MicroRhythm - What it is and Why Nerdwriter Got It All Wrong

Micro-rhythm is a term used to describe the "wonky" rhythms found in musical traditions like Samba da Roda, Morrocan Gnawa, the Viennese Waltz, as well as in neo-soul like D'Angelo and jazz musicians like Errol Garner and Malcolm Braff and Jacob Collier. I take you through some examples as well as looking a recent mention of the term in a Nerdwriter video, which managed to get most of the facts all wrong!
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Microtiming in "Samba de Roda" -Preliminary experiments with polyphonic audio
www.researchgate.net/publicat...
Innov Gnawa "Hammadi"
• Innov Gnawa "Hammadi"
Jacob Collier Interview (June Lee)
• Interview: Jacob Colli...
Nerdwriter: How Michael Jackson Crafted His First Solo Hit
• How Michael Jackson Cr...
Anne Danielsen (2012) The Sound of Crossover: Micro-rhythm and Sonic Pleasure in Michael Jackson's “Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough”, Popular Music and Society, 35:2, 151-168, DOI: 10.1080/03007766.2011.616298
Malcolm Braff General Theory of Rhythm website
general-theory-of-rhythm.org/
Galland/Braff duet: "Afro Blue"
• Galland/Braff duet: "A...

[@AdamNeely]

Ahaha, yeah, I've stumbled onto Malcolm Braff's music and website before, and it honestly baffled me then, as it does now. The harmonics of rhythm stuff is nuts!

[@DBruce]

I suspect the 'harmonics of rhythm' is a fancier term than is necessary for what he's up to. The apparent comparison of rhythm to harmony just seemed very you though! His website is pretty nuts, but I have to say, I really like the music!

[@HEHEHEIAMASUPAHSTARSAGA]

Analogues between rhythm and harmony can produce some cool things. You can do a "rhythmic tritone resolution", where a 7:5 polyrhythm resolves to to 5:4 polyrhythm. It resolves "inward", meaning the slower beat speeds up and the faster beat slows down, analogous to the 7 and 4 moving to the 1 and 3.

[@Gabrol]

Adam please make a video on the micro rhythm subject, thanks love your channel

[@santiagoboffo9942]

@@HEHEHEIAMASUPAHSTARSAGA I dont fully get it, what do you mean? How Does it work the idea of polyrhythm resolving into another one?

[@HEHEHEIAMASUPAHSTARSAGA]

The ratio of two frequencies a tritone apart is about 7:5, and the ratio of two frequencies a major third apart is about 5:4. These can be directly translated into polyrhythms. Think of two beats, starting at 150 and 210 bpm (7:5), then "resolving inward" to 160 and 200 bpm (5:4).

[@sebastianzaczek]

I'll refer to this video the next time someone says that i play "out of sync"

[@stefan1024]

"it's jazzzzz" ;)

[@rillloudmother]

lol, not if you have to explain it...

[@drrodopszin]

But before you do that, try to record yourself twice with the same motif with the same rhythm and see if you are actually a master of micro rhythm.

[@rillloudmother]

drrodopszin I'm all about that 10 over 4 dilla/brubeck feel.

[@foshizol]

If your trying to play like this, and it doesn't make you want to move your hips or play along. Yeah, your playing out of time.

[@MattMusicianX]

As a drummer who spent 16 years performing the music of Guinea, West Africa and studying with professional Guinean drummers, and considering myself at least somewhat of a jazz drummer, I find your video essays to be by far the most fascinating!!! Amazing work, Mr. Bruce. If I could go back to college again, I'd want to take classes that you teach.

[@iroveashe]

Do you have guinean music to recommend?

[@javierolmedo4927]

I also studied Guinean drumming! Their feel is incredible. I’d love to see a microrhythm/timing analysis on Dundun music.

[@MattMusicianX]

@@iroveashe sorry I missed your comment. A good start is to check out Michael Pluznick's channel. I think he's in SE Asia or the Pacific islands now but he has a decade of older videos from Guinea.

[@AnAmericanComposer]

Ivan Wyschnegradsky, an avant garde Russian French composer, wrote about his personal issues with the strict, mathematical division in Western music, how there geared so well toward western dance patterns but at the same time they're incredibly restrictive when attempting to recreate any sort of organic Rhythm, like in the examples you're giving, and are nearly impossible both to write down and to also perform faithfully. He has a paper titled The Liberation of Rhythm, which I crudely translated from French into English, and it was a very fascinating article. If you're ever interested I would love to email it to you.

[@oliversmedley2019]

Hey I would love a copy of that please

[@Montcalf091]

I would love a copy too!

[@crieverytim]

where is it???

[@EliGamesOfficial]

I too would love a copy if possible?

[@AnAmericanComposer]

@@EliGamesOfficial send me an email! anamericancomposer@gmail

[@guitarpaintings9319]

I am learning how to accompany flamenco singers and dancers and I consistently get criticism for being on the beat, as opposed to slightly behind which what good accompanying guitarists generally do.

[@DBruce]

Thanks for your comment - I just checked out your channel and was really enjoying what I could understand of your intro to flamenco harmony. Is there any chance I could ask you something relating to flamenco harmony a little on email? If you're willing to talk please write just using davidbrucecomposer at gmail dot com. Many thanks! David

[@eoghdes18]

I’ve always felt the Viennese waltz as having an early second beat rather than a delayed third beat, but that’s just me!

[@DBruce]

probably a bit of both!

[@eoghdes18]

David Bruce Composer yeah, definitely. I guess if you beat it 1 in a bar it’s much of a muchness.

[@martinpaddle]

same here, but would have to check it in more detail

[@faville]

If anyone has an accurate reading, post it! I used to play in an orchestra that regularly did Strauss waltzes in their summer pops seasons, and there were always a couple of more "worldly" members of the viola/2nd violin section who would ask the conductor if we were doing the rhythm with its European feel. It always caused anxiety because no one would take the time to actually explain it to us plebes who had never had training of that sort, so we would just limp along trying to follow what we heard. The feel, to me, was indeed a little early on beat 2, a little late on beat 3, and it was real easy to fall a little too far in each direction if you weren't in the zone.

[@Thedeadjoker666]

I also feel it to be early, and always found that funny.

