Dietterich !

Natalie Dietterich

Professors Dmitri Tymoczko and Pascal Le Boeuf

Advanced Concepts in Rhythm

1 May 2020

Process, Pattern, and Perception: an Analysis of “Wolf Out” by The Bad Plus

From the very start of the piece, the listener is thrown into metric ambiguity. The

repeating cell in measure 2 serves as the basis for how the material evolves throughout the piece.

Instead of starting the piece with the full motif, the first measure “cuts off” the first quarter note.

This could be transcribed differently to reflect G as the starting pitch of the cell with F as its last,

though I believe the listener is grounded harmonically by the F octaves and the implied dominant

to subdominant to tonic movement (sol-la-do). Upon a first listen, it’s hard to decipher exactly

where the pattern starts and ends. This becomes more complex when in measure 3 we hear the

ostinato in the right hand change on beat 2, further grounding the G and destabilizing the F.

In measure 7, the ostinato changes not only pitches but rhythm. The harmonies, this time

in both the left and right hands change on beat 2 again (or this could be considered beat 3 in

relation to the “full” repeating pattern in measure 8.) Because the F belongs to the first note in

the first ostinato and the second note of that in measure 8, the listener does not know that the

pattern is changing until beat 2. Two rhythms in have been switched as well; grouping 16th notes

together, we see that the pattern in measure 2 is 4 - 4 - 3 - 4 - 6, whereas in measure 7 the

durations of the third and fourth notes switch to become 4 - 4 - 4 - 3 - 6. Measures 7 and 8 act as
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an analog to the 1 and 2 in that measure 8 has also expanded by a quarter note, specifically the

first quarter in the new ostinato. This pattern of setting up a metric expectation and then

expanding it before it repeats further disorients the listener’s sense of the downbeat.

Much like the ambiguity in the opening, the music that follows contains pivotal measures

that elide phrases and provide less clarity about where one phrase ends and the other begins. In

measure 11 for example, we see the same musical material as the opening two beats of the

second repeated ostinato figure (first seen in measure 8). The second beat of this measure can

serve as a continuation of the ostinato from the previous measures, or it could be grouped in with

the following measure where the pedal would then change on beat 2. The F serves as a pivotal

moment of transition between the two ostinati, similar to how it behaves in bar 7. We see this

process echoed yet again in measure 22, where this time both of the beats serve as a new

repetition of the second ostinato figure and the beginning of a new repeating figure that lasts for

four bars.

These expansion-contraction patterns are reflected on a more localized level as well. In

measures 33-37 for example, there is a pattern of 5/8 + 2/4 that expands by a beat (adding two

straight eighth notes) to become a new pattern of 7/8 + 2/4 in mm. 35-36 before contracting

again in the following bar. This could be grouped differently of course: if the bar before was

written as a 3/4 bar, the last two eighths would belong to measure 33, suggesting the start of the

7/8 + 2/4 pattern that repeats twice (now three times) before contracting down to a measure of

5/8. This sense of expansion and contraction is also echoed in how the right hand pedal changes

throughout the piece, at first changing one quarter note after the right hand ostinato, such as in
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measures 3, 5, and 7, and then changing to two beats in at 9, back to one beat in 17 and two in 19

and 21.

As the piece progresses, similar processes unfold. Measures 38-39, a new ostinato figure,

maintain nearly the same rhythmic durations as those in measures 23-24, the only difference

being a contraction of the 4/4 bar into a 3/4 bar, leaving out the last quarter note. This figure

cycles through many pitch transpositions before leaving us for a new ostinato figure shown as

“bar 42” in the transcription. But as we saw in the very opening of the piece, the first iteration of

this ostinato in the previous measure starts with a truncated bar that is missing the “downbeat.”

This is made up for later, where the cycle finishes out with the note that was missing from

measure 42, begging the question as to which C# is the implied downbeat.

The various kinds of play with ostinato throughout this piece give it a great sense of

metric ambiguity. The sense of expansion and contraction of the figures, pivot points that elide

multiple phrases and shifts in when both the pedal and ostinato change provide the listener with

an ever-changing sense of where the downbeat is. The meters of the phrases themselves are

already not the most intuitive to feel, and just when there is a sense of gathering one’s bearings,

another shift happens, and then other, pulling the rug out from under the listener yet again.