardative fashion, a suspended dissonance hear
eighth that had been prepared on the first. In anticipations
can be heard as leading or directing chord changes or
metaphorically, d incites or provokes Y (see Fig. 4a). In
chord progressions can be heard as leading or directi
melody notes or melodic progression; Y incites or provokes
In this way, Sargeant's hypothesis would predict that
chords, not vice versa.
The preceding analyses of 3+3+2 and other, closely relat
rhythms presume four-square meter as a framework a
3+3+2 not in, or on, its own terms but rather in terms of a pu
privileged, hierarchical metric structure consisting of stro
er beats and subdivisions. Recent work in theory and anal
extend Gunther Schuller's suggestive idea (1968, 6-10), a m
tic, or, one might say, non-metrocentric, construal. This u
clearly connected to concepts of metronome sense, smalle
units, basic pulses, nominal values, and the density referen
sicology (cf., e.g., Nketia 1974, 125-138). Also related
Meyer's notion of a flat hierarchy (1973, 90), the technical
these essentially non-hierarchical conceptions has not been
in any of the analytic traditions just cited. Instead, technic

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76 BMR Journal

Figure 4. The 3+3+2 rhythm with anticipation and suspension

a. Anticipation b. Suspension

Consonance/dissonance -.------ c- c------.. c d--c-- ----. ..----

Melodic rhythm J. J . J J . J. J

Chords x Y x Y z

Chord rhythm J J J J J J

comprehending non-metrocentrism have resided at

might seem the least relevant of formulations, nam
post-tonal theory developed mostly to deal with pitc
tieth-century Europe-derived avant-garde music.
A key component of this shift of paradigm for rhyth
ton Babbitt's theory of time-points (1962). Publishe
decades ago, Babbitt's formulation of time-poin
from existing theories of rhythm and meter-nor ev
veloped in common-practice theory to describe i
chords (which remain influential throughout jazz t
Instead, Babbitt's time-points emerged as an extensi
tone serialism. Babbitt's insight was that time-inte
tacks or beginnings of notes can produce temporal
those formed by pitch-intervals.
A second, heterodox stage of paradigm developme
pirical finding that there are structural parallels bet
cussion ostinatos or time-lines, in several African tr
tonic scale (Pressing 1983; Jay Rahn 1983; Jay Rahn
scale or collection is labeled 7-35 in Allen Forte's sta
sets of the 12-semitone aggregate (Forte 1973, App
1980, 140-143). The collection 7-35 comprises not on
024579E (cf. CDEFGAB, or TTSTTTS, or in semitone
eighths corresponding to 1 and quarters to 2, the rhyth
also the remaining modes (Dorian, Phrygian, etc.) a
counterparts (e.g., 2122212 or J JJ J J 'J for Dorian
lines have long been well documented for music in s

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Rahn * Turning the Analysis Around 77

as Ewe, Ghana Jones 1959, 93, 112, 121, 138, 170; Koetting 1970, 129;
Ladzekpo and Pantaleoni 1970, 21; Ladzekpo 1971, 14; Pantaleoni 1972,
21, 59a; Chemoff 1979, 85, 86, 119, 120); Ashanti, Ghana (Koetting 1970,
136); Yoruba, Nigeria (King 1960, 53; King 1961, i-xxxviii; Koetting 1970,
135); and Venda, South Africa (Blacking 1967, 151-153; 1970, 33, 43, 46, 47,
50). Time-lines of this kind appear also in Mwenda Jean Bosco's guitar
pieces, which stand at the beginning of the important modem guitar tra-
dition of Zaire (Rycroft 1962, 100) and have been transcribed for music of
otherwise unidentified cultures in Ghana (Jones 1954, 59; Nketia 1963a,
89), Benin (Kolinski 1967, 16, 20), and, more generally, West Africa
(Ekwueme 1975-1976, 30).
Understood in terms of pitch and time, number-theory proofs have
shown how far certain features of this diatonic structure extend into cog-
nate rhythms and micro-tonal, non-12-semitone scales. The most impor-
tant of these theorems have appeared in the already epochal study of
maximally even sets by John Clough and Jack Douthett (1991) and in
Clough's recent treatment of diatonic interval cycles (1994). Increasingly,
this body of theoretical lore has shown close structural connections with-
in, between, and among the 7-tone/12-pulse rhythms just discussed, as
well as diatonically structured rhythms comprising 5 tones among 12
pulses, 5 or 3 among 8, and 9 or 7 among 16 (see Fig. 5).
These rhythms underlie and even form explicit components of African-
American and African-Hispanic traditions of the Western hemisphere. As
time-lines, they have permeated traditional music of West, Central,
Southern, and East Africa as well as pan-African idioms of recent
decades. In addition to the traditions and 7-note/12-pulse time-lines just
cited, music using time-lines of the more general sort illustrated in Figure
5 has been transcribed in studies of the following cultures: Ga, Ghana
(Nketia 1958, 22); Akan, Ghana (Nketia 1963b, 102, 106, 110, 114, 118, 122,
124, 126, 128, 130, 132, 136, 138); Luba, Zaire (Rycroft 1962, 100); Ngbaka-
Maibo, Central African Republic (Arom 1976, 509); Hausa, Nigeria (Raab
1970, 100; Besmer 1974, 58); Tonga, Zimbabwe (Jones 1964, 11-12); and
Shananga-Tsonga, Mozambique (Johnston 1971, 69). Theorems concern-
ing this more general sort of diatonic structure draw attention to several
affinities among these traditional time-lines and show how they are both
distinct from and yet highly compatible with other, four-square, hierar-
chical patterns.
Some mathematical results bearing on these rhythms are quite prob-
lematic, for they resist concrete interpretation. For instance, arresting for-
mulations by John Clough and Gerald Myerson (1985) prove that in dia-
tonic structures of the sort just illustrated, for each kind of two-note set
(i.e., each kind of interval or dyad, namely, second, third, fourth, fifth,

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78 BMR Journal

Figure 5. Diatonic rhythmsfor which theorems and proofs appear in Clough and
Douthett (1991) and Clough (1994)

7 tones/12 pulses

JJDJJJJ JbJJJJJ DJJJdJJ JJJDJJJ JJDJJDJ

5 tones/12 pulses

JJJ.JJ. JJ.JJ.J .JJ.JJ JJ.JJ. .JJJ.J

5 tones/8 pulses
.Jf.J.t.J W. JJ J JJ.J JJ.J.

3 tones/8 pulses
J..J J.JJ. JJ.J.

9 tones/16 pulses
JJJJ.JJJJ JJJ.JJJJJ JJ~JJJJJJ J

JJJbJJJJ^ JJDJJJJfJ JJJJJJJJ J

7 tones/16 pulses
JJJJ.JJJ. J.JJJ.J JJ.JJJ.JJ J.JJJ.J JJJ.JJJJ.
JJ.JJJJ.J J.IJJJ JJ

etc.) there are two types. For example, the types are minor and major for
seconds, thirds, sixths, and sevenths; perfect and augmented for fourths;
perfect and diminished for fifths. Similarly, for each kind of trichord or
three-note set in a diatonic structure (whether of pitch or time), the num-
ber of types is three; for example, the types of triads in a diatonic scale are
diminished, minor, and major. The types of trichords that comprise con-
secutive steps or scale degrees are similarly threefold: from bottom to top,
major-second-plus-major-second (e.g., C-D-E, F-G-A, and G-A-B), major-
second-plus-minor-second (e.g., D-E-F and A-B-C), and minor-second-
plus-major-second (e.g., E-F-G and B-C-D); and so forth, for all the possi-

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Rahn * Turning the Analysis Around 79