[@mcskewl]

Hey man, I generally stay away from commenting on your videos since I don't know much about music, but after watching this one I had to leave a comment of thanks for making what you do. Your videos are well-thought out, easily understandable even for someone like myself, pleasantly edited and overall really educational and interesting, even when on niche or mostly unheard of subjects that look really difficult to explain. I love all your stuff, please keep it at!

[@DBruce]

awesome to hear, many thanks!

[@SBJBeats]

Hey minecraftintheschooltoilets , I generally stay away from commenting on youtube comments, since I don't know much about commenting, but after reading this one I had to leave a comment of thanks for writing this. Your comment is well-thought out, easily understandable even for someone like myself, pleasantly edited and overall really educational and interesting, even when on niche or mostly unheard of subject of complimenting a video which is really difficult to explain. I love your praise of guys making amazing videos, please keep it at!

[@sentientcardboarddumpster7900]

Hey@@SBJBeats I generally dont comment about someones comment about commenting, since I dont know much about commenting about someones comment about commenting, but after reading this one I had to leave a comment of thanks for writing this. Your comment is well thought out. Easily understandable, even for someone like myself, pleasantly edited and overall really educational and interesting, even when on niche or mostly unheard of subject of complimenting a compliment a video which is hard to explain. I love your praise etc..so forth and so on..

[@Emenut]

I feel exactly the same!! In fact as an amateur pianist is really helpfull and enjoyable to watch your videos

[@paulretraint1508]

@@sentientcardboarddumpster7900 I'm not in the habit of commenting commenting about someone's comment about commenting, as I have a regrettable dearth of experience when it comes to commenting commenting about someone's comment about commenting, but after reading this one, I felt the urge to leave a comment of thanks as a token of my token appreciation. Your comment comment comment is well thought through, easily understandable, even for myself, pleasantly edited, and overall really educational and interesting, even when on the niche and, to be needlessly needling, necessarily nigh on unheard of subject of complimenting a compliment of a video which is itself necessarily nigh on unexplainable. I love your praise of praise of praise of praise-worthy material. Please keep it up.

[@Discrimination_is_not_a_right]

I believe this falls into the category of "just feel it".

[@DrSaav-my5ym]

yea, except jacob and that other pianist are actually intellectualizing it and coming up with a system for it

[@DavidDiMuzio]

Great video. Didn't understand it all, but it was super interesting :)

[@adl6500]

Honestly Nerdwriter is endlessly frustrating to me because it’s completely banal breakdowns of things but dressed up as intellectual analyses. I’m still mad about his “intertextuality” video where he considers the term analogous to “fan service”

[@jada90]

You've expressed wonderfully exactly what I feel. His essays are so shallow, but it's almost like the high production value or the way he presents gives a false sense of depth to his analyses.

[@hirokokueh3541]

so ... compares to Thoughty2 , which one is worse?

[@adl6500]

Hiroko Kaku I’m not particularly familiar with Thoughty2 but he’s probably worse because at least Nerdwriter sticks to art and making you think he knows a lot about paintings. Thoughty2 seems to verge into ideological fearmongering on occasion when he’s not ranting about koalas

[@lesterfalcon1350]

He creates a sense of giving you something important by slowing his phrasing at the end of every essay with a final word of thought.

[@lesterfalcon1350]

With a video on How Micheal wrote Don't Stop, he didn't reference the Michael's demo of the song kzbin.info/www/bejne/iGOsq32fnb2De68

[@TheOmegatron9000]

Good stuff! Something I've learnt from one of my teachers who spent some time in Korea, studying their traditional rhythms is that the rhythms comes from very specific body movements and a way of literally feeling the time and pulse. When everyone is in sync with the movements they can play these complicated difficult to write rhythms in perfect unison. Interesting stuff.

[@sparrowroberts8505]

Adding a bit to my comment below, the paper that's quoted calls samba de roda a style from Rio de Janeiro, which it isn't. Samba de roda was and is played in the Recôncavo of Bahia, the area around Bahia's great bay. The paper lists several records which were studied, and they are all by artists from Rio. There is at least one samba de roda in there, Sabiá Cantador sung by Jair do Cavaquinho on Tudo Azul, the record by A Velha Guarda da Portela. Samba de roda has a very different feel from the samba that one typically hears in Rio and is samba in Rio's precursor.

[@AkariNOX]

Great educative video as always! As a Moroccan native - and a music theory pleb - I agree with your statement that rythms such as those in gnawa are mostly acquired by being immersed in the culture. The approximative notations you came up with are indeed very close to the actual thing (3rd and 4th lines). Still, there are other rhythmic variations played on he qraqebs (Krakebs) For instance, on some faster-paced pieces or passages the krakebs usually play 4 beats, but I feel like there's always a tendency to slightly elongate the first beat. Anyway, thanks again for the enjoyable education!

[@luchadorito]

I must agree with the point about immersive learning! Source: I can differentiate between a dozen different dances from different regions within greater and lesser Hungary based on how the viola swings within a frame of 4/4. I only spent a couple of years dancing, but was exposed to it as a kid and never studied a word about the theory behind it

[@HackMusicTheory]

Great video, David, thank you!!! It's always such a pleasure when your notifications pop up :)

[@ygoramaro5637]

Wooooou Brasilzão well represented

[@arthurcordeiro5285]

Indeed!

[@felipepipi1780]

O cara fala de roda de samba por 30 segundos e alguém tem que se orgulhar pelo alheio.

[@Tabu11211]

As an EDM composer and jazz pianist this topic is hugely important to me. You have the best videos on the subject as well. Thank you so much!

[@augusto7681]

How someone can play and compose these opposite genres! I mean EDM is about simplicity and loop and jazz all about complexity and inprovisation.

[@The_SOB_II]

Holy shit, what a negative ninny. Did your mom brush your teeth yet?

[@Tabu11211]

@@user-cl2nm1zo6i I'm hesitant to reply to your obvious troll bate...

[@Tabu11211]

@@augusto7681 the amount of effort that goes into making Electronic Music sounds human and driving requires a lot of detail. And to be honest with you the majority of my electronic music composition is sound design in audio engineering. There isn't really anything quite like sitting down at a piano and just playing it and that is one of my favorite things in my whole entire life. I'm not trying to impress anybody I'm just trying to express my genuine gratitude to Bruce. I will admit however that on the surface both genres seem wildly different from each other. At the end of the day it's all just music though.

