8/8/2019 Steve Vai - Tempo Mental http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/steve-vai-tempo-mental 1/12 Vai.com Home > Little Black Dots > Tempo Menta Tempo Mentalby Steve Vai Written in 1983 for a music magazine, but never published.It was the summer of 1978. I had just turned 18 years old and had sent some transcriptions to Frank Zappa. He responded by putting me on salary to transcribe tons of music, everything from lead sheets to orchestral scores. The bulk of the work was guitar solos, some with their accompanying drum parts. Frank played all the guitars and Vinnie Colaiuta was the drummer. These guys used to take it out to lunch, experimenting a lot with rhythms and odd phrases. My task was to transcribe the stuff the best way I thought possible. The tracks were recorded in several different manners. On some occasions, the band played together live. Sometimes FZ overdubbed his solos in the studio. One interesting thing that Frank did at times was to take a drum track from a certain time and place and then take a guitar solo from yet another time and place and lay them on top of each other. Frank released a book of some of these guitar solos and drum parts. It's called "The Frank Zappa Guitar Song Book". While transcribing the material, I was often confronted with situations that led me to reach into the intuitional areas of my imagination to come up with various notational devices and constructions that I had never seen before. I soon discovered that many contemporary composers were then (and are still) using these notations. In this article, I would like to show and explain some of these concepts and devices. Besides being of great educational value, this will also help to clarify the ambiguity behind some of the notation in the transcriptions found in "The Frank Zappa Guitar Song Book". A polyrhythm is just what it says. Two rhythms, or "feels", happening at the same time. Most people reading this have a good understanding of the basic triplet. This, in essence, is a polyrhythm. It's three 8th notes being played against two 8th notes. Some more basic examples follow...
Written in 1983 for a music magazine, but never published.
It was the summer of 1978. I had just turned 18 years old and had sent some transcriptionsto Frank Zappa. He responded by putting me on salary to transcribe tons of music, everythingfrom lead sheets to orchestral scores. The bulk of the work was guitar solos, some with theiraccompanying drum parts. Frank played all the guitars and Vinnie Colaiuta was the drummer.These guys used to take it out to lunch, experimenting a lot with rhythms and odd phrases.My task was to transcribe the stuff the best way I thought possible.
The tracks were recorded in several different manners. On some occasions, the band playedtogether live. Sometimes FZ overdubbed his solos in the studio. One interesting thing thatFrank did at times was to take a drum track from a certain time and place and then take aguitar solo from yet another time and place and lay them on top of each other. Frank releaseda book of some of these guitar solos and drum parts. It's called "The Frank Zappa Guitar SongBook".
While transcribing the material, I was often confronted with situations that led me to reachinto the intuitional areas of my imagination to come up with various notational devices andconstructions that I had never seen before. I soon discovered that many contemporarycomposers were then (and are still) using these notations.
In this article, I would like to show and explain some of these concepts and devices. Besidesbeing of great educational value, this will also help to clarify the ambiguity behind some of thenotation in the transcriptions found in "The Frank Zappa Guitar Song Book".
A polyrhythm is just what it says. Two rhythms, or "feels", happening at the same time. Mostpeople reading this have a good understanding of the basic triplet. This, in essence, is apolyrhythm. It's three 8th notes being played against two 8th notes. Some more basicexamples follow...
These rhythms could be played rubato (fluidly) or non-rubato (very strictly and evenly). Bothways have their own advantageous effects.
SUBDIVIDING OVER TWO OR MORE BEATS
The concept of putting an odd number of attacks in the space of one beat holds true for
putting an odd number of attacks over two beats. The first number (5) shows the number of beats to be superimposed over the spaceprovided. The second number (2)designates the number of beats upon whichthe first number is to be superimposed.The note value that follws shows the typeof note value for the previous number. Sowhat this actually says is "five notes in the
space of two quarter notes". To see where the beat falls mathematically, you would have to subdivide as follows:
Here's a rhythm of five notes on two beats.We know where the first beat falls, but we
want to find out where the second onedoes, too. We need a commondenominator for the two.
Double the 8th notes to 16th notes. Youneed even amounts of beats on both sidesof the beat.
By subdividing and putting five units of
measurement on both sides of the beat,you can now see that the second beat willfall on the upstroke of the third 8th note of the quintuplet. The same thing will holdtrue when you divide any odd number of attacks over two beats. There's a similar concept involved individing a polyrhythm of an odd number of
attacks on three beats evenly. First, youneed a common denominator between thetwo. Then you need even amounts of unitson each beat.
What this example is saying is: seven inthe space of three quarter-notes evenly.
We know where the firstbeat falls. The commondenominator between sevenand three is twenty-one.
By writing out twenty-oneunits and grouping them insevens, you can see wherethe beats fall. By dividingthe units into seven groupsof three, you make a tripletout of each of the sevenattacks.
Another way of seeing thesubdivision is like this.
As you can see now, there's a pattern that you can use to figure out any polyrhythmicsituation. These shown are the basics.
Polyrhythms Inside of Polyrhythms
You can go so far as to subdivide notes inside of polyrhythms.
Play the quarter-note triplet the way you
normally would, but when you get to thesecond quarter-note, play a triplet on it.Then continue to the last quarter-note of the triplet normally.
This is an example of a quintuplet (fiveunits in the space of one quarter-note) with
three 16th notes in the space of the lasttwo 16th notes of the figure. So you wouldexecute this by playing the first three notesas if they were five notes in the space of one quarter-note, and at the end, play atriplet over the last two 16th notes.
As you may imagine, you can really go to town with this type of thing. The followingexamples are taken from some of the songs in "The Frank Zappa Guitar Song Book".
Although some of these examples may seem ambiguous (and/or terrifying!), they can beplayed accurately if understood and practiced. When you have a basic pulse and yousuperimpose altered rhythms on top, you set up a certain flavor in the piece that cannot be
expressed in any other way.
Metric Modulation
Some composers use metric modulation when they write. It's an effect that can give the piece
an accelerando or retardation feel.
What this means is that the 8th note froman 8th-note triplet of the first bar is nowequal to the 8th note of the second bar.
These examples could be rewritten using odd-time signatures, possibly making it a bit easierfor some people to play. But if there were a strict pulse being used, then the way I notated it
would likely be the best.
Discontinued Polyrhythms
Another fine effect is a rhythm being displaced by a disconnected polyrhythm. It's almost as if a metric modulation occurs in the bar, but the overall time it takes to play the bar is thesame.
This bar starts out with two quarter notes (that's one beat). During the next figure, the firsttwo 8th-notes are played as 8th-notes of an 8th-note triplet. The time then resumes tonormal so that by this point, one and 2/3 beats have gone by. The 16th-notes are played
normally, making two and 2/3 beats played. The next 8th-note is played as an 8th-note froman 8th-note triplet. That brings the tally to three complete beats thus far. The remaining partof the bar is played normally.
Another (and what I feel to be simpler) way of notating this follows:
When using this type of notation in a composition, there would have to be some type of
explanation of the beginning of the piece. Here are some more examples of this:
Another situation comes about when you have a metric modulation inside a bar followed bythe tempo returning to its original time, leaving some unaccounted time to be dealt with. Inthis example, you have two 8th-notes, then two 8th-notes from an 8th-note triplet. Thatmakes one and 2/3 beats played so far. Then you play four 16th-notes in the original time,making two and 2/3 beats. The next bracket indicates to play two 8th-notes in the place of one quarter-note (bringing the tally up to three and 2/3 beats) plus one 8th-note from an 8th-note triplet.
What the bracket indicates is to play two notes evenly in the space of one and 1/3 beats.
Some more examples of this follow. These examples take place in 4/4 time, but you can takethis concept and mutate it for odd-time meters, waltzes, sambas, etc.
As you can see, these things take a lot of practice and good understanding. The best way toattempt to execute them is bit by bit.
Here's one for all you maniacs:
You might say, "Why, Steve?"And I might say, "I don't know".You might say, "Who's gonna play it, Steve?"And I might say, "I don't know".
This is extreme for today...but maybe not for the computers of tomorrow. [Note: this articlewas written around 1983 or 1984].
Another technique I use is that of overlapping polyrhythms. This can get kind of sticky and isbest used when there's no definite time signature going on.
One way of executing this phenomenon is to play the first five 8th notes as if they were equalto the 8th notes of an 8th-note triplet.
You can also rewrite it to look like this:
Another way of approaching it would be to play the first two 8th notes as 8th notes of an 8th-note triplet. Then play the next three in the space of one and 1/3 beats. Another way of writing it would be:
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