Cross-beat
Encyclopedia
In music
, a cross-beat or cross-rhythm is a form of polyrhythm
.
The term cross rhythm was introduced in 1934 by Arthur Morris Jones
.
cross-rhythm is the generating principle; the meter is in a permanent state of contradiction. Cross-rhythm was first explained as the basis of sub-Saharan rhythm in lectures by C.K. Ladzekpo and the writings of David Locke.
The ethnomusicological pioneer Arthur Morris Jones
(1889–1980) observed that the shared rhythmic principles of Sub-Saharan African music traditions constitute one main system. Similarly, Ewe master drummer and scholar C.K. Ladzekpo affirms the profound homogeneity of sub-Saharan African rhythmic principles.
structure that is common to so many western instruments such as the piano
, harp
, xylophone
, etc.
On these instruments one hand of the musician is not primarily in the bass nor the other primarily in the treble, but both hands can play freely across the entire tonal range of the instrument. Also the fingers of each hand can play separate independent rhythmic patterns and these can easily cross over each other from treble to bass and back, either smoothly or with varying amounts of syncopation
. This can all be done within the same tight tonal range, without the left and right hand fingers ever physically encountering each other. These simple rhythms will interact musically to produce complex cross rhythms including repeating on beat/off beat pattern shifts that would be very difficult to create by any other means. This characteristically African structure allows often simple playing techniques to combine with each other and produce polyrhythmic music of great beauty and complexity.
, is the most significant rhythmic ratio found in sub-Saharan rhythm. The following measure is evenly divided by three beats and two beats. The two cycles do not share equal status though. The two bottom notes are the primary beats, the ground, the main temporal referent. The three notes above are the secondary beats. Typically, the dancer's feet mark the primary beats, while the secondary beats are accented musically.
Here is the 3:2 cross-rhythm shown within its proper metric structure.
3:2 is the generative or theoretic form of sub-Saharan rhythmic principles. Victor Kofi Agawu states very succinctly:
Two beats over three beats; two-over-three (2:3) cross-rhythm:
2:3 cross-rhythm written within its proper metric structure:
"an intangible rhythmic momentum in jazz," adding that "swing defies analysis; claims to its presence may inspire arguments." The only specific description offered is the statement that "triplet subdivisions contrast with duple subdivisions." The argument could be made that by nature of its simultaneous triple and duple subdivisions, swing is fundamentally a form of polyrhythm. However, the use of systematic cross-rhythm in jazz
did not occur until the second half of the twentieth century.
In 1959 Mongo Santamaria
recorded "Afro Blue
," the first jazz standard built upon a typical African 3:2 cross-rhythm. The song begins with the bass repeatedly playing 3 cross-beats per each measure of 6/8 (3:2).
The great jazz drummer Elvin Jones
took the opposite approach, superimposing two cross-beats over every measure of a 3/4 jazz waltz (2:3). This swung 3/4 is perhaps the most common example of overt cross-rhythm in jazz. In 1963 John Coltrane
recorded "Afro Blue" with Elvin Jones on drums. Coltrane reversed the metric hierarchy of Santamaria's composition, performing it instead in 3/4 swing (2:3).
In recent decades jazz has incorporated many different types of complex cross-rhythms, as well as other types of polyrhythms.
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, a cross-beat or cross-rhythm is a form of polyrhythm
Polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms.Polyrhythm in general is a nonspecific term for the simultaneous occurrence of two or more conflicting rhythms, of which cross-rhythm is a specific and definable subset.—Novotney Polyrhythms can be distinguished from...
.
Cross-rhythm. A rhythm in which the regular pattern of accents of the prevailing meter is contradicted by a conflicting pattern and not merely a momentary displacement that leaves the prevailing meter fundamentally unchallenged.—New Harvard Dictionary of Music (1986: 216).
The term cross rhythm was introduced in 1934 by Arthur Morris Jones
Arthur Morris Jones
Arthur Morris Jones , was a missionary and musicologist who worked in Zambia during the early 20th century. He was stationed at St Mark's School in Mapanza in the Southern Province of present-day Zambia . He is best known for his ethnomusicological work, particularly his two-volume Studies in...
.
African music
In Sub-Saharan African music traditionsSub-Saharan African music traditions
Sub-Saharan African music traditions exhibit so many common features that they may in some respects be thought of as constituting a single musical system. While some African music is clearly contemporary-popular music and some is art-music, still a great deal is communal and orally transmitted...
cross-rhythm is the generating principle; the meter is in a permanent state of contradiction. Cross-rhythm was first explained as the basis of sub-Saharan rhythm in lectures by C.K. Ladzekpo and the writings of David Locke.
