ADDING RHYTHMIC INTEREST
IT’S FAR TOO EASY TO GET STUCK ON OVERLY FAMILIAR PATTERNS
Sequencers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, with different designs specialising in melodic, rhythmic or parameter control. Generally speaking though, all sequencers do share the same basic principle of breaking patterns down into a set number of steps, each of which can host a ‘trigger’ of some kind. While many modern devices give users flexible control over the amount of steps contained in a sequence, by default sequencers tend to come in some multiple of four, the most common variety of this being 16-step designs.
This makes sense, seeing as much of western music, dance music in particular, adheres to a 4/4 time signature, so 16 steps easily matches up to 16th notes across a single bar. The downside to that convenience is that conventional step sequencers make it far too easy to get stuck on overly familiar rhythmic patterns; ones that focus on the same 4/4 pulse and loop every one, two or four bars.
Understanding these common forms of rhythm and standard phrase lengths is key to getting to grips with the workings of popular music. Particularly when creating tracks with DJs in mind, knowing what rhythmic changes listeners expect to hear in your tracks can be vitally important. However, as a way to add interest it can really help to understand how to deviate from these norms, or how to supplement them with alternative rhythmic ideas.
What is a polyrhythm?
Put simply, a polyrhythm is any pattern that has two or more different rhythmic ideas happening at the same time. As most musicians will be aware, the Greek-derived ‘poly’ means ‘many’ or ‘several’, and just as polyphonic describes a musical element containing more than one pitch, polyrhythmic describes two or more rhythms interacting.
This doesn’t, however, mean that any pattern with more than one percussive part automatically counts as a polyrhythm. Take a classic DnB drum pattern as an example; although the kick, snares and hi-hats might all be playing different patterns, each placed in its own position on the beat grid, they’re all still part of the same
4/4 rhythm. Although there are multiple percussive elements interacting, they’re all used to emphasise the same pulse.
A polyrhythm – or cross rhythm – happens when two time signatures coexist within the same measure (ie bars/loops that last the same duration). The best examples of polyrhythms are found in traditional sub-Saharan African music, where rhythmic interplay is often the primary feature over and above melody. Google ‘traditional African polyrhythms’ and you’ll find no end of drumming demonstrations on YouTube.
It’s not hard to hear how many of those rhythmic ideas have fed through into more contemporary styles of music too, from jazz through rock and pop and into modern dance music.
Polyrhythms are written like ratios, with common examples including 3:2, 4:3, 5:4 and 6:8. From a dance music perspective, polyrhythms with a ratio containing a 4 are particularly useful, since they remain rooted in a 4/4 pulse, making life easy for DJs and dancers, but allow us to introduce a contrasting rhythm over the top. You could, for example, create a 3:4 polyrhythm where a four to the floor kick is offset by three evenly spaced snares, or a 5:4 pattern where five higher-pitched synth bleeps sit over four bass pulses.
Using sequencers in order to achieve this is sometimes much easier said than done, and can involve working around the constraints of MIDI clocks and set step lengths. While DAWs are, broadly speaking, more flexible than hardware sequencers when it comes to working with time signatures and beat divisions, it’s not always as easy as you might hope to set up MIDI clips allowing for multiple time divisions at once.
More often than not, the modular realm is best place to find a bit of rhythmic creativity – thanks to the abundance of clock dividers, unique sequencers and patchable modulation tools, you can push rhythms in ways that DAWs and standalone hardware aren’t set up for.