[@augusto7681]

@@Tabu11211 if your electronic music is all about sound design it can be another thing. Your music have white noise build up, four on the floor kick and a drop section ? If it dont have i think is not EDM it could be IDM.

[@freshofftheufo]

I've been curious about a trend that happened in the 80s/90s rave scene where samples were often arrange spuriously and rhythms/harmonics from unrelated samples would often converge to strange effect. It's still popular to play a strong beat with a slight "drag" or early "skip", and I'm inclined to think of it as an intentional micro-rhythm of sorts, breaking up the hyper-regular 4/4 time. Adds a somewhat grungy or DIY feel to the arrangement. Great video, always lots to learn and think about!

[@udderhippo]

Probably your best video yet! Great to see topics very few others are tackling

[@NotRightMusic]

I've been away from YT stuff, for the most part, this past month because of recently becoming a dad as well as working on some other projects. The notice of this video brought me back. I couldn't resist! Fantastic stuff David!

[@DBruce]

heyyyyy!! many congrats! Was going to send you the script for this in advance, but suspected you might be *ahem* busy! Hope you're enjoying dad-hood!

[@NotRightMusic]

Thanks so much David! Feel free to drop emails anytime. But, busy, yeah, I had to stop this video two times because of baby things! Loving the dad-hood though!

[@semanticsamuel936]

Don't know how I missed this video, but thank you for making it. Nerdwriter...irritates me. I used to love his channel, but over time I began to found him abrasive. His intonation and formulaic style of writing grated on me after a while. In many ways I think we're quite similar - we're both intelligent folks who are interested in a wide variety of subjects and have a cursory knowledge of them. I can hold my own talking about most things, but I'd never pretend to be an expert on all these things. I write for a living and I appreciate you can learn a lot from research, but plumbing the depths of advanced music theory to a brave thing to do. I have ABRSM Grade 8 on one instrument and Grade 5 on another. I love music, but I look at score extracts like the ones you've included here and panic a little - I would struggle to even understand conceptually, let alone play them - and so I'd never go out and make a video on microrhythms until I'm a lot more confident with my subject knowledge! Nerdwriter seems to know a lot about films, and I enjoy his videos on them, but once he starts getting into language, art, politics, music, whatever there are better channels out there. What he's extremely good at is video editing, and his pacing is excellent, and you can't fault him for that. I wish he'd specialise. Bottom line is he's pretentious any not quite as smart as he thinks he is.

[@RichardASalisbury1]

Back in 1962 (age 20) I attended the Monterey Jazz Festival. I was a pretty new to jazz then (though not classical). I was particularly impressed by Dizzy Gillespie--whose band Lalo Schifrin had just joined as pianist--and by Dave Brubeck. I was already familiar with "Take 5" and other tracks from his 1959 hit album "Time Out." But in one piece at the Festival Brubeck did something I'd never heard before, or never noticed. The best I can describe it is this way: Over the left hand, and drums and bass, which kept the regular beat, he played the melody and supporting chords in the right hand with typical jazz swing, striking the right-hand notes a fraction of a second ahead of the beat, at least at certain points in the bar. (Hope I'm making sense.) Once this was all well established, he began to walk the right hand still further back, i.e. he gradually lengthened the interval between the right-hand notes and the steady beat, making the swing more and more pronounced. Then he brought the right hand back in line, till it was the same interval ahead as when he'd started. I was electrified; I've never forgotten the moment. In my thoughts I called what Brubeck did a rhythmic modulation. I tried once or twice to write out some jazz pieces, with an arrow on the stem of a chord or note that I wanted played ahead of the beat, thinking that the length of the arrow could indicate roughly how far ahead. But I'm not a jazz performer--or any sort of jazz musician--so this never went anywhere. After some years I let the idea go, concluding that a good jazz performer develops his own style and knows when s/he wants to do such a thing. And I've noticed this "rhythmic modulation" many times since, but never so dramatically as when Brubeck did it that time. Wish I had a recording of it.

[@trumpetsuazo]

Just your story is great. Thank you for sharing. I've also attempted more than once an out of time kind of improv solo, the rhythm section has to be really tight for a player to move outside common time. Still great.

[@camatkinson4708]

not quite the same thing but I saw JR robinson (drummer for MJ, Chaka etc) do a similar thing with a 16th note hi hat pattern. Kick on 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4. 16ths (semi-q) on hi hats throughout. But then he started to swing the 16ths ever so slightly until it was so severe that both hands were playing 8th note unisons, and then all the way back through until he was playing perfect 16ths again. only he had lost a single semiquaver along the way and was now leading with the left. utterly mind-blowing.

[@SandsSpades]

If you can find a video of this then please link it! That sounds mindblowingly difficult, I wonder if it's good to listen to as well!

[@RichardMcLamore]

@@SandsSpades not a precise match, but kzbin.info/www/bejne/oGqVaGieocZrh8k

[@anthonywilliams4638]

I have just stumbled upon your KZbin channel David, and send to you my highest compliments on the structure and analysis of your subject matter. This particular upload amused me as a retired Jazz musician, who has played contrabass with some of the best of my own generation, and I am reminded of a gig in Amsterdam, where I turned up early to set up my bass, and get a sound, before sitting and taking a coffee in the place to wait for the rest of the band to turn up. The percussion player turned up with a lady that he met earlier in the day who had been on the judging panel of a competition held in the Rai Conference centre, to choose a winner of the best marijuana plant grower , with entries from around the world competing. The Lady in question offered me a puff on the winning entry, and although I did not smoke, ( truthfully ) I accepted out of courtesy, and took a short breath of her proffered joint. We began the gig with a jazz standard called " Out of Nowhere " and the playing of that tune went on for at least three months it seemed. It was very pleasurable, but I sometimes wonder if these "micro rhythm" changes are the consequence of something similar being administered to the musicians before the playing begins.

[@jawojciechdrzymala]

I can't even express how much I appreciate this video. I really wanted to get more into these rhythms but I didn't know where to start, since I didn't know how it's called and where to look for it. Thank you so much!

[@be3ho7nm]

AAAAAAA!!!! I have found the strength to return here from Braff/Galand channel. Thank you so much for showing them! And this video is great! I am absolutely happy!

[@VikingSloth]

A coworker of mine just introduced me to Hatian music and I noticed that small, offbeat difference in how they played rhythm. Thrilled to find out today it has a name and I can't wait to try applying it. Much appreciated for the info David!

