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Author David Luebbert
Posted 6/9/00; 6:43:44 PM
Msg# 434 (top msg in thread)
Prev/Next 433/435
Reads 2235

Most of the great new stuff today, is happening in The Rhythms. To wit, we have:

  • Versions of Abakua, a rhythm of a secret Cuban men's society at 120 , 180, 220 , and 260 beats per minute
  • Versions of Bricamo, a rhythm of a Cuban women's society at 120, 200 , 260 and 300 beats per minute
  • Versions of Nokobe, a rhythm of the Ewe people of Ghana at 120, 160, 200, 220 , 300, and 320 bpm
  • Guha, another Ewe rhythm, at 180, 220, and 260 bpm
  • Linjen, a popular rhythm for djembe, at 200, 250 , and 290 bpm
  • and Dununha, a Guinean dance rhythm, at 150, 200 , 240, 300 , and 350 bpm
We did these at so many different tempos because these rhythms sound great when played fast, medium or slow and change their character as the tempo is varied.

In The Changes, we're up to 148 chord progressions listed now. The three we added in the last three days were:

For those of you who are puzzled by our current emphasis on producing chord sequences, we think there is great reason to do this. Folks can load these into editing programs and compose new music with them. The music editor we'll be offering soon makes this extraordinarily easy. They can study these changes and learn a tremendous amount about musical harmony. They can sing along with them and use them as a substitute for a piano accompaniment. They can try to improvise melodies vocally or instrumentally using the changes as accompaniment. The editor is great for these purposes also.

My next project is to write bass lines for some of the progressions that are represented in The Changes. I was working on All The Things You Are this afternoon, but kept getting interrupted by a memory crasher in the app. Should have the bug fixed and be able to do the bass lines early next week.

Also I'm going to try to do progressions for famous rock tunes. Please send me your suggestions. Or better still submit your own arrangements.

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Last update: Friday, June 9, 2000 at 9:26 PM.