Cross-rhythm pervades southern Ewe musicEwe musicEwe music is the music of the Ewe people of West Africa. Instrumentation is primarily percussive and rhythmically the music features great metrical complexity. Its highest form is in dance music including a drum orchestra, but there are also work, play, and other songs. Despite his title Ewe music...
.—Locke (1982: 231)
At the center of a core of rhythmic traditions within which the composer conveys his ideas is the technique of cross-rhythm. The technique of cross-rhythm is a simultaneous use of contrasting rhythmic patterns within the same scheme of accents or meter. . .
By the very nature of the desired resultant rhythm, the main beat scheme cannot be separated from the secondary beat scheme. It is the interplay of the two elements that produces the cross-rhythmic texture."—Ladzekpo (1995)
The ethnomusicological pioneer Arthur Morris Jones
Arthur Morris Jones
Arthur Morris Jones , was a missionary and musicologist who worked in Zambia during the early 20th century. He was stationed at St Mark's School in Mapanza in the Southern Province of present-day Zambia . He is best known for his ethnomusicological work, particularly his two-volume Studies in...
(1889–1980) observed that the shared rhythmic principles of Sub-Saharan African music traditions constitute one main system. Similarly, Ewe master drummer and scholar C.K. Ladzekpo affirms the profound homogeneity of sub-Saharan African rhythmic principles.
From the philosophical perspective of the African musician, cross-beats can symbolize the challenging moments or emotional stress we all encounter. Playing cross-beats while fully grounded in the main beats, prepares one for maintaining a life-purpose while dealing with life’s challenges. Many sub-Saharan languages do not have a word for rhythm, or even music. From the African viewpoint, the rhythms represent the very fabric of life itself; they are an embodiment of the people, symbolizing interdependence in human relationships.—Peñalosa (2009: 21)
Adaptive instruments
Cross rhythms can easily be produced by two or more musicians, however producing this effect on one instrument by one musician can be very challenging. Not many western instruments are capable of easily doing this. Because of the great importance of cross rhythms in African music several instruments have evolved there that are especially adaptive for accomplishing this. The structure of these instruments are made to facilitate the creation of cross rhythms. They organize the notes in a uniquely divided alternate array – not in the linear bass to trebleTreble (sound)
Treble refers to tones of high frequency or range. In music this corresponds to high notes, and for this reason the treble clef is often used for instruments with higher pitch. Examples of treble sounds are guitar tones, female voice , young boy voice, etc. They have frequencies above 9 KHz. Treble...
structure that is common to so many western instruments such as the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
, xylophone
Xylophone
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
, etc.
Thumb pianoThumb pianoThe thumb piano is an African musical instrument, a type of plucked idiophone common throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.-Description:Each note of a kalimba, mbira, etc. is a separate idiophone, and in orchestral terms, the instrument as a whole belongs in the bar percussion family...
type instruments including MbiraMbiraIn African music, the mbira is a musical instrument that consists of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. It is often fitted into a resonator...
, Mbila, Mbira Huru, Mbira Njari, Mbira Nyunga, Marimba, Karimba, Kalimba, Likembe, Okeme, as well as marímbulaMarímbulaA marímbula is a folk musical instrument of the Caribbean Islands . The marímbula is usually classified as part of the lamellophone family of musical instruments. With its roots in African instruments, marimbula originated in the province of Oriente, Cuba in the 19th century...
(also called kalimba) in the Caribbean Islands have this quality.
The West African koraKora (instrument)The kora is a 21-string bridge-harp used extensively in West Africa.-Description:A kora is built from a large calabash cut in half and covered with cow skin to make a resonator, and has a notched bridge. It does not fit well into any one category of western instruments and would have to be...
is another such cross rhythm adaptive instrument. It is in the double harp-lute family of instruments and it also has this separated double tonal array structure.
The GravikordGravikordThe gravikord is an electric double bridge-harp invented by Robert Grawi in 1986.- Description :The gravikord is a new instrument developed on the basis of the West African kora. It is made of welded stainless steel tubing, with 24 nylon strings but no resonating gourd or skin. The bridge is made...
a new American instrument closely related to both the African kora and the kalimba was created in the latter 20th century to also exploit this adaptive principle in a modern electro-acoustic instrument.
Doussn'gouni is another adaptive African instrument similar to the kora but of lighter construction with fewer strings. It also has a double array structure of notes.