[@rafaeleile7354]

Another great video. Many thanks! Especially for leading me to Malcolm Braff. Although their methods differ, the 'feel' of his music puts me in mind of Nik Baertsch's Ronin, whose music I have been enjoying for many years. Finding new music that makes connections is one of life's great joys. Thanks again.

[@tommy2capa]

as for using microrhytm in computer generated music, Ableton has the ability to load groovepools, where you upload a time-feel and have it apply to your midi clips. One could import something with the desired (samba de Roda, Gnawa) and then use it to impact the new clips.

[@Spazzsticks]

Im not playing out of sync. Im just influenced by brazillian samba. ;)

[@ManelRuivo]

watch out. brazillians can snitch you out of the jam!

[@grigoridj]

Great video! Error Garner playing Penthouse Serenade is always my favorite example when talking about this subject. Can't believe how hip he was playing back in the day.

[@truefilm6991]

Exactly! Brazilians call it "balanço" (groove, swing). I found out that with MIDI you need at the very least to put the fourth sixteenth note a hint earlier. Better the third a tiny tid bit as well and to really get it right, the first one a teeny tiny hint later. The result is a beautiful up and down feel, almost like a rollercoaster. Obviously dynamics and timbre are also part of it. The percussion instruments are not played on the exact same spot and at the same dynamic level on all sixteenth note. In the end it's all about feel (as you of course mentioned).

[@guitareimprovisation]

This video is really good, I love it !! Very well explained, bravo ! Subscribed.

[@cocacraesh]

There's this tradition concerning Polka (I think it's bohemian tradition, but I don't know) where you (similar to the Vienna Waltz) have to play every 8th note that is NOT on a whole beat kind of too late. This also applies for two 16th notes that you then have to play late as well, creating strickter signals (that are typical for this music). If everyone does this, the music gets a kinda wonky but rolling feeling. I love playing traditional music that way.

[@DBruce]

love it! Do you have any links to examples?

[@cocacraesh]

Yes sure! kzbin.info/www/bejne/r3bUkoeOfbxgh7s for example. And I just found this (while looking for different stuff) kzbin.info/www/bejne/gX7LeK1sbtB2pMU

[@DBruce]

thank you! That first one in particular is awesome, love the hobbly rhythm!

[@Gabriel-mw5ro]

@@cocacraesh that's amazing, the wonky swing just makes me wanna move, just like the afro-brazilian rhythms I'm used to

[@HighwayNegative]

Would love to watch more on this topic, and would also love to find more music characterized by microrhythm! A playlist would be sick

[@NinjitsuCat1]

Finally, a great video on this! I don’t know why, but rhythms like these make me go absolutely ballistic. Thanks to Jacob Collier for the intrigue, and thanks David Bruce for the explanation! Amazing as always!

[@NickKruegerMusic]

I used to really love Nerdwriter’s videos, but unfortunately they seem a lot more interesting and impressive until you have some knowledge on the topic he’s covering. And it’s not entirely his fault, to be fair; he has cursory interest in a ton of topics, but expertise on very few, if any, so his channel is loaded with videos that are shallow and often biased by the thing he finds _interesting_ about the topic, rather than what's actually _true_ about it. That's usually fine if he's analyzing a painting or something (still limited by his surface-level knowledge of the subject, but not objectively incorrect) but some of his videos are so oversimplified as to be misleading (like his recent video on David Wise and the music of Donkey Kong Country, which was just frustrating to watch as someone who knows a lot about chiptune and how music was made for old video game consoles).

[@superdude8266]

I'm assuming you've already seen the 8-bit music theory vid on David Wise, but if you haven't you should definitely check it out.

[@RoyalBlue43]

It also explains why his videos are only 5-8 mins long. He has a single idea for a concept and just grazes the surface of it, without actually getting in depth the way a David Bruce or Neely video would.

[@TheCarrots101]

He's not a nerd, he's a geek

[@SpeedySPCFan]

The DKC video gave me a headache to be honest. I had top comment on the video - I might still have it - and I pointed out a whole bunch of inaccuracies and other things that were really misleading. On the bright side, it did remind me I need to get back to writing my in-depth videos talking about old game sound hardware, so... silver linings? :\

[@JeremiahFernandez]

he kinda mentioned it in his early videos

[@yozegami]

Great video. This explains why I've always struggled with getting natural microrhythms going when making music digitally. I can never quite get the feel I have in my head/foot.

[@krishnanagaraja8244]

This is great David! I can relate to the issue of notating "micro-rhythms" very easily, as I deal with Nordic folk music and especially the crazy Norwegian hardanger fiddle "springar"...no fiddler (at least until a few generations ago) played the same tune with the same timing. Papers and essays have been written by eminent Swedish and Norwegian musicologists and performers. I highly recommend checking out the almost esoteric timing of Telespringars (springars from Telemark), for instance in the playing of the great Hauk Buen. Thanks for a very interesting video!

[@jorgestramusic]

Thank you for explaining a concept that I didn't fully understand, great video!

[@mentalitydesignvideo]

Brilliant, brilliant analysis. You may also want to look at the drumming of Al Jackson with Booker T and the MG's and also with Al Green. He was very explicit about placing 2 very late while keeping other quarter notes on the grid, so to say.

[@Mick_Holland]

Very interesting and thanks for introducing me to Malcolm Braff. 👍🏽

[@Jinkaza1882]

I did an arrangement of a pop song from a retail song book for a friend once. When I gave them the sheet music they said I had made an error in some of the rhythums. I had to explain that I went back to the original song to see how the singer preformed it, and made adjustments to get as close to what the singer had in mind. Singers can be very lose (maybe a "duh" statement) with the rhythm, but that is were the flavor is. Ty for another great vid good Sir.

[@chollomollo5370]

Thx for mentioning Malcolm Braff and Jacob Collier in the same video, both are exceptional musicians with wide open ears.

[@mathias5618]

Educational and entertaining as always!

[@harrybeaven2594]

Excellent video! You explained everything in a really understandable way and I found it really interesting

[@gustavo45877]

Great video.. greetings from a brazilian samba player

[@FASTFASTmusic]

Excellent video. I've been using the logical editor in Cubase to create rhythms like this, but it's still very hard to notate it exactly.

[@Misksound]

I know Malcom Braff has done some work on a few Kyma patches (algorithms, "devices", whatever you want to call them) that deal with his rhythmic morphing techniques. I was honestly shocked when you mentioned his name, as I only know him from that world (not many of us running Kyma, but it's powerful!). Not sure if you're interested at all in electronic/electro-acoustic compositions but If you want to get into some unique depths, I highly recommend "microsound" by Curtis Roads-who discovered and developed granular sound synthesis. Things like track warping in ableton make it seem like a one-trick pony, but in microsound he pulls you into a complex world of deliberate interaction between sonic grains and it's quite a paradigm-shift. just stumbled on your channel and I'm a subscriber-good stuff man!

[@HighwayNegative]

This was extremely fascinating, thank you so much for making it

[@pscheidt]

Thank you for the commentary on Nerdwrighter's Don't Stop video. I watched it and was a cross between confused and disagreed.

[@DBruce]

Thanks, feel a bit bad criticising such a generally brilliant KZbinr, I guess it was the "I really know what I'm talking about here" tone that most upset me!

[@carrottoponcrak]

Nerdwriter doesn't know what he talks about the majority of the time

[@ManuLeach]

@@DBruce have you considered the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect?

[@Nathanaelsun22]

EXCELENT!!! I'VE BEEN SENSITIVE TO THIS, ALWAYS, AND ALWAYS FELT IT COULD BE DESCRIBED MORE CLEARLY! THANK YOU! and thank you for the introduction to Malcom Braff wow !

[@breadman7733]

I love your videos David Bruce. You're an inspiration.

[@paatacha]

This is a great theme for conversation, which we should discuss more often! Most of musician still understand this «grooves» as something wrong, or bad performed rhythms, hah)). I also did transcription of Georgian, south Caucasian micro rhytms. Thank you so much for your videos Mr. Bruce!

[@raquel_hakeu]

A fantastic class. Thank you very much, David ! Of course we need to share.

[@AmandaKaymusic]

Thanks for a great clip and for the introduction to Malcolm Braff.

[@masterchain3335]

Top notch as always David.

[@jprykiel]

David, that’s wonderful. Even though I never came across the term microrhythms, I have been using them for years in the kind of jazzy electronic music I do. I have also been working with Jon Hassell, who is very attracted buy these rhythms. I find it very reassuring that Moore N Moore western musicians get into this field of research. Thanks.

[@ObscureMachines]

As pointed out in the video the difficulty is that music theory is currently limited by the language, Western notation, to be able to easily communicate the ideas of groove and feel. It’s almost easier to just pickup the feel than to try and read it off the sheet.

[@borysslowikowski-framedrum6388]

This video pointed out something I was already doing, but wasn't naming it anyhow. It was just somehow... natural. I play Polish village music, its oberek rhythm is a great example of a microrhythm. I was interested from then on how can I teach sensitivity to microtiming to my students... The answer was obvious: through the body, through the movement. One can analyze these shuffles, find grids to quantify them... But it won't eventually lead you to playing them well. I remember my first practices of Gnawa in Essaouira. I met a pro jazz drummer, apprentice of a renowned maalem. He would every now and then loose the groove, as he was treating it it as a fixed pattern, while the tempo and subtle placement of accents were constantly changing.

[@borysslowikowski-framedrum6388]

and a small correction: we're looking at a whole new generation of WESTERN musicians who can think in a microrhythmic way ;) Haven't met a single old or young Moroccan musician who wouldn't think this way.

[@fluffyfluffykatz]

Great video as usual! It made me think of another Latin American music style that uses micro-rhythms: Bolivian saya. It's similar to the Moroccan Gnawa style you showed, somewhere between triplets and a "quarter note, two eighth notes" pattern.

[@milkyboy111]

Nice video! This is a very interesting topic. I have never heard anyone call the ”displaced” rythms microrythm, all my drum teachers have referred to them as just time-stretching. I think that calling it time-stretching feels more accurate because the rythms aren’t displaced exactly the same way every time, it all depends on the muscian’s sense of timing.

[@tommy2capa]

When Mentioning D'angelo's micro-rhythms i think it's important to note how ?uestlove uses the kick drum to imitate J dilla's unquantized drums and he Quest very purposefully has the kicks very out of sync with hi-hat and snare (that shits hard to do hahaha) . I would also love to hear your thoughts on Burial's rhythmic feel, he programs drums purely by looking at the soundwaves and it sounds wild!

[@jaredmeit6127]

?uestlove mentioned in an interview that he thought about those beats as breaking certain beats into septuplets and then putting the kick just before/after the middle beat of the septuplet. I'll try to find the video. He explains it better than I can.

[@MrEazyE357]

I'd love for you to post some examples.

[@MrEazyE357]

@@jaredmeit6127 Please do!

[@Marunius]

@@jaredmeit6127 Can you link it, did you find it?

[@fredscalliet]

Great video, congrats !

[@B7musicstudio]

I wonder if one could notate micro-rhythms in a similar way to micro-tonal music - some kind of notation above the notes, perhaps something somewhat subjective like "slightly behind" and "heavily ahead". I think musicians could learn to make these adjustments intuitively, since they are always limited by what we can perceive (as the minimum change) and the next 8th/16th note (or whatever is the smallest current subdivision) as the maximum change. Within that range, there's basically a "p,mp,mf,f" of displacement. Also, since these types of grooves are often maintained over longer periods of time (if it's just once, it's rubato or a mistake :) ), perhaps it could be indicated at the beginning of the score, much the same way "swing 8ths" is currently given.

[@FernieCanto]

Honestly, it's about time for academics to understand that the difficult (or impossibility) of notating those rhythms is not a "problem" to be "solved"; it's a boundary to be embraced. You *can't* write everything down. You can't erase the anthropological experience of sinking into a different culture. You can spend years looking at carefully transcribed scores of samba, but you won't learn shit about it until you spend a night in an actual samba circle. Notation is a tool, not a law.

[@ANSIcode]

Some people don't have the luxury to go and sink into a different culture just because they want to get some new musical ideas to play with. Why not learn a micro-rhythm groove from just recordings and some sensible form of notation as help? Unless you consider listening and imitating recordings close enough to sinking...

[@FernieCanto]

"Some people don't have the luxury to go and sink into a different culture just because they want to get some new musical ideas to play with." Well, yeah. Not all people are able to do all things at all times. That's just life.

