beatmaster peggy

[egypturnash]

Something I've always wanted to investigate, and now have a compelling reason to: Music theory, particularly the area of rhythms and time signatures.

One of the things that distinguishes the great classic cartoons from much of what's made today is rhythm. It was not uncommon for a cartoon's overall timing to be roughed out before the animation began, using a simplified form of musical staffs. By doing this, you can have rhythms that pervade the whole cartoon, crossing from scene to scene, helping to tie it all into a unified whole. The only thing I've worked on that really did this was that Squirrel Nut Zippers video, where the beats came from, of course, the source track.

In the past, I've experimented with choosing a beat length for a scene, but I've never had the opportunity to really work on a whole cartoon's timing like this. I just find myself very drawn to trying to experiment with the shape of the rhythm: 'most of the cartoon is in 4/4, but for this part we transition to a very syncopated 7/8...'

There's no doubt in my mind that my liking of Difficult Music is part of what's behind this. Stuff like King Crimson that gleefully changes time signatures three times in a song and makes it all rock. Or, more likely to be used in a cartoon, Raymond Scott's novelty jazz...

I guess I need to wander to the bookstore and browse the music section. Or to a music store and browse the books there. Maybe both. Folks with musical inclinations, feel free to point me at favorite references.

Comments

[minakawa.livejournal.com]

I don't think browsing a music theory book would offer very much insight into that which you are trying to investigate. The vast majority of music, popular or classical, is either 3/4, 4/4, or compounds of those (6/8, etc). As far as time signatures go there is not much to say beyond this (excepting certain special cases).

To really develop a sense of rhythm, tempo, and phrasing, I suggest learning to play a musical instrument. The theory, if it is necessary at all, can teach you some musical terminology and provide some historical background for the notation. That is to say I think music theory is only useful insofar as to provide a context for actually performing or composing.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I tend to like to have a set of technical terms to use. It makes it easier to ponder how to do things, and to confuse people who don't know what I'm talking about... one compact, precise word is much better than vague circumlocutions.

The idea of me picking up a little music theory is for providing a context for performing or composition - it just so happens that the performance is visuals changing through time, not sounds in time. It's not without reason that I sometimes describe a dialogue track as "the music to which an animator dances". Without dialogue, or an existing music track, the dance of an animation has to be done to invented or borrowed rhythms.

Probably the most useful instrument to pick up as a way to research rhythm would be drums and other percussion. But I seem to have a fondness for the bass; every time I have occasion to draw myself playing something, that's what goes in my hands.

[minakawa.livejournal.com]

Very well. If you are indeed interested in technical music terminology, Lesson One is that the proper pluralization of "staff" is "staves". :)

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

...but seriously, yeah, I should have known that; it's so long since I did anything musical (guitar lessons in pre-teen years) that I forgot the proper plural.

The pages of minimalized staves I refer to are commonly called 'bar sheets'. Because that's all they are - just empty bars of music, with beats marked down; melody is not part of what these are used for planning.

[dour.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I think your best bet is to just listen to some music that works in strange signatures. This does not, in fact, have to be "difficult" music; the true masters are the ones who can get the general public to enjoy music in a beat they wouldn't be able to count if they tried. For contemporary examples, Nine Inch Nails and Tool are very good at this; Jethro Tull and Rush would top my list for the generation two previous. I'm really not familiar with 80s music, unfortunately, so I can't supply any good examples there; however, King Crimson's early-80s studio work (Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pair, the first Adrien Belew era) are similarly listenable-yet-complex. Also, just on general principles, you should become intimitely familiar with Igor Stravinski's Rite of Spring, which is the grand-daddy of modern progressive music.

In a nutshell, find stuff that you like, which people with more plebian tastes also like. Listen to popular radio stations, especially hard rock stations; you may find yourself pleasantly surprised. (Once or twice a day, at least. Yeah, most of it is still crap.) Then try to emulate those styles while developing your own work. Tool is probably the absolute #1 example to follow; they're one of the most popular bands on the planet, and they recently finished a tandem tour with their biggest idols -- King Crimson.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I think I'm hopelessly intellectual in my musical tastes - of the stuff you mention, the only band I don't have any of is Tool. I was never much into Stravinsky, either.

I suspect that what I'm going to end up doing is picking stub tracks and getting my beats from there, but... I dunno. It's something worth exploring. There's also the 'rennaisance-man' appeal of exploring music thery to create my own animation timing theories.

Another artist to check out

[amilori.livejournal.com]

Happens to be my favorite, Billy Joel. He changes both time signature and key (which changes the mood of the music) frequently. His music is used to mess with band & orchestras when they are competing in sight reading. Because of this and because his music is written for piano, most if not all is available in sheet music form. There are even a few books devoted to analysis of the classical roots in his popular rock music. Don't have the names or authors, but you should be able to find them on amazon.

[fourprint.livejournal.com]

My favorite "guess the time signature" music is probably Shudder To Think, who put out some lovely stuff in the '90s, but didn't really get as much notice as they deserved. They do rock out, if you can deal with Craig Wedren's acrobatic but histrionic vocals. Especially good: Pony Express Record and Get Your Goat. (Coincidentally, as I write this the former just happens to be playing in the background, and Craig is softly counting out the beats for one bar. Huh.)

Oddly enough, their music makes me really want to draw, or do something visual, whereas I'm more a musician. Maybe it's all the screwed up dream imagery that makes up their lyrics...

And there's always the Pixies. I always liked how they'd take a fairly straight-up sounding rock or pop song and then skip a bar or so on every cycle to change it up. Francis always was a geek at heart, after all.

Nosy

[drakegrey.livejournal.com]

Which Zippers video did you work on, "Ghost of Stephen Foster", or another one?

Assuming of course there IS another one.

--Drake the buttinsky centaur

Re: Nosy

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I think there are a couple other non-animated Zippers videos, but yes, I worked on GoSF - I animated (and inbetweened) the final two scenes, where the kids land in the car in front of the insanely bouncing hotel, and drive off into the distance beneath the moon that turns into the manaiacally-laughing head of the inkeeper.

Yes, that includes drawing every frame of the hotel bounce cycle. Every single slat.

[mandrill.livejournal.com]

Do you have any local universities that have music theory courses? If so, go to the school bookstore and see what books are in the section for the music classes. You often find some very interesting textbooks. I once found a nice textbook on music history/theory where you could also purchase an optional 10-volume set of vinyl albums that accompanied the text.

I think that some of the most complex music has to be jazz and popular music from the early part of the 20th century. A good number of old jazz pieces would change tempo or rhythm one or more times during the song. I also like the old popular songs that had a lot of patter in them (usually done for comic effect). An example of this might be Ager & Yellen's 1927 "Crazy Words - Crazy Tune" (Voe-doe-dee-o). They also wrote the more well-known "Ain't She Sweet."

I recall that Paul Whiteman and Don Redman wrote a number of musically-complex songs. Redman performed a really amazing jazz soundtrack for the Betty Boop cartoon "I Heard."

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I shall have to try that. Have to see where the nearby universities are.

There's all the old, obscure jazz you could ever want floating about Spümcø - it's Cartoon Music!

I just have to figure out how to listen for and analyze time signatures... I should probably chat with some of the more grizzled vets there, too, maybe some of them have performed similar researches.

[mandrill.livejournal.com]

Can you read music? I used to be able to but it's been a long time since I played the piano and I realize that I've forgotten almost everything I once knew. I keep thinking that I should take up playing again, but I'd probably have to start over from the beginning.

Please do let us know if you find any interesting books on music theory.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I could when I played the guitar, but it's been years.