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The Geometry of Musical Rhythm: What Makes A "Good" Rhythm Good?
The Geometry of Musical Rhythm: What Makes A "Good" Rhythm Good?
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William A. Sethares
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Book Review
a
William A. Sethares
a
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Wisconsin Madison, WI,
USA
Published online: 22 Apr 2014.
To cite this article: William A. Sethares (2014): Book Review, Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, DOI:
10.1080/17513472.2014.906116
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Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, 2014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17513472.2014.906116
BOOK REVIEW
The geometry of musical rhythm: what makes a “good” Figure 1 shows the tresillo in two other notations: standard
rhythm good?, by Godfried T. Toussaint, Boca Raton, FL, musical notation and in the necklace notation.
CRC Press, 2013, 365 pp., GBP £25.99 (paperback), ISBN- Toussaint generally bypasses musical notation and in-
13: 978-1-46651-202-3 stead emphasizes the numerical and the pictorial notations.
This makes perfect sense since the focus is on numerical
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Toussaint’s Geometry presents a whirlwind tour of the and geometric properties of rhythmic patterns. Ignored are
world’s rhythms: from steady pulses to the rhythms of chil- other musical aspects such as melody, pitch and timbre.
dren’s handclaps, from popular patterns such as the 3-3-2 Ignored also are the complexities of a metric hierarchy [2]
tresillo to the danceable Cuban clave son, from flamenco so common in the Western classical tradition. While these
rhythms to odd-metered Balkan folk patterns, from African omissions may be unfortunate in one sense, it is the razor
timelines to Indian tala, from the Bo Diddley beat to the sharp focus that makes Toussaint’s Geometry so compelling
loops of electronic dance music. A variety of numerical and readable. Indeed, the bulk of the book is mathemati-
and geometrical methods are used to display, understand cally accessible to a mature high school student, and would
and compare the rhythms. Measures of similarity show how make a great introduction to ideas from mathematics and
close (or far apart) the rhythms are, and these are used to computer science for the musically inspired student. Any-
develop phylogenetic trees connecting groups of rhythms one who has ever wondered about the ‘relationship between
into family trees. math and music’ will find something here.
Geometry is written in 38 easily digestible chapters,
each dealing with one aspect of the rhythmic puzzle. I read
one chapter a day, and the 5 weeks flew by. Each day pre- Rhythms and algorithms
sented a new way of thinking about rhythms and ordered
Toussaint uses Geometry in his computer science class at
sound. Each chapter presents a new face: about the underly-
New York University in Abu Dhabi, immediately following
ing mathematical representations, about the algorithms that
an introductory programming class. The many algorithms
help us organize and understand repetitive sound, and about
provide a wealth of motivated problems to challenge and in-
the various ways that rhythms and patterns are interrelated.
spire the budding programmer. For example, the Euclidean
For a reader interested in musical rhythm, Geometry is a
algorithm may be familiar to many readers as a way of
great introduction to the computer science and mathemat-
computing the greatest common divisor of two (positive)
ics of rhythm. For a reader interested in algorithms and
integers. Toussaint shows how the Euclidean algorithm can
mathematical reasoning, the musical focus provides com-
be used to generate families of related Euclidean rhythms.
pelling examples lying at the intersection of the arts and the
Using eight time divisions and three note onsets, the Eu-
sciences.
clidean algorithm leads to the tresillo rhythm of Figure 1.
Rhythmic notations
Geometry represents rhythms in several ways. For example,
the tresillo is a rhythm that consists of three strokes per
period of repetition, two longs followed by a short. It may
be represented as
3−3−2
Other choices for number of pulses and number of onsets and rotated versions of the clave son such as 4-3-3-4-2
lead to other well-known rhythmic patterns. For example, (1000100100100010) and 2-4-3-3-4 (1010001001001000)
with 5 onsets in 16 pulses, the Euclidean rhythm is a rota- are nearly indistinguishable when considered in the context
tion of the bossa nova of Argentina. For someone unfamiliar of a repeating sequence. While perfectly clear as a statement
with the Euclidean algorithm, this is a great introduction about binary sequences (more formally, cyclic rotations of
and wonderful way to learn about one of the world’s most binary sequences), this is much more compellingly viewed
ancient algorithms. For someone familiar with the numer- as in Figure 2 where the rotation of the rhythm is clearly
ical procedure, Euclidean rhythms present a great applica- represented by the rotation of the polygon that connects the
tion and way to ‘auditorize’ (to complement other ways to onsets.
‘visualize’) the algorithm. Figure 2 also shows several geometric properties of
Many of the world’s most popular rhythms are maxi- rhythms from which The Geometry of Musical Rhythm
mally even, where the onsets are (approximately) evenly draws its name. For example, the clave son is symmet-
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spaced among the pulses. In presenting this idea, Toussaint ric, most clearly visible in the mirror symmetry about the
follows a consistent and logical plan: to present the basic dashed diagonal line in part (b). Many of the world’s most
idea, show some simple geometric and/or algorithmic ways popular rhythms have such axes of symmetry: the tresillo,
of calculating/generating sequences, and then survey a col- the clave son, the bossa nova and the Nigerian timeline
lection of familiar (and not-so-familiar) rhythmic patterns shiko are some common examples. The dotted line in (b),
that may be derived or understood from the idea. For maxi- together with the two sides of the polygon, forms an isosce-
mally even sequences, the method is a graphical procedure les triangle. Musically, this indicates that the rhythm con-
that represents quantization of a line whose slope is deter- tains two adjacent inter-onset intervals of equal duration.
mined by the number of pulses and the number of onsets. This geometric property is also shared by a number of pop-
The simplest example, with three onsets divided among ular rhythms including the shiko and the Central African
eight pulses leads to the tresillo as well as a rhythm used in hybrid soukous rhythm. The gahu rhythm from Ghana con-
the Beijing opera, the Brazilian catarete, and a bell-pattern tains two such isosceles triangles while the bossa nova has
from Ghana known as the nandon bawaa. three.
Figure 2. The clave son rhythm is represented by 5 onsets in 16 equally spaced pulses in (a). Two cyclic rotations are shown in (b) and
(c). The dashed line through (b) shows the axis of symmetry. The numbers in (c) represent the distance between onsets as measured by
the number of pulses around the circumference of the circle. The histogram in (d) shows the collection of all time intervals that occur in
the rhythm.
Book review 3