[@normanfreund]

Totally understand where you are coming from. Just record one of your own improvisations done in midi, then look at the score, hm that needs alignment etc., then once all aligned it sounds all wrong, or display in 1/32 notes and it’s unreadable.

[@MardiGrasNewO]

Hi David. I love your videos! This was really great. However, I always thought of the Viennese Waltz as having a slightly precipitated 2nd beat and not a delayed 3rd beat. Interesting difference in thinking with roughly the same result :)

[@Frownlandia]

A new term to describe something I've felt intuitively, and examples of other people and cultures exploring it; just awesome.

[@Badumdumcrash]

It's very exciting to think how much easier exploring new microrhythms outside of established grooves is now with the digital altering of note placements, such as what J. Dilla did

[@matturner6890]

DMX's 'Party Up" has an awesome little microrhythmic shift on the 2's and 4's. Sounds like how when people jump to music, they eventually land slightly behind the beat. Such brilliant production, fits the song and its intended effect perfectly. Also yea nerdwriter raises my blood pressure when he talks about anything but film.

[@pwhqngl0evzeg7z37]

You may already know this, I didn't check the comments to see whether this was mentioned, and I don't know the standards for crediting original writers when considering covers of songs, but "Afro Blue" is originally by Mongo Santamaria. Of course, the Galland and Braff version may modify it so much as to be nearer and original composition in originality, and that's the essential concern of my third qualifier. Very interesting video, by the way!

[@jonnyalbino69]

Great video! You could also notate samba feel as splitting a beat into 10 divisions as 3,2,2,3 (dotted quaver, quaver, quaver, dotted quaver within a decuplet) also I think there is a difference between a regular swing samba / gnawa and micro timing, D'angelo / Errol garner where it is not evenly uneven if that makes sense!

[@renatonyc]

Grew up in Brasil, in a very musical family... since moving to the US, too often I encounter classically trained musicians to whom I’ve failed to explain the nuances of Samba (and even Bossa and Choro), this video should help. Thanks!

[@fariborzhashemi3052]

Great analysis, I mean for the rhythm from Ghana. I'm irainian we have the same 10/8 rhythm in K.urdish music and South music of Iran like Bousher

[@looppool]

HI David, My name is Rick Walker and I've studied cross cultural expressions of rhythm all of my adult life as a professional drummer/percussionist/composer/producer (the last 40 years as a pro). I've been fascinated by the different 'molays', a term ascribed to the squashing of the last two 16ths in Batucada drumming (but only some instruments), and have played with a lot of Brazilian, West African, Caribbean, North African, Middleeaster,Celtic, Balkan and American regional artists. First, let me say that I really appreciate your video and I do think that different 'western mapping systems' can become very close approximations of , say Brazilian ganza and reinque/caisha c rhythms and, say Gnawan Qarqaba playing. I can really see that Jacob Collier's attempt to subdivide to get a rhythm that feels like these grooves is interesting, but I assure you, this is NOT how people from these cultures think. They are interesting and get someone from an analytic western approach to play closer to those grooves but these feels evolve. However: I think a lot of other stuff is going on in the creation of these original rhythmic feels and how they evolve. as an example: I got to perform with Ile Aye, the original Afro Bloco from Bahia several years ago and, in exchange for producing 4 live tracks for them (late, late in the middle of the night at a recording studio that I had carte blanche to bring traveling foreign musicians into to record them) they told me they'd record the rhythm tracks for one song I had composed as a tribute to my own love for Brazilian rhythms. I'd written a tune that had and intro/outro in Afro Reggae, then into a verse that used an Afoxe rhythm and a chorus that used Partido Alto. I had written some tight rhythm kicks to take different sections of songs into the other. Well, we recorded the Afro Reggae tracks for Iley Aye (which was composed of mostly really young (15-17 year old kids and a few leaders) and it sounded amazing. Then when the time came to record our tracks , they just couldn't understand them and were completely unable to play the 3 or 4 written 'kicks' in the song. Suddenly it struck me: When I teach a very young drummer who has never played a 16th note single stroke roll on a snare drum and get them to play fast..........the same kind of rolling but uneven kind of thing occurs. In the west, we would break this down slowly and get them to play to a metronome, but if developed on their own , only with a sense of 'feel' this loping groove that characterizes the snare/repique rhythms in both Afro Reggae and Rio styled Batucada emerge. A second thing occurs: if we grid 4 16th notes as being played equally, so that every note represents exactly 25% of quarter note, the last 16th note occurs at 75%. If , on the other hand, we grid 3 triplet 8ths notes so that each triplet eighth noted equals exactly 33.3% of a quarter note, then the last triplet (the so called 'shuffled' note) occurs at 66.6%. Well, in the 'molay' (or feel) of Afro Reggae/Batucada (which are close though not identical feels) when one moves up the last 2 16ths notes as you point out, the last 16th note falls nicely between the last triplet 8th note and the last 16th note. What is implicit , not unlike the way Cascara is played in Rumba, is not a 16th note pattern but a pattern that hints at the polythrythmsof 2 against 3. In other words, the rhythms can be heard as a variant of either a 16th note groove or as a variant of a shuffled, triplet 8th note groove. Even the tamborim parts reflect this polythrhythmic feel having as strong as an embellished "swinging' Feel as a metronomic 16th note feel. This becomes really compounded because the rhythms on the Agogo Bells, the Surdo and other rhythms actually are much closer to a 16th note feel. There is NO molay or 'swing' in those patterns. This sets up a polyrhythmic tension that makes the music so interesting, juicy and , well, no metronomic. I heard the great New Orleans drummer, Early Palmer (credited with being the first person to play a really loud back beat on snare in rock and roll for Fats Domino and Little Richard at Cosimo's Studio)talk about this. He said that there was a tension between the Afro American swing that came from blues and jazz and the rapid fire 16th note piano playing popularized , early on , by Jerry Lee Lewis. He said, "if the pianist was playing those fast 16th notes with bass player 'swinging' his rhythms it sounded like hell if I drummed perfectly with either of them, but I discovered that if I put very slight, almost imperceptible swing in the rhythm (where from an analytical standpoint each second 8th note was played at 54% or 56%......not perfectly even like a straight 50% groove but far from the 67% placement of the shuffle in pure triplet swing) that the music suddenly took on this feel that I call "the wiggly' area........not 16ths , not triplet 8ths but right in between. If you go back and listen to those tracks, you can hear that his drumming has a polyrhythmic feel that holds the disparate feels of the bass and piano together, by playing right in the middle. You truly cannot say that it is swinging or being played straight. He laughed at this talk about the origins of New Orleans rhythms at a wonderful PASIC held in New Orleans and said, "Everyone wanted to cop our feel and everyone wanted to record at Cosimo's because we'd had million selling hits there, but all the white musicians who came in played straight and all the black musicians who came in 'swung' the rhythms. They never figured out what we were doing. There's a beautiful example of this in James Brown's "Night Train' where the rhythm section and the horns are mixing all different kinds of 'swung' and straight rhythms, even changing up in the middle of the tune. That song is fascinating if you want to listen to real examples of Micro Rhythms. I'm super cartesian analytical person, myself, so when I was first trying to learn the way that the Malinkan djembe rhythms were being played (at first listen is just sounds like 16th notes, but upon further deepening of one's listening experience, you discover that there is a definite swing effect happening, yet far, far, far from the perfect triplet feel of shuffled 16th notes. I used to throw Brazilian, African, Gnawan, Malagasy and other rhythms that didn't fit into convenient metronomic terms up onto a computer screen; blew them up and analyzed precisely where they fell. At first I tried to codify them like Jacob Colliers attempt to duplicate the Gnawa feel with rapid subdivisions but the more I played the more I realized that the musicians were 'stretching' patterns rather than trying to get them to fit in some kind of perfectly reproduceable grid. As an example, if you played a dotted 8th, a dotted 8th and an 8th note (3 + 3 + 2 to the half note) and then you intersperce with three triplet quarter notes (2 + 2 + 2 to the half note), they have a similarity in feel, though the triplets sound straight and the 16th notes sound more jerky. Speed them up to very high speed and the differences become almost indiscernible. in the exact way that the shuffled swing rhythm naturally flattens out it's swing as you play faster and faster in high speed Be Bop. I found that by playing different feels like this and switching to another one that, over time, I could stretch my rhythm slightly and increasingly to go from one to the other. If you are playing 3 notes to a quarter note and then play a little faster so that you play 4 notes and then speed up slightly so that you play 5 notes and 6 notes and 7 and so on and so forth........after a while........you can speed up in your playing and suddenly be playing quintuplets. My own theory is that this what happens in a lot of these feels...........they are stretching a set number of notes over one pulse in the music and creates different cool effects. It's fascinating to look at analytic approaches to it all, but it is necessarily a teleology to try and place a constructed map over the 'real deal' of a groove that doesn't fit a metronomic map. The mathematician Korzibsky said, "the map is not the territory". The physicist Heisenberg said that merely by observing things on an atomic level that we effect them (leading to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) My own mentor, the multi-disciplined scientist, Gregory taught that we are doomed, because of our pattern oriented mentalities and our binary defined Neurophysiology (the nerve synapse fires = 1 or doesn't = 0) means that we are locked in to making causal , binary maps of reality; maps that are doomed to be at least slightly inaccurate. He said though, "There is such a thing as a better map" and that it is the scientists task to constantly be upgrading the maps as long as we have the humility to realize that they are still maps and not the real thing. Collier's map of Gnawa rhythms gets really close but it just doesn't sound like Gnawans playing, if you get my drift. So, it's awesome that so many people are starting to talk about all of this stuff and it's exciting that we are all contributing to the next set of musical/rhythmic maps. Much respect, Rick Walker Santa Cruz, California

