The term 'Polyrhythm' essentially
means 'many rhythms'. With drumming, polyrhythms are like 'harmony' or
playing chords on a piano. Several rhythms or 'melodies' can be
occurring at the same time with said instruments.
The word 'parallel' in computer terminology is loosely thought of as several processes occurring at the same time. In other words, computers are very good at multitasking in doing several things at once. This idea is almost always a focal point in the art of drumming (when a drummer who can hold down a back beat and compliment the rhythm with counter rhythms, for example).
Many drummers are often fascinated by polyrhythmic coordination [i.e. 4-way independence] and there are many reasons why: a drummer can create the illusion of several drummers playing at once, can establish underlying rhythms, or 'themes', and establish a rhythm that allows for soloing with said rhythm. Developing discipline and control are other reasons. In other words, studying poly-rhythms allows for more freedom of expression in the rhythmic sense...
The Bongo Method explores polyrhythms and goes on to explore the the use of space between the notes [i.e. rests/silence] - in other words, the use of space in polyrhythms.
In other words, this is an exercise in applying drum ostinato patterns concurrently - two ostinatos that function in conjunction and are poly-rhythmically related.
The point of the whole exercise is to improve a drummer's skills to improvise poly-rhythmically.
Below, pictured in
boxes, are 4 basic polyrhythms : 2-to-1, 3-to-2, 4-to-3, and 5-to-4
Each row represents what one hand is doing. Each
column represents a pulse - you can think of each of these as a
subdivision of the pulse [i.e. - quarter, eighth, or sixteenth's, etc].
Boxes with no mark indicate a rest and are silent.
To the right of each boxed polyrhythm is the equivalent rhythm in polyframe notation.
Below each of these polyrhythms is an audio example - the drum in the right speaker represents the top ostinato and the drum in the left speaker represents the bottom ostinato of each polyrhythm.
Each audio example repeats four times.
TWO TO ONE
THREE TO TWO
FOUR TO THREE
FIVE TO FOUR
Be sure to play each polyframe though and repeat several times in a row -
each audio example is the polyrhythm repeated four times.
Once you have memorized these four
polyrhythms, proceed to the three links below:
The reason why I developed the notation known as 'polyframes' is for the purpose of clearly indicating the relationship between two ostinatos. With standard notation, it would be hard to read or interpret. This notation allows a drummer to clearly see the relationship between the two ostinatos.
The goal is to work through all basic permutations between two ostinatos so as to facilitate the skill to improvise poly-rhythmically.