bilities. Translated into time, this highly abstract set of features holds for
all the 8-, 12-, and 16-pulse rhythms listed above. What such precise nu-
merical relations among types or kinds of things actually might sound
like has not been as clear as the proofs themselves. Other aspects of these
rhythms, formulated just as mathematically, seem more directly connect-
ed to both perception and performance. These features can be translated
into concrete terms that involve neither abstract kinds or types of things,
nor precise numbers (see Jay Rahn 1995 on the general translatability of
abstractions into concrete things for music).
Concepts of evenness, coherence, and proportionacy developed in
these formulations arguably correspond to the smoothness shared by the
time-lines listed above. These concepts also define analogies between the
time-lines and much plainer successions of, for example, even quarters or
dotted quarters, or quarter-eighth pairs. The concept of maximum match-
ing among time-intervals helps define a way in which these rhythms can
be heard as integral, unified wholes or temporal Gestalten and distin-
guishes them from maximally redundant (and maximally even) succes-
sions of indefinitely repeated eighths, or quarters, or dotted quarters, etc.,
and from such minimally redundant (but nonetheless maximally even)
successions as eighth-quarter and quarter-half pairs.
Among maximally even rhythms, another concept, namely individua-
tion (closely analogous to the notion of affinities in medieval modal the-
ory), expresses a further contrast between diatonic rhythms and those in
which the most or fewest time-intervals match each other in size. Diaton-
ic rhythms are maximally individuated in the sense that each of their
notes bears a unique constellation of relations to every other note. For in-
stance, in the 5-tone/8-eighth-pulse diatonic rhythm J hJ ,J the third note
appears 1 eighth and 3 eighths after but 2 and 3 eighths before other notes
in the rhythm, whereas the fifth note appears 1 and 3 eighths after and 2
and 4 eighths before other notes. Irrespective of how often the rhythm
might be repeated, this individuation is sustained for all five notes in the
pattern, which thus constantly renews itself through note-to-note diver-
sity. By contrast, every note in a (nonetheless maximally even) succession
of straight eighths is like every other note, as is every other note in an in-
definitely repeated (and again, maximally even) rhythm of quarter-
eighth pairs.
A rhythm need not be even, coherent, proportionate, etc. in order to be
maximally individuated. Any rhythm that cannot be fully subdivided or
partitioned into repeated segments will, on subsequent repetition, be
maximally individuated in this technical sense; for example, J J D.J as con-
trasted with, for instance, J .bJ J, which subdivides into two statements
of J .b. Whereas particular notes within a repeated four-square rhythm

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80 BMR Journal

stand out as the clearest candidates for being heard as strongest, second
strongest, etc. beats or parts of beats,3 the diatonic rhythms considered
here elude such linear ordering. Instead, they can be understood as com-
prising cycles of (approximate) half-measures analogous to half-octave
cycles that have been discerned for scales (see Jay Rahn 1977). Within
such cycling processes, these rhythms can be understood as twisting or
tunneling through time, forming a special, braided structure.
As recently formulated by Clough (1994), the braided structures char-
acteristic of diatonic rhythms can be contrasted clearly with four-square
rhythms. For example, in the 7-tone rhythms discussed above, every tone
is immediately inside a pair of tones, i.e., a single step away from each.
Each tone of this pair is the same number (i.e., two) of steps away from
the other and yet another. In turn, each of these is four steps from the
other and another still; and so on. The entire pattern comes full circle. Be-
cause of the clumsiness of Europe-derived rhythmic notation, this point

Figure 6. Braided, circular structures in 7-tone/12-pulse rhythm

C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B...

J J D J J J D J J J J J J J J JJ 4 ,...

a. Each C is one step earlier than a D; each D is one step ear

Each C is two steps earlier than an E; each E is two steps

G

Each C is four steps earlier than a G; each G is four steps earlier than a
D

Each C is eight steps earlier than a D; each D is eight steps earlier than
an E (cf. first line in (a): "Each C is one step earlier ...")

b. C's are one step later than B's; B's are one step later than A's

C's are two steps later than A's; A's are two steps later than F's

C's are four steps later than F's; F's are four steps later than B's

C's are eight steps later (i.e., one step later) than B's; B's are eight steps
later than A's; i.e., C's are one step later than B's, and B's are one step
later than A's (cf. first line in (b): "C's are one step later ...")

3. For example, in Jay Rahn (1978).

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Rahn * Turning the Analysis Around 81

is more easily illustrated by pitch letters, as in Figure 6a. In a fully circu-

lar approach to time, one step earlier has the same sense as six steps later;
two steps earlier, the same sense as five later; . . . and eight steps earlier
has the same sense as one step earlier or six steps later. Reversing direc-
tions yields Figure 6b. Each tone (e.g., C) is related to each other tone (e.g.
D, E, G, and B, A, F) in a distinct way. Each tone shares with all other
tones all the distinct ways. Just as the center of a circle is not on the circle
itself, each tone stands outside the tones with which it is related in this
manner. In Figure 6, C is distinct from D, E, G, and B, A, F; D is distinct
from E, F, A, and C, B, G; E, from F, G, B, and D, C, A; and so forth, for all
tones in the rhythm.
Proofs in number theory show that such completely braided, truly cir-
cular structures can arise only in 3-, 5-, 7-, 9-, etc. tone successions like
those listed in Figure 5. By contrast, in the 4-tone pattern of Figure 7a, no
circularity arises. Each such 4-step process converges on a single beat.
This is arguably a model of four-square time, which seems not to renew
itself but instead quickly reaches a clear limit where it remains. Indeed, if
one step later corresponds to three steps earlier, this model comprises a
technical basis for the Europe-derived norm of 4-measure phrasing. In re-
verse, this patterning corresponds to Figure 7b.4
The last technical points to be considered here involve variability and
complementarity. The eighths that are not sounded in a diatonic 7-
note/12-eighth rhythm (stems upward) form a 5-note/12-eighth rhythm
(stems downward) which is also diatonic (in the special sense employed
here):5