[@pigbagable]

Great comment. I don't understand much of this (despite playing music for a long time) but it seems to be like playing on the (grid) beat is like singing exactly in tune, playing in front of the beat is like bending a note sharp and playing behind like bending a note flat. Sort of.

[@chrissahar2014]

One thing I wish you'd mention for historical perspective is the method of playing baroque French music which sixteenths and eights are not played equally but unequally. Bach employs this idea in the way one plays the ornamentation of some of his works. This hold true later on in Romantic music and the ornamentation of say Chopin. Also, a case where you have a steady grid (or steady-ish) but a melodic line falling behind and ahead can be found in Chopin's Nocturnes, in particular the great one in D flat major (which is also a wonderful study in enharmonic harmony).

[@Yossus]

This discussion reminded me of an app called Cync which conceptualises rhythms in overlapping circles rather than a grid. It's on a website cync dot app, developed by James Rose of Guildhall

[@Padybu]

Great video! Would've been a nice time to mention J Dilla, he used microrhytmns on drum machines were people tended to drum quantized.

[@darcynash]

Danielsen has many more papers which explore this area and specifically modern RnB and neo-soul. Worth a read.

[@xiutxui1689]

that’s what I’ve always dug about live music, creating those little informalities in the rhythm of the groove

[@xiutxui1689]

Trancelike almost

[@TheApostleofRock]

Dammit. You earned yourself another sub. Which is great for you and me but I already have so many music channels to try and keep up with

[@jameskennedy7093]

I admire the way you highlight a lot of different cultures' music in your videos and talk about the sophistication than exists outside of "Western" music. It occurred to me that it felt like as individual people, the Westerners tend to be named more often, whereas in instances of styles being mentioned outside of Western traditional music the people tend to be lumped together as groups. I wondered why this was? And I don't say it pointedly. I really do actually wonder, since it could say a variety of things very much at cross-meanings. It could mean that Western (especially modern Western) music is more likely to name and focus on an individual composer, whereas non-Western (and probably as well older Western) music focuses on broader traditions; it could be more darkly a reflection of subliminally putting more importance via named personhood on Westerners; it could also be probably six other things. But it's an interesting pattern and I wonder what it means.

[@nupfe]

Thank you for this great video. "Crimson waves" is awesome. I didn't know it before ... thanks. Here an off topic question: Is this a reface CP I've spotted on the right side?

[@Kevoshea]

Great video. Re: Jackson. Most of that stuff was recorded in the studio separately. General practice is the drum/percussion track goes first. That's why it's not unusual to hear later instruments after the beat, as they're playing along to what they hear as opposed to setting the tempo themselves. Compare this with a live version of any song and you'll notice the difference.

