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Tempo Mental
Tempo Mental
by Steve Vai
It was the summer of 1978. I had just turned 18 years old and had sent some
transcriptions to Frank Zappa. He responded by putting me on salary to transcribe tons
of music, everything from lead sheets to orchestral scores. The bulk of the work was
guitar solos, some with their accompanying drum parts. Frank played all the guitars and
Vinnie Colaiuta was the drummer. These guys used to take it out to lunch,
experimenting a lot with rhythms and odd phrases. My task was to transcribe the stuff
the best way I thought possible.
The tracks were recorded in several different manners. On some occasions, the band
played together live. Sometimes FZ overdubbed his solos in the studio. One interesting
thing that Frank did at times was to take a drum track from a certain time and place and
then take a guitar solo from yet another time and place and lay them on top of each
other. Frank released a book of some of these guitar solos and drum parts. It’s called
“The Frank Zappa Guitar Song Book”.
While transcribing the material, I was often confronted with situations that led me to
reach into the intuitional areas of my imagination to come up with various notational
devices and constructions that I had never seen before. I soon discovered that many
contemporary composers were then (and are still) using these notations.
In this article, I would like to show and explain some of these concepts and devices.
Besides being of great educational value, this will also help to clarify the ambiguity
behind some of the notation in the transcriptions found in “The Frank Zappa Guitar
Song Book”.
A polyrhythm is just what it says. Two rhythms, or “feels”, happening at the same time.
Most people reading this have a good understanding of the basic triplet. This, in
essence, is a polyrhythm. It’s three 8th notes being played against two 8th notes. Some
more basic examples follow…
These rhythms could be played rubato (fluidly) or non-rubato (very strictly and evenly).
Both ways have their own advantageous effects.
The concept of putting an odd number of attacks in the space of one beat holds true for
putting an odd number of attacks over two beats.
As you can see now, there’s a pattern that you can use to figure out any polyrhythmic
situation. These shown are the basics.
As you may imagine, you can really go to town with this type of thing. The following
examples are taken from some of the songs in “The Frank Zappa Guitar Song Book”.
Although some of these examples may seem ambiguous (and/or terrifying!), they can be played accurately if
understood and practiced. When you have a basic pulse and you superimpose altered rhythms on top, you set
up a certain flavor in the piece that cannot be expressed in any other way.
Metric Modulation
Some composers use metric modulation when they write. It’s an effect that can give the
piece an accelerando or retardation feel.
Off-Beat Rhythms
Another notational situation I came across was hearing rhythms go by that didn’t start
on the beat. Some examples of this are as follows:
These examples could be rewritten using odd-time signatures, possibly making it a bit easier for some people to
play. But if there were a strict pulse being used, then the way I notated it would likely be the best.
Discontinued Polyrhythms
This bar starts out with two quarter notes (that’s one beat). During the next figure, the
first two 8th-notes are played as 8th-notes of an 8th-note triplet. The time then resumes
to normal so that by this point, one and 2/3 beats have gone by. The 16th-notes are
played normally, making two and 2/3 beats played. The next 8th-note is played as an
8th-note from an 8th-note triplet. That brings the tally to three complete beats thus far.
The remaining part of the bar is played normally.
When using this type of notation in a composition, there would have to be some type of
explanation of the beginning of the piece. Here are some more examples of this:
This is another way of writing example #1:
Another situation comes about when you have a metric modulation inside a bar
followed by the tempo returning to its original time, leaving some unaccounted time to
be dealt with. In this example, you have two 8th-notes, then two 8th-notes from an 8th-
note triplet. That makes one and 2/3 beats played so far. Then you play four 16th-notes
in the original time, making two and 2/3 beats. The next bracket indicates to play two
8th-notes in the place of one quarter-note (bringing the tally up to three and 2/3 beats)
plus one 8th-note from an 8th-note triplet.
What the bracket indicates is to play two notes evenly in the space of one and 1/3 beats.
Some more examples of this follow. These examples take place in 4/4 time, but you can
take this concept and mutate it for odd-time meters, waltzes, sambas, etc.
As you can see, these things take a lot of practice and good understanding. The best way
to attempt to execute them is bit by bit.
This is extreme for today…but maybe not for the computers of tomorrow. [Note: this
article was written around 1983 or 1984].
Another technique I use is that of overlapping polyrhythms. This can get kind of sticky
and is best used when there’s no definite time signature going on.
One way of executing this phenomenon is to play the first five 8th notes as if they were
equal to the 8th notes of an 8th-note triplet.
Another way of approaching it would be to play the first two 8th notes as 8th notes of
an 8th-note triplet. Then play the next three in the space of one and 1/3 beats. Another
way of writing it would be:
Some more examples of this type would be:
You can find examples of this in “The Frank Zappa Guitar Song Book”, although they
are not quite as extreme.
Among the stranger things I’ve transcribed for Frank was the notation of actual
speaking voices. An example of this follows: