Polyrhythm

I'm used to presenting listening material like this as geographically distinct modules, but I'm enjoying the freedom of making connections between musical attributes rather than adhering to any geographical borders.  And so, it doesn't seem like much of a leap to switch from Parisian polyphony (see the last post) to the polyrhythm (layers of rhythm) of West African drumming. 

The following short but informative film introduces the complex organization of music of the Malinke in Baro, Guinea (West Africa) and places it within the context of daily life, tracing specific rhythms to work activities and spoken phrases.

Actually the impetus for searching for just such an introductory video came from a student's interest in learning piano transcriptions of music he knew that exhibited grooves of unequal beats (3+3+2, for example).

It is a long arc to trace bell rhythms of West African ensembles to grooves and clave patterns of more popular music, but the post from January 2015 provides some introductory listening. 

~KW

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