On these instruments one hand of the musician is not primarily in the bass nor the other primarily in the treble, but both hands can play freely across the entire tonal range of the instrument. Also the fingers of each hand can play separate independent rhythmic patterns and these can easily cross over each other from treble to bass and back, either smoothly or with varying amounts of syncopation
Syncopation
In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
. This can all be done within the same tight tonal range, without the left and right hand fingers ever physically encountering each other. These simple rhythms will interact musically to produce complex cross rhythms including repeating on beat/off beat pattern shifts that would be very difficult to create by any other means. This characteristically African structure allows often simple playing techniques to combine with each other and produce polyrhythmic music of great beauty and complexity.
Simple examples
Three-over-two (3:2) The cross-rhythm three-over-two (3:2) or hemiolaHemiola
In modern musical parlance, a hemiola is a metrical pattern in which two bars in simple triple time are articulated as if they were three bars in simple duple time...
, is the most significant rhythmic ratio found in sub-Saharan rhythm. The following measure is evenly divided by three beats and two beats. The two cycles do not share equal status though. The two bottom notes are the primary beats, the ground, the main temporal referent. The three notes above are the secondary beats. Typically, the dancer's feet mark the primary beats, while the secondary beats are accented musically.
In traditional European ("Western") rhythms, the most fundamental parts typically emphasize the primary beats. By contrast, in rhythms of sub-Saharan African origin, the most fundamental parts typically emphasize the secondary beats. This often causes the uninitiated ear to misinterpret the secondary beats as the primary beats, and to hear the true primary beats as cross-beats. In other words, the musical "background" and "foreground" may mistakenly be heard and felt in reverse.—Peñalosa (2009: 21)
Here is the 3:2 cross-rhythm shown within its proper metric structure.
. . . the 3:2 relationship (and [its] permutations) is the foundation of most typical polyrhythmic textures found in West African musics.— Novotney (1998: 201)
3:2 is the generative or theoretic form of sub-Saharan rhythmic principles. Victor Kofi Agawu states very succinctly:
[The] resultant [3:2] rhythm holds the key to understanding . . . there is no independence here, because 2 and 3 belong to a single Gestalt.—Agawu (2003: 92)
European music
In some European art music cross-rhythm periodically contradicts the prevailing meter. For example, cross-rhythm is heard in the first few minutes of Beethoven's third Symphony and in the first movement of Brahms's Violin Concerto. Concerning the use of a two-over-three cross-rhythm in Beethoven ‘s sixth quartet in B flat, Ernest Walker says:The vigorously effective Scherzo is in 3/4 time, but with a curiously persistent cross-rhythm that does its best to persuade us that it is really in 6/8 . . .—Walker (1905: 79)
Two beats over three beats; two-over-three (2:3) cross-rhythm:
2:3 cross-rhythm written within its proper metric structure:
Jazz
The New Harvard Dictionary of Music calls swing (jazz performance style)Swing (jazz performance style)
In jazz and related musical styles, the term swing is used to describe the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or "groove" created by the musical interaction between the performers, especially when the music creates a "visceral response" such as feet-tapping or head-nodding...
"an intangible rhythmic momentum in jazz," adding that "swing defies analysis; claims to its presence may inspire arguments." The only specific description offered is the statement that "triplet subdivisions contrast with duple subdivisions." The argument could be made that by nature of its simultaneous triple and duple subdivisions, swing is fundamentally a form of polyrhythm. However, the use of systematic cross-rhythm in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
did not occur until the second half of the twentieth century.
In 1959 Mongo Santamaria
Mongo Santamaría
Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría Rodríguez was an Afro-Cuban Latin jazz percussionist. He is most famous for being the composer of the jazz standard "Afro Blue," recorded by John Coltrane among others. In 1950 he moved to New York where he played with Perez Prado, Tito Puente, Cal Tjader, Fania All...
recorded "Afro Blue
Afro Blue
"Afro Blues" is a jazz standard composed by Mongo Santamaría, perhaps best known in its arrangement by John Coltrane.Coltrane's recordings of the piece have several features in common with his versions of "My Favorite Things", including a pulsating 3/4 jazz waltz rhythm, and a simple, almost...
," the first jazz standard built upon a typical African 3:2 cross-rhythm. The song begins with the bass repeatedly playing 3 cross-beats per each measure of 6/8 (3:2).
The great jazz drummer Elvin Jones
Elvin Jones
Elvin Ray Jones was a jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed interest in drums at a young age, watching the circus bands march by his family's home in Pontiac, Michigan....
took the opposite approach, superimposing two cross-beats over every measure of a 3/4 jazz waltz (2:3). This swung 3/4 is perhaps the most common example of overt cross-rhythm in jazz. In 1963 John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
recorded "Afro Blue" with Elvin Jones on drums. Coltrane reversed the metric hierarchy of Santamaria's composition, performing it instead in 3/4 swing (2:3).
In recent decades jazz has incorporated many different types of complex cross-rhythms, as well as other types of polyrhythms.