Each diatonic rhythm listed above has a unique complementary partner

which is itself also a diatonic rhythm. Not only is this relationship be-
tween paired diatonic rhythms mutual or reciprocal, but such pairs over-
lap maximally. By way of a single illustration, if the stems-downward, 5-
note/12-eighth rhythm just presented begins an eighth earlier, each of its
notes coincides with its stems-upward, 7-note/12-eighth partner (see Fig.
8). Another possibility for tacit motor mediation of sounding notes is for
the unheard portion of the gesture to peak at the temporal mid-point be-
tween sounds, so that the major-mode time-line

4. If 0 is the first, 3 the fourth, 6 the seventh, and 12 the thirteenth measure, this process
could be considered to model standard 12-bar blues, highlighting its cyclical, pendular,
tonic-permeated, harmonic structures, in contrast with the teleological delay of tonic reso-
lution (via counterpoint) in Europe-derived Schenkerian analysis.
5. The orderly notations of 7-note time-lines by Kolinski in Blesh (1958, Ex. 42; cf. 34, 384)
suggest his awareness of their connection with diatonic modes and complementary rela-
tionship with anhemitonic pentatonic rhythms.

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82 BMR Journal

JJ)fJJJ

would produce the following as its shadow.6

r P' P' r r P' P'

Although complementarity and overlap might seem highly abstract as-

pects of relations between rhythms, read into them after the fact, as it
were, I believe they can be understood quite concretely in connection
with Erich von Hornbostel's reflections on African drumming:

Figure 7. Convergent 4-tone cycle

a.

J J J J J J J J J...

w x Y Z W X Y Z W...

W's are one step earlier than X's; X's a

W's are two steps earlier than Y's; Y's

W's are four steps earlier than W's, a

earlier than W's

W's are eight steps earlier than W's, and (trivially, again) W's are eight
steps earlier than W's

b. Reading underlined letters from right to left, and, for the parenthetical
statements, italicized letters from left to right

J J J J J J J J J J J J J

w X Y Z W X Y Z W X Y Z W

W is one step later than Z (cf. W

one step later than Y (cf. Z is th

W is two steps later than Y (cf.

two steps later than W (cf. Y is

W is four steps later than W (cf

6. Compare the structure of rast in Nor

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Rahn * Turning the Analysis Around 83

Figure 8. Overlap of complementary diatonic rhythms

7-tone/12-pulse J J J J J

5-tone/12-pulse r r r r r

African rhythm is ultimately founded on drumming. Drummin

placed by hand-clapping or by the xylophone; what really matte
of beating; and only from this point can African rhythms be
Each single beating movement is... two-fold: the muscles are strained a
the hand is lifted and dropped. Only the second phase is stressed
but the first, inaudible one has the motor accent, as it were, w
in the straining of the muscles. This implies an essential cont
our rhythmic conception and the Africans'; we proceed from h
from motion; we separate the two phases by a bar-line and co
metrical unity, the bar, with the acoustically stressed time-unit; t
beginning of the movement, the arsis, is at the same time the
the rhythmical figure; up-beats are unknown to them. (Hornb
52-53; emphasis added)

Despite the presumptuous, arguably essentialist, us/the

Hombostel's account, a number of his points remain of valu
traditions, John Blacking (1955a; 1955b; 1961) stressed-as h
(1985; 1992) for other, non-Africa-derived music-that not
ming, hand-clapping, and mallet performance, but perform
al can be understood as highly patterned motor activity. To
bostel's approach, the complement of the 3-note/8-eighth r
as J. J. J need not be understood as mere sounds nor as a m
from sounds. Rather, such a rhythm can be considered to co
concrete motor rhythm that results not just from motions
to the sounds actually heard but also from motions, unhear
performers, which occur between these sounds and which
complement the rhythm actually heard (see Fig. 9). In this m
and plausibly social, aspects of such rhythms can be drawn
wise purely sonic analysis.7
Incorporating something like the Effort values used in Lab
dance (Bartenieff and Lewis 1980), one might gain a more c
understanding of such a rhythmic practice. In this regard
dichotomy between strained-stressed-lifted and releas
dropped portions of a movement cycle might not be fully

7. Conversely, Baily's motor grammar of instrumental performances (19

detailed account of time-interval relations.

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84 BMR Journal

Figure 9. Complementary diatonic motor rhythms

Totalrhythm b f f

Sounding portion J J

Silent portion r r r

English was not his first language, and for all we know he never under
took traditional African drumming.8 And the maximum felt contrast of
the unheard, medial portions of movement with heard parts that result in
sounds might not always correspond precisely to the attacks of the stems
down eighths in the above notations. Nonetheless, a technical account of
the remarkable time-interval structures involved merely in the sounding
portions of these rhythms provides a framework within which one might
enhance sensitivity to the larger motor processes within which they
occur. In fact, though often responded to as if they were legislative and
unquestionable, mathematical forms of analysis, including the framing of
proofs, can be understood as discovery procedures-ways of imagina
tively exploring regions where common sense, which in music theory
often seems to have consisted of insufficiently analyzed Europe-derived
concepts, has failed to secure satisfactory models or representations of ex
perience.
Despite the enhanced understanding that results from taking motor ac-
tivity into account, analysts are unlikely to adopt a view of music exactly
parallel to the following iconoclastic perspective on speech advocated by
pioneer motor phonologist R. H. Stetson: "Speech is rather a set of move-
ments made audible than a set of sounds produced by movements"
(quoted in Kelso and Munhall 1988, 58; see also Kubik 1979, 228 for a ten-
tative musical rendering of this doctrine). An important difference is that
all spoken languages, as such, are founded on structures that are signifi-
cantly articulative in ways not shared by such arguably musical activities
as one encounters in the production of chance and electronic forms.
Nonetheless, there is sufficient basis to understand the notes of music as
symbols, not merely of sounds heard in certain ways but also of sounds

8. In seeming contrast to Hornbostel's account of drumming, Blacking (1955b, 51-52) as-

sociates a feeling of release with the portion of a hand movement in which a flute player's
hand is away from, rather than on, the instrument.

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Rahn * Turning the Analysis Around 85

produced in certain ways; and to hear such sounds with a motor imagery
that can, in principle, be shared with others (see, e.g., Kubik 1972, 29).
A plausible case in point is off-beat clapping, which has accompanied
the spread of African musical practices throughout the world. Often in
Africa-derived music, constantly syncopated playing and/or singing is
accompanied solely by off-beat clapping. Problematic for a merely sonic
analysis of music,9 this effect is thoroughly straightforward if one accepts
the axiom that every act of performance implies a counter-act; every clap
of hands that is heard implies a pair of hands unclapped and unheard;
every key pressed, a key released; etc. Such alternations are cyclic and
highly compatible with diatonic braiding. Diatonic braiding involves
processes comprising powers of two, which sequence as 2n = 1, 2, 4, 8, 16,
..., and moduli that comprise multiples of 4 units, e.g., 4, 8, 12, 16 ...
(see discussion above).
Off-beat clapping is pendular, well modeled by the sequence -ln = -1,
+1, -1, +1, ... Each of its cycles has two parts, each the opposite of the
other, neither being necessarily first nor second. Capable of forming epi-
cycles within larger cycles (like dancers turning alternately to left and
right, within a larger, counter-clockwise circling), off- (or, for that matter,
on-) beat clapping provides orientation enough to specify that the beat
has been turned around, helically or toroidally, as it were, within each
cycle of such an odd-numbered figure (i.e., of 3, 5, 7, etc. notes), as in Fig-
ure 10, which constantly renews itself by assimilating cycles that cross-
cut, intensify, subdivide, or multiply each other.

