IDM Mailing Archive

on Tue, 15 Mar 94 14:47:37 CST, "Shawn Travalent" <travalen@kcmetro.cc.mo.us> wrote:

quoted 5 lines the polyrhythmic stuff you mention is what caught the ear of Dizzy

>the polyrhythmic stuff you mention is what caught the ear of Dizzy >Gillespie in the 50's. Diz passed this slong with egyptian scales, modal >forms etc to Miles. my point is that it caught on once before and could >definitely be where the future of the music is headed. in my opinion music >is as any other art form-- in a constant state of recycling.

of course, you're right. especially techno is per se recycling, remixing, just consider the heavy use of sampled material... the polyrhythmic acid lines, though, i suspect to be reinvention, two things to be held apart. but the ways influences work are actually a quite complicated and in fact a *very* interesting object of study. i don't know about the proper facts about gillespie though. in the fourties, he already was quite aware of cuban music, which might have led him deeper into its african roots... ligeti, one of the leading european composers, says that conlon nancarrow, who writes very complicated polyrhythmic (yet accessible) stuff for player piano, is in his opinion the greatest living composer, so you're not alone with your expectations from polyrhythm at all (if you don't know nancarrow, go get! the stuff is fantastic! same kind of introvert handyman (not entirely appropriate word) as rdj, btw). on the other hand, all this means that the complexities of harmonic or melodic structure will have to suffer. so polyrhythmic music will not really take over, but anyway, i too think its time has come. p.