Stretching the Beat

February 27th, 2020
contra, jammer, music
Initially when I started playing around with having my rhythm setup subdivide the beat I went with a very simple division of four equal pieces. This works well for some things, but it is also a very rigid sound. When I'm playing on the mandolin I often stretch the beat a bit, pulling subbeats earlier and pushing others later. This is something I learned to do by ear; I just play it.

But what am I actually doing? I took a recording of myself playing mandolin and measured exactly how far through the beat each of the four subbeats fell. I measured three repetitions worth:

1 0.000 0.000 0.000
2 0.154 0.139 0.168
3 0.275 0.253 0.264
4 0.444 0.421 0.420
1 0.574 0.535 0.549

Converting these into percentages, and calculating an average:

1 00.0% 00.0% 00.0% 00.0%
2 26.9% 26.0% 30.6% 27.8%
3 47.9% 47.3% 48.1% 47.8%
4 77.4% 78.7% 76.5% 77.5%

Here's another way of looking at it:

strict stretched delta
2 25.0% 27.8% 11% late
3 50.0% 47.8% 9% early
4 75.0% 77.5% 10% late

Here's a video walking through how this sounds and how it fits into the rest of my setup:


(youtube)

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong

Recent posts on blogs I like:

What are the results of more parental supervision and less outdoor play?

Ups and downs for mental health and injury rates The post What are the results of more parental supervision and less outdoor play? appeared first on Otherwise.

via Otherwise November 24, 2023

My startup advice

I sat down for a conversation with Alex Long. He took notes and sent them to me, and it seemed worth lightly-editing the notes and posting. I’ve left it quite raw, more like a tweet thread than a proper blog post.

via Home October 23, 2023

A Big Problem With The Going To Bed Book

One day my dad was reading this book called the "Going to Bed Book" to my sister Nora. The book is basically about a bunch of animals who are getting ready for bed on a boat. They go down the stairs, take a bath, hang their towels on the wall, find…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts September 18, 2023

more     (via openring)