Bell pattern
A bell pattern is a rhythmic pattern performed on percussion, such as a cowbell or similar instrument such as timbales or agogô.
African music
Key patterns
Musics organized around key patterns [also known as bell patterns, timeline patterns, guide patterns and phrasing referents] convey a two-celled (binary) structure, a complex level of African cross-rhythm.
— David Peñalosa, (2009: 53)[2]
[Key patterns] express the rhythm’s organizing principle, defining rhythmic structure, as scales or tonal modes define harmonic structure. . . Put simply, key patterns epitomize the complete rhythmic matrix. Key patterns are typically clapped or played on idiophones, for example a bell, a piece of bamboo [or wooden claves in Cuban music]. In some ensembles, such as iyesá and batá drums, a key pattern may be played on a high-pitched drumhead.
— Peñalosa, (2009: 51)[3]
Gerhard Kubik. . .claims that a timeline [key] pattern 'represents' the structural core of a musical piece, something like a condensed and extremely concentrated expression of the motional possibilities open to the participants (musicians and dancers).
— Kofi Agawu, (2006: 1)[4]
At the broadest level, the African asymmetrical timeline patterns are all interrelated….
— Gerhard Kubik, (1999: 54)[5]
The standard pattern
The most commonly used key pattern in sub-Saharan Africa is the seven-stroke figure known in ethnomusicology as the standard pattern.[6] The standard pattern is expressed in both a triple-pulse (12/8 or 6/8) and duple-pulse (4/4 or 2/2) structure.[7]
See also
Sources
- ^ Waxer, Lise (2002). The city of musical memory, p.239. ISBN 0819564427.
- ^ Peñalosa, David (2009: 53). The Clave Matrix; Afro-Cuban Rhythm: Its Principles and African Origins. Redway, CA: Bembe Inc. ISBN 1-886502-80-3.
- ^ Peñalosa (2009: 51).
- ^ Agawu, Kofi (2006: 1-46). “Structural Analysis or Cultural Analysis? Comparing Perspectives on the ‘Standard Pattern’ of West African Rhythm” Journal of the American Musicological Society v. 59, n. 1.
- ^ Kubik, Gerhard (1999: 54). Africa and the Blues. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 0-4-415-94390-6.
- ^ Jones, A.M. (1959: 210-213). King, Anthony (1960). “The Employment of the Standard Pattern in Yoruba Music” American Music Society Journal.
- ^ Peñalosa (2009: 51).
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