Polyrhythmic Fundamentals
BY JULiAn LAGe
Julian Lage is one of those rare musicians who
feels equally at home in acoustic and jazz cir-
cles. He has been a member of legendary vibra-
phonist Gary Burton’s group since 2004, and
also regularly collaborates with pianist Taylor
Eigsti. Lage’s latest album, Gladwell, reflects
his wide-ranging musical interests and talents
by incorporating chamber music, American folk
and bluegrass, Latin and world music, tradi-
tional string-band sounds, and modern jazz. For
more information, visit julianlage.com.
CHOPS: Advanced
THEORY: Intermediate
LESSON OVERVIEW:
• Develop basic polyrhythmic
techniques.
• Learn how to superimpose
different rhythms to make a
“4-against- 3” feel.
• Understand how accents can
imply different time feels.
CLICK HERE
to hear sound clips
of these examples.
excitement. In the case of rhythm, I feel
this can be traced to the quarter-note. In
this lesson, I’d like to explore the world of
rhythmic development, syncopation, and
introduce the foundation of polyrhythms.
One of my favorite things about the
way time works in the musical realm is that
any given pulse has two sides. There is the
attack and the absence of the attack—or
the space between. One way to practice
experiencing the full attack/negative space
of every pulse is to set the metronome to
roughly 30 bpm—or lower, if possible—
and start playing a pitch or scale (for this
lesson, let’s say C major) with one note allocated to each click. In Fig.;1 you can see an
example of this.
At first, this may feel like you are playing
musical darts, trying to pin down each beat
as it passes by. However, with daily practice
you’ll start to feel like you can predict when
the next click will come. The goal with this
is to eventually transition from following
the metronome to playing alongside it. Do
this for several minutes or until you feel
settled into the pulse.
The next step is to add the eighth-note
subdivision, so that for every click, you play
two notes, as you can see in Fig.;2. This is
often easier because there is less time between
notes. One thing you can do to help insure
Fig. 1
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your notes are filling their full spectrum is
to use your voice to make a sound between
each note. By verbalizing a “click” or some
kind of sound on the offbeats, the notes you
are playing will start to lock in even stronger
with the metronome pulse.
Now let’s add some eighth-note triplets.
After practicing this for a few minutes
or until it feels steady, switch back to the
eighth-note subdivision for a few bars, then
back to triplets, and continue alternating
for a few minutes (Fig.;3). You may find
this forces you to envision the other subdivision prior to playing it, simply so you
don’t lose the pulse during the transition.
This can feel like a tedious practice, but if
you can spend 10 minutes a day on it for a
week or a month, it will help greatly to lay
a strong rhythmic foundation that grooves
no matter how complex the rhythmic development may become.
Next let’s look at syncopation. Start by
playing sixteenth-notes—that’s four notes
for every click. Then begin accenting every
fifth note, so after accenting the first note
of the exercise, you will accent the sixth
note, then the 11th, and so on. Check out
Fig. 4 for an example. This can sometimes
be easier if practiced at a faster tempo, but I
encourage you to stay with the slower tempos until you can speed up without losing
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For years, I have been fascinated by how my favorite players—Jim Hall, Bill
Evans, Ben Webster, Doc Watson, and so
many more—were able to play solos that
propelled forward so effortlessly. Of course,
what makes a great solo or composition is
the convergence of harmony, melody, and
rhythm into a unified narrative. However,
there is something special about the way
these players use rhythmic diversity to shed
light on the inner workings of any given
piece of music and give it an extra jolt of
Fig.;2
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