Please recommend a GREAT book about rhythmic modulation

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:35 am

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:
Rick Averill wrote:The full score to "West Side Story" shows the whole song in 6/8 with 3/4 in parenthesis. ...As to "Dulcinea", that's a more subtle example than the blatant instance I was thinking of. I had in mind the beginning of the inn (castle) scene where the muleteers are banging out said rhythm on the table with their cups, chanting "Food, wine, Aldonza!"
You are referring to the "I Come For Love" sequence. Brilliant stuff! So Lenny basically stayed in 6/8 but indicated the "feel." I agree with that approach (and who would disagree with him... Him?

Theater is my first and foremost love and much great stuff happens in theater scores that is so transparent and so natural and so damn complex! Everyone knows 'Send in the Clowns' but damn, if you want to study meter complexities, look at Soundheim. Then again, also look to him for harmonic, melodic, lyric and dramatic complexity!

musicarteca · Post by **musicarteca** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:02 am

Rick Averill wrote:The full score to "West Side Story" shows the whole song in 6/8 with 3/4 in parenthesis.

This is also very common of some Latin american rhythms where the song interchanges the accents. The interesting thing is not only the fact that the accents of the melody change, but each instrument comping style will radically change when the beat is in 6/8 or in 3/4, and that usually is way more complex than just playing the accents in the strong beats for each one of the time signatures.

Rick Averill · Post by **Rick Averill** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:39 am

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Theater is my first and foremost love and much great stuff happens in theater scores that is so transparent and so natural and so damn complex! Everyone knows 'Send in the Clowns' but damn, if you want to study meter complexities, look at Soundheim. Then again, also look to him for harmonic, melodoic, lyric and dramatic complexity!

I love musical theater also. And speaking of Sondheim, he used the aforementioned rhythm in "The Glamorous Life" from "A Little Night Music." (Cracks in the plaster, la-la-la; Youngish admirers, la-la-la; Which one is that one? la-la-la; Hi ho the glamorous life.)

Hmm...wonder who he got the idea from...

m2 · Post by m2 » Sun Sep 09, 2007 10:43 am

what you are actually looking for that the likes of Elliot Carter does is called 'Meteric Modulation' and has to do with either changing tempo by way of assigning another note value as the principal beat and then adoptiong the meter to 'agree with this new tactus; or actually changing Meter and tempo at the same time. I think the Paul Cooper Theroy text - can't remeber the publisher now - has a good section on that.

good luck.

rwmorganiv · Post by **rwmorganiv** » Tue Sep 11, 2007 10:36 pm

The fun part about rhythmic modulation is that it shows you there's more than one place to hear the pulse. I found a book from Brasil By Jose E. Gramani, called RÃtmica that shows many examples of this.

And for the sake of self promotion, also check out my big band piece on Sibeliusmusic.com that incorporates metric modulation entitled Fuse.
http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/sh ... oreid=1129

dewdman42 · Post by **dewdman42** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:25 pm

One word, "Schillinger".

ed belknap · Post by **ed belknap** » Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:39 am

FMiguelez wrote:.
Elliot Carter does it a lot.

fwiw, every comprehensive discussion and/or analysis of Elliott Carter's work I've ever encountered refers to this technique as "metric modulation" rather than "rhythmic modulation"