• Techniques
  • Creating interesting beat with Euclidean Rhythms
2016/10/29 11:42:12
Chandler
Here is a tutorial I made recently on Euclidean rhythms. I discovered these recently when looking for ways to generate interesting ethnic rhythms. They work surprisingly well and they are really easy to make in a step sequencer. I hope it helps and tell me what you think.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8uk9pRFmms
2016/10/29 18:41:33
vdd
Great one! I tried it with the MPC and it works like a charme. Thank you!
2016/10/29 21:11:24
Jeff Evans
Chandler yes this interesting. I am curious though how you got from the paper (which I have downloaded) to that point at 2.22 in your video.  What is that stuff and where did it come from.  I feel you have not explained it very well.
 
I mean you could write a random series of 1's and 0's really and subdivide it into bars say and put one sound on a 1 and another on the 0 and yes you will always get a musical rhythm.
2016/10/31 04:33:49
Chandler
vdd
Great one! I tried it with the MPC and it works like a charme. Thank you!




Thanks, I'm glad you liked it.
 
Jeff Evans
Chandler yes this interesting. I am curious though how you got from the paper (which I have downloaded) to that point at 2.22 in your video.  What is that stuff and where did it come from.  I feel you have not explained it very well.
 
I mean you could write a random series of 1's and 0's really and subdivide it into bars say and put one sound on a 1 and another on the 0 and yes you will always get a musical rhythm.



 Thanks for watching. Have you watched the end of the video(the math part)? I tried to explain it there, but I'm sorry if it wasn't clear enough. Basically you use this algorithm to divide the number of hits as evenly as possible. For example if you want a 1 bar pattern in 8th notes. We first need to choose the number of hits. Let's try 3 hits and the other 5 spaces will be rests, which makes 8 spaces in total(represented as E(3,8)). So if we say hits are "1" and rests are "0" our initial pattern looks like this. 11100000. As you can see all of the hits are at the beginning which makes for a boring rhythm. I use the algorithm to space them as evenly as possible. After you do that you get 10010010. In the video at 13:27 I show how you can do it yourself. After you have that pattern you can rotate it to create new patterns easily. If you just start on different notes you can use that same pattern in a new way. ex [10010010],[00100101],[010010100], etc. Those are all the same pattern, just shifted, but of course they sound different when used musically.
 
Of course you can use any number of 1s and 0s, but the reason IMO euclidean rhythms work is because they divide things as evenly as possible. Things that can be divided perfectly evenly will create boring rhythms which is why I didn't showcase them. Of course you could do E(4,8), but the result of 11110000 would be 10101010, which is well treaded music territory that you don't need the algorithm to create. Things that can't be divided perfectly evenly create more interesting combinations i.e. E(3,8), E(5,8), E(5,16), E(3,7) E(4,9), etc. Actually the last one becomes 101010100, which is the rhythm of "Blue rondo a la turk" by Dave Brubeck (which is of course written in 9/8).
 
I'm sorry for putting that info at the end of the video, but honestly I was worried people wouldn't watch if I started out with math, so I stuck it at the end of the video. If it still isn't clear how to derive the patterns let me know and I'll do an example of the algorithm here.
2016/10/31 11:54:19
TheMaartian
Great topic, Chandler. Very interesting. I'm reminded of Tool's Lateralus and its use of the Fibonacci sequence. Using the Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci and Lucas sequences for creating rhythms is a fascinating study. Thanks for bringing this up.
 
EDIT: Enjoy!
 
http://www.maths.surrey.a...ibonacci/lucasNbs.html
 

2016/10/31 11:58:26
TheMaartian
An inexpensive way to try polyrhythms out is to start with something like the Odd Meter Drums MIDI libraries from The Loop Loft, like this one.
 
http://www.thelooploft.co...-drums-midi-drum-loops
2016/11/02 01:41:32
sharke
Jamstix has a Euclidean Rhythms module available for it, produces some very interesting beats.
2016/11/02 10:18:17
Chandler
TheMaartian
Great topic, Chandler. Very interesting. I'm reminded of Tool's Lateralus and its use of the Fibonacci sequence. Using the Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci and Lucas sequences for creating rhythms is a fascinating study. Thanks for bringing this up.
 
EDIT: Enjoy!
 
http://www.maths.surrey.a...ibonacci/lucasNbs.html
 





Nice, I hadn't heard of anyone using a Fibonacci sequence to make music. That's really cool.
 
TheMaartian
An inexpensive way to try polyrhythms out is to start with something like the Odd Meter Drums MIDI libraries from The Loop Loft, like this one.
 
http://www.thelooploft.co...-drums-midi-drum-loops




I would argue that my video is free, so it is an even cheaper way to try polyrhythms , but I will admit those do sound like some cool beats. I like how they used instruments besides a drum set to demo them too.
 
sharke
Jamstix has a Euclidean Rhythms module available for it, produces some very interesting beats.




That is actually where I got the idea for the video. A little over a month ago I saw it and thought "What the hell are Euclidean Rhythms" and I started digging around. Obviously the jamstix module is easier than doing it by hand, but I don't know if you can hook up jampercussion to things like Geist, Battery, etc. Besides making music using math makes it look like I'm smart and not just slapping my hand on my guitar and keyboard randomly.
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