The history of drumming is far more interesting than one would suppose. Who would have guessed that it all goes back to the Swiss military in the 14th century? But that is what we learn from the obscurely titled Drum Rudiment article in Wikipedia.
The earliest instance of rudimental fife and drum is often cited as the Swiss military at the battle of Sempach in 1386.[5] There is evidence, however, that the Swiss were already using drums in battle in 1315 at the Battle of Morgarten.[6] Initially, Swiss rudiments were very influential to the French system, which in turn was the basis for many other rudimental systems. Switzerland produced two distinct rudimental cultures, the wider Swiss Ordonnanz Trommel[7]practiced in Zurich, Valais, and Geneva, and the Basel version or Basler Trommeln.[8]
From there, the basic elements of rudimental drumming spread across Europe and to the Americas. I first heard the term "paradiddle" from a musician friend, an English percussionist. To this day I think it is the funniest technical term in music, even outdoing appoggiatura and allegro non troppo. How does one execute a paradiddle, one of the fundamental rhythmic patterns of drumming?
A paradiddle consists of two single strokes followed by a double stroke, i.e., RLRR or LRLL.[91] When multiple paradiddles are played in succession, the first note always alternates between right and left. Therefore, a single paradiddle is often used to switch the "lead hand" in drumming music.
Interestingly, we have another whole set of terms for rhythmic patterns from classical prosody:
Disyllables
Macron and breve notation:
= stressed/long syllable,
= unstressed/short syllable
pyrrhus, dibrach iamb (or iambus or jambus) trochee, choree (or choreus) spondee Trisyllables
tribrach dactyl amphibrach anapest, antidactylus bacchius cretic, amphimacer antibacchius molossus
What is really, really interesting is how much of the fundamental content of music is actually rhythm even though all our music theory courses talk about harmony and modulation with maybe the occasional mention of melody. But I cannot recall a single music course at university titled "rhythm." Maybe with the entry of more popular music into academia there is now?
What better envoi for this than Steve Reich, Music for Pieces of Wood:
Why is this piece so interesting and enjoyable? Polymeter!
6 comments:
The history of drumming goes back a bit further than that
Well, of course, if you mean the practice of drumming, that goes back to the beginnings of human time. But if you mean the history of drumming understood as manifesting in written evidence, not so terribly far! Though I have to admit to almost complete ignorance as to the early history of drumming and drum technique in Asia.
Music for Pieces of Wood makes me smile. And I think to myself that perhaps it's not too late to be able to master a musical instrument. And the down payment is quite minimal.
Some of the other performances are nice, too, where they seemed to have purchased their wood at their local hardware store:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFYDsUKH1b4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LbmvD7ytDc
Of course, the problem is the tuning...
I know some people don't get his work or don't like it but I've enjoyed a lot of Reich's work over the years. His percussionist/drummer experience definitely comes across in finding grooves and exploring them, which is, it probably goes without saying, hardly ever occurs in "classical music".
The irony of music theory treatises rarely discussing rhythm is that if we went all the way back to Augustine's De Musica that's the ONLY thing he talked about! He regarded rhythm in music as so foundational he started with that topic and never got to finishing the later sections dealing with melody and harmonics(harmony.
Pitch can be thought of as simply a rhythm that has reached such a speed it creates a perceptible pitch. We tune to 440, right?
Absolutely true, Wenatchee!
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