Syncopation | The Professor's Convatorium

As a boy in primary school I was always fascinated and attracted to rhythms, beating tempos, and the various mixtures of independent rhythms into a harmonious grand production. To me there was endless possibilities of creating ensembles from endless particulars. Take this one unique rhythm, join it with another, then another, and so on until they all become a masterpiece. And so for the following years of my youth I wanted to be a drummer, a Maestro of metre, a Captain of cadence and Lord of the Skins. Doing just that was like a drug to me. Doing it with other drummers was the ultimate high. I miss it. I miss it terribly, especially the comradery and connecting syncopated souls. Today, that longing has another meaning.

During this time leading up to what is surely going to be a monumental, make-or-break election that determines whether the USA collapses in on itself in more strife and division, or it makes a turn for healing, for recovery—recovery across ALL sections of our society, economy, and government. In that spirit I want to offer a great example of sublime, supreme teamwork, incredible commitment to perfecting their art and discipline to THE WHOLE and to each other. It’s not just to self, or one or two sectors or class of people, but it’s to clear syncopation and united, of being on the same exact tempo, and thus performing as one with many. “E pluribus unum.” With many hardworking, unique parts contributing to a final product of sheer beauty, awe, exquisite precision, and collaboration by every single member.

I give you Her Majesty’s Royal Marines Corps of Drums and the Swiss Top Secret Drum Corps performing not opposed, but together as one. Something our U.S. government, White House and officials should learn and behave accordingly for ALL Americans. Crank up your volume if you feel so inclined and send a signal you want beaten in to some thick skulls on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C. 😉

Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always — Come Together/Vote

For all of you music enthusiasts. Certainly for any of you drummers, you maestros of rhythm, or Lords of the Skins!

Here is the mystery: If the rhythm is right, if the translation between inner mood and the drum membrane are perfect, then you know it instantly. “Ah, this goes with my body tempo, this connects how I feel today, how fast my heart is beating, what my thoughts are, what my hands feel like.” — Drumming on the Edge of Magic: A Journey Into the Spirit of Percussion, by Micky Hart, Fredric Lieberman and Jay Stevens (1990)

I was inspired yesterday by a fellow blogger and musician (Ark)—if he considers drummers “musicians” (wink)—to write this post about how natural, how biologically embedded rhythm, patterns in sound vibrations, and beats or pulse are to the human neurology. Maybe it is different for percussionists and maybe it isn’t, the mathematics of rhythm that is, and how almost endlessly it can be shifted, divided, multiplied, or derived from previous… well, derivatives. The patterns, rhythms, and beats often have a common denominator, a baseline if you will. Yet, it is wonderfully and by no means permanent.

When the rhythm is right you feel it with all your senses, every corner of your soul and being. You don’t fight it, but instead allow yourself to be propelled and consumed by its insistent yet familiar feeling. All sense of the present moment disappears, the normal categories of time become meaningless. — Ibid

There are 12 distinct components or moods and pulses in this following 9-minute instrumental entitled La Villa Strangiato (An Exercise in Self-Indulgence). It is a human journey in sleep by a man with a lucid imagination coupled with a propensity for some extreme anxiety and/or tranquility. The epic song by Rush is from the very apropos cerebral album Hemispheres. One of the tranquil components: “To Sleep, Perchance to Dream…“ and anxious components: “Monsters!“ and “Monsters! (Reprise)“ both adaptations of a 1937 Raymond Scott jazz instrumental. I cannot fully express how masterful this piece is in complex mathematical drumming and syncopation by one Lord of the Skins that should give any percussion aficionado goose-bumps, Neil Peart!

We live on a planet of rhythm and time. A planet that completes its cycle around the sun every 365 days, with a moon that cycles around us every 28 days, and we rotate around our own axis every 24 hours. These cosmic cycles and our bodily ones, all connected to the circadian dance of day and night. The mystery of rhythm and time found for a moment in the soul’s drum. When it is right, you feel it with all your senses, every thread of your being. It is the ‘sweet spot’ of connection [to this cyclical planet and the celestial heavens in which it and we revolves]. — Ibid

Medical studies repeatedly show that getting your heart-rate up drumming or dancing, or both, for just 30 minutes a day is equal to one anti-depressant pill. My own studies have shown that dueling and complimenting another drummer on her/his kit (below) is equivalent to two pills of euphoria… similar to ecstasy, but better! And naturally legal! Can you imagine how healthy it is participating in a drum-circle with dancing!? Exercise! Get down and hard, get steamy sweaty!

Or if you prefer something more indigenous, reflective of our evolutionary roots, more primal, more Latin, then I give you Evening Samba by Mickey Hart and his indigenous percussion ensemble:

How about something highly erotic that reaches deep inside to the twisted Sorcerer/Sorceress unleashing a beast inside? And then hits your natural release, the endorphins to help carry us away, floating while time stands still, A Different Drum: