DCMS://MUS229_Studies in Rhythm/
Contact: Tony Lewis
Ph: 0405 686 089
Email: dhamorperc@yahoo.com
Credit points: 3
Offered: D1 Day; Offered in first half-year
Prerequisites: 12cp
Music is a time-based art form. Music cannot exist outside time, and accordingly, methods of managing and organising time are critical to all music of all times and of all cultures. Rhythm is humankind’s primary tool for achieving such musical organisation. MUS229 Studies in Rhythm will investigate the musical element of rhythm in both theoretical and practical modes, and from manifold perspectives, drawn from many and various musical cultures of the world.
The unit will begin with a theoretical consideration of the universal role of rhythm as a means of measuring and managing time, and of organising musical ideas in time. It will then investigate the practical application of rhythm, and the various and extraordinary musical manifestations of rhythmic ideas, that are found in specific musical cultures. The subject matter will include:
Rhythm and rhythmic cycles in Australian indigenous music (Arnhem Land)
Rhythm as a regulator of collective behaviour – the Maori haka (New Zealand)
Rhythmic function in modal music traditions of Central Asia (Persian, Turkish and Indian classical music)
Rhythmic cycles (tala) and rhythmic cadential formulae (tihai) in North and South Indian classical music
Rhythmic stratification and modulation (irama) in Javanese gamelan music
Rhythmic interlocking and hocketing (West African drum ensembles, Spanish Flamenco, Balinese gamelan)
Polyrhythm and rhythmic ambiguity in West African music (Ewe tradition)
Irregular metre in Balkan music (Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey)
Shifting phrase lengths in the garamut music of Baluan, Papua New Guinea
Students will learn to perform elements of the musical repertoire under investigation –
focusing of course on the rhythmic features – and through doing so, will also learn to conceptualise and analyse the rhythms performed. Students will be encouraged to explore means of applying the rhythmic concepts studied to whatever their principal area of musical / artistic interest – for example, a guitarist will be encouraged to apply the rhythmic ideas to the guitar; a dancer will be encouraged to apply them to movement.
Students will study conventional and unconventional notation techniques, and will learn to encapsulate the ideas explored in western notation, employing appropriate durational values, note groupings and time signatures.
Through its exploration of universal rhythmic concepts, the unit will prepare students to recognise, understand and work confidently with rhythmic ideas in any music form at all that they should wish to pursue thereafter. The unit will be of particular value to those wishing to pursue further studies in MUS230 African Drumming.