Efrain Toro
Encyclopedia
Efrain Toro is a Puerto Rican
percussionist and music educator. He has written numerous books on rhythm
.
His main argument is that the Western form of musical notation of rhythm is a misunderstanding of the nature of music; he believes that western music's use of fixed spaces between notes does not allow for the true perception of music as frequency. Toro states that rhythm is a natural element of the universe that is a priori
, existing in the very first moments of the birth of the universe, and manifesting as pulses that we hear as beats up to frequencies that we perceive as light and beyond. He posits that the overtone scale
is the blue print for the natural order of rhythmic progression: the first beat being the tonic, followed by the upbeat which is the octave, followed by a triplet which is the fifth, and so on until all rhythmic equivalents of the harmonic progression are included in that order. Cultural style of groove is thus based on the way that these relationships are perceived.
Efrain believes that the first perceivable rhythmic pattern is 2 pulses against three and that 2 naturally flows from 3 and not the other way around; hence all rhythms are either waltz
es or polka
s. One of his main points is that drums have been absent in European culture, notably the church, for many centuries, and that the military is the only institutional place for drums in the West. The legacy of the military's "fixed space approach" to music is prevalent in the West today, he states, and current Western popular music is the inheritor of this tradition.
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
percussionist and music educator. He has written numerous books on rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
.
His main argument is that the Western form of musical notation of rhythm is a misunderstanding of the nature of music; he believes that western music's use of fixed spaces between notes does not allow for the true perception of music as frequency. Toro states that rhythm is a natural element of the universe that is a priori
A priori and a posteriori (philosophy)
The terms a priori and a posteriori are used in philosophy to distinguish two types of knowledge, justifications or arguments...
, existing in the very first moments of the birth of the universe, and manifesting as pulses that we hear as beats up to frequencies that we perceive as light and beyond. He posits that the overtone scale
Harmonic series (music)
Pitched musical instruments are often based on an approximate harmonic oscillator such as a string or a column of air, which oscillates at numerous frequencies simultaneously. At these resonant frequencies, waves travel in both directions along the string or air column, reinforcing and canceling...
is the blue print for the natural order of rhythmic progression: the first beat being the tonic, followed by the upbeat which is the octave, followed by a triplet which is the fifth, and so on until all rhythmic equivalents of the harmonic progression are included in that order. Cultural style of groove is thus based on the way that these relationships are perceived.
Efrain believes that the first perceivable rhythmic pattern is 2 pulses against three and that 2 naturally flows from 3 and not the other way around; hence all rhythms are either waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
es or polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
s. One of his main points is that drums have been absent in European culture, notably the church, for many centuries, and that the military is the only institutional place for drums in the West. The legacy of the military's "fixed space approach" to music is prevalent in the West today, he states, and current Western popular music is the inheritor of this tradition.
Books
- All of Rhythm
- For Your Hands Only
- 2/3 or Not 2/3
- The Odd in You
- Three Strokes You′re In