[@joaoluisesquivel2810]

Love the explanation. :)

[@RonLWilson]

A way to add micro rhythms is to a a < or > symbol before a note where < means play it early and > mena play it latter. the < or > could be a 32 note in length while a > would be a sixteenth note in length or something along those lines For example. N8 > N8

[@cjklz]

I just watch t the most important video i ever found, free at last, free at last, Eureka, hallelujah............finally......Congratulations on the analyses of what is sometimes called 'playing it cool'.

[@gerardocorrea9559]

Great video.

[@TheMoonmoonmoon]

I've been fascinated by these Brazillian and Gnawa micro rhythms for a long time, this is a really interesting look at them. My own take on it from playing a bit of samba percussion was the 4 sixteenth notes speed up a little during the bar, thus creating a longer gap between the 4th note and the beginning of the next '1'. I came to this conclusion because repinique players who lead in batucada use one stick and one hand to play the drum - the stick plays the first 3 sixteenth notes with one bouncing stroke, and the other palm plays the fourth. Due to the bouncing stick, it's easy to give the first three notes a slight accelerando as the stick bounces closer to the skin with each bounce - which creates a bit more space for the fourth note in the other hand and gives the rhythm it's uneven swing. Other instruments then copy this rhythm, and a style develops that includes the same swing even if the repinique drum isn't used. (Just an idea!) This got me thinking that perhaps microrhythms around the world could originate in the ergonomics of a particular instrumental technique (or even in dance steps), and there may be other examples of this around the world. It'd be interesting to know if anyone else has been thinking along these lines. [For instance I'm curious about the fast ornaments in folk bagpipes (who can't play repeated unison notes due to the constant air flow, so they develop an ornamented style with grace notes to create a pulsing effect) - have these influenced fiddle playing styles or vice versa?] The waveform image you show from Fabien Goyen's paper does show the second 16th note is slightly early, the third is earlier, and the 4th is earlier still, though I see there is much more 'movement off grid' in the last two notes than in the second one, so I do agree it looks like a shifting 3rd&4th note effect. I haven't read or heard of this paper before but will take a look - thanks for the link!.

[@JoshuaNicholsComposer]

Jacob Collier blew my mind when he talked about rhythm this way. It's the way he imports style and feel with the perfectionism of a classical musician in his music. He also has digested it from a non-classical background (meaning, he's tried hard to figure it out for himself), so that makes his music sound that much more organic. I love seeing June Lee's analyses on his music to see EXACTLY how you have to divide the beat in order to notate it, but even then, he doesn't always go for it; he simply say, "in a laid back feel." I think this movement is going to help a lot of people digest and think about micro rhythm in terms which allow them to understand it. Hopefully, this will lead to a much richer musical experience. Have you considered how irrational time signatures might help this movement? I appreciated your comments and explanations on it. I wonder if this could be a gateway to understanding irrational time signatures.

[@dat_chip]

I totally agree about gnawa often being 4+3+3, and I've also heard a lot of 3+3+4 as well. In fact, I believe 3+3+4 might be even more common than 4+3+3 in both Morocco, Mali, and West Africa music in general.

[@micblass]

I think instruments have a big influence on grooves with micro-rhythms. For example, when you play a samba rhythm on a shaker, it feels really natural to swing like that once you get into it. This is because of the technique, emphasising the downbeat and then playing what are basically ghost notes. I think it's harder to play a shaker dead straight. And if you play the gnawa rhythm with two hands, as with the ‘krakeb’ percussion instrument, I find it a lot easier than trying to play that same groove with one hand. What’s more, I think the popularity of drunken beats has come about partly because of the influence of an instrument: the sequencer. This has raised awareness of the nuances of micro-rhythm, because it allows non-percussionists to see precisely what’s actually happening and accurately quantize complex grooves that only highly accomplished drummers are able to play.

[@Gabriel-mw5ro]

Playing the note slightly ahead also gives emphasis to the dynamics. Quite often I see people playing the samba with the right dynamics but totally straight.

[@pablocampos7029]

that was really interesting thank you, u've got my sub!

[@FabioZurita]

There are many examples of this in south american rhythms, like saya, carnavalito, huayno, etc. and more recently i have noted it in the guaracha santiagueña too. In these cases the rhythmic cells fluctuate from a eight note triplet to a eight note-two sixteenth note modules.

[@lettersquash]

Again, fascinating stuff. I must say, in the Viennese Waltz, it sounds more like the second beat is early rather than the third one late, or is that functionally identical? I always found that curious. The harmony of rhythm made immediate sense to me, since tone is essentially a frequency, and harmonic tones (chords) and beats they create are analogous to the superposition of rhythmic beats, so quavers and crotchets are rhythmically an octave apart, a triplet gives a third, etc. I had a thought that a Philip Glass piece has one section of the ensemble gradually shift their tempo faster at one point until the beats align again but in a new phase (rather than just shifting the rhythmic emphasis to create different intersections of notes, as he does a lot too of course).

[@Ha_Wa_]

The “morphing” between microrhythmic feels reminds me a lot of the idea of a “temperament modulation” in microtonal music, where you take a MOS scale and slowly shift it into an equal temperament, then you can use the equal temperament as a pivot to a new MOS and shift into that.

[@unoaotroa]

I've been doing the morph stuff for a while. Now I have a way to notate it! It's specially fun to do with polyrhythms. Try 3:2 with two hands and start displacing the hand doing 2. There are many patterns just within this exercise.

[@Hexspa]

The guitar in Mexican Mariachi music does the same; it rushes the second quarter note triplet.

[@eyvindjr]

If you dig into it, there are micro rhythms in just about every musical tradition, and a certain rhytmic phrasing hand in hand with it. The Norwegian dance "Telespringar" is also in an organic rhythmic space between 3/4 and 7/8 time. In classical music, there are plenty of other clear examples of micro rhythms than the vieneese waltz. For example, Gustav Mahler explicitly asks for his triplets NOT to be played mathematically in his 5th symphony and dotted rhythms sound very different than what they look in funeral marches and italian operas.

[@stephenspackman5573]

Awesome. Thanks!

[@xoxomat216]

oh forgot btw love your channel

[@coreyaudet9656]

WOW, just found you. Brains and Music Comp.? I had no idea there was such a thing. ;)

[@felivecuador]

That Moroccan rhythm sounds to me very close to the Cumbia´s feel. Crazy how small the world actually is. Great video!

[@eduardogoncalves9311]

True! Txeee Txe Txee! Txeee Txe Txee! Txeee Txe Txee!