Figure 10. Cross-cutting of diatonic 7-note time-line by pendular clapping

7-note time-line r J r r rJ

Pendularclapping r J r r r r

Although much hearing-as can be shared, much can be

diatonic rhythms discussed here can be varied considera
ing their relevance. As Figure 11 illustrates, diatonic rhy
extra or omitted notes without losing the characteristics
outlined above, if the variant forms are heard as versions
rhythm rather than independently as rhythms in their own
Rahn 1991, 44-49). Such variants of diatonic rhythms can
a four-square manner and in many instances reward su

9. For example, Arom's elaborate theory founders on this point (199

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86 BMR Journal

an approach. For example, adding a note at the fourth eighth of the basic
5-pulse/8-eighth rhythm of Figure 3 results in J J . Jf J which can be
heard not only as a "chromatic" version of the diatonic rhythm, but also
as an unproblematic realization of four-square t meter.

Figure 11. Diatonic 5-note/8-pulse rhythm and variants involving extra and
omitted notes

Diatonic 5-note/8-pulse rhythm J , J

6-note variant J ,J b . b

4-note variant J b J J

In fact, each group of diatonic rhythms inclu

retrograde) patterns which, even without bei
no syncopation relative to a particular fou
framework.

8-eighths: cf. J: .b J J and J J.J

12-eighths: cf. 4 +4 (or ?): J J J and JJ JJJ

16-eighths: cf. + 4: J J JJ J JJJ and JJJ JJJJ

Europe-derived analysis, even in ethnomusicology, has tended to insist

that only one interpretation is possible on any particular occasion. For in-
stance, Mieczyslaw Kolinski (1973, 502) asserted that "one is absolutely
unable to perceive [a particular African piece] at the same time in g or i."
Nevertheless, within the doctrine of Gestalt psychology, which analysts
like Kolinski have taken as a basis for such skepticism, one finds Wolf-
gang Kohler saying, in connection with an ambiguous, "Rubin's" draw-
ing (i.e., of the duck-rabbit variety, which provides a visual parallel to the
question of hearing or feeling a particular passage in I and/or in i-or for
that matter, according to a four-square and/or diatonic framework):
"Under certain unusual conditions both objects may be seen at the same
time" (Kohler 1947, 183).10 Just as there is no contradiction in seeing, on

10. Blesh (1958, 39-40) interprets psychologically what he calls "time-shifts" that result
from "off-beat ostinatos" (cf. off-beat clapping, above) as follows: "the placing of the mea-
sure division tends to shift, the counting is advanced and the off-beat becomes the princi-
pal beat," noting further the similarity of this phenomenon to "various types of optical il-
lusion and the seeing of complementary hues during color fatigue."

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Rahn * Turning the Analysis Around 87

any particular occasion, a given drawing both as a drawing of a duck and

as a drawing of a rabbit, there is no contradiction in hearing or feeling a
passage as simultaneously both in I and 1, nor as, at the same time, both
four-square and diatonic in rhythm. It would be contradictory to claim to
have perceived a passage, at a particular time, both as four-square and
not as four-square. Generally, however, such baldly contradictory claims
do not arise in analysis, although other, non-contradictory claims (e.g., of
the duck-and-rabbit sort) are cited to justify singular, convergent under-
standing.
If diatonic rhythms can be experienced divergently, even within a sin-
gle experience, how can one enhance skill in their production and per-
ception? Although the topic is vast, a few (admittedly anecdotal) obser-
vations seem called for. Much of the material developed for curricula in
rhythm reading and dictation appears to presume that unsyncopated
rhythms are substantially easier than syncopated rhythms. To be sure,
syncopated rhythms appear more complicated on the page, especially if
conveyed with a multitude of ties. However, in my own experience, stu-
dents who read and take down both diatonic and unsyncopated rhythms
from the outset encounter less difficulty later on.
Whereas a retardative approach to syncopation encourages a sudden
grasping at a note just after the beat it follows and an anticipative strate-
gy favors staying a beat ahead of the music (e.g., in one's imagination),
diatonic rhythms reward sustaining relatively large wholes (e.g., of 8, 12,
or 16 units) that could continue, with or without variation, indefinitely
far in the future. As in so many other regions of pedagogy, here it seems
best to begin not at the beginning (i.e., atomistically, in bottom-up fash-
ion, from beat and subdivision to measure, phrase, and piece) nor at the
end (i.e., from piece to part, in the top-down manner of obscurantist cog-
nitive theories) but rather in the middle (i.e., inside-out, from substantial,
significant units toward both the parts that constitute them and the larg-
er wholes they form with one another).

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