Rhythm

 

The house of music has three doors, melody, harmony, and rhythm. Depending on the musical period and style, these three elements can present themselves in different ways and in different relationships to each other. In most music, all three doors lead to the same place, like spokes on a wheel, and all three doors work with each other to fully express themselves and the music.

Melody manifests itself in time and hence creates melodic rhythm, and melody can imply harmonies. Conversely, harmonies can suggest a roadmap for melody to follow. The progression of harmony through time creates its own rhythm—harmonic rhythm.

Rhythm requires sound to be heard or felt, hence rhythm in not independent of sound—sound in the form of pitch and duration.

It has been my experience that apart from the study of percussion, the study of rhythm is often given a backseat in the study of music. Teachers of classical, jazz, and popular music all too often assume that if the student can count out music notation correctly and play notes and chords in time, then their work with rhythm is either complete and that the student can then automatically find the right feeling of the rhythm on their own. This is especially true in the instruction of folk, pop, blues, and jazz. Emphasis is placed on the chords and chords progressions, while the rhythm of the strums and picking patterns is given short shrift.

Many years ago, when I was performing on the folk circuit in Chicago, Illinois, my path often crossed with that of a folk blues artist called Blind Jim Brewer. Jim would begin and end every set with the same song, I’ll Fly Away. It’s a simple song and Jim’s guitar playing emphasized the bass notes of the chords on beats one and three of the measure which he followed with a strong downstroke of the strings on beats two and four. Both the chords and the strum, often called the Carter Family Strum, are something that even an advanced beginner can easily handle. But what could not be duplicated was the effect that Jim’s playing had on his audiences.

Without exception, on every occasion that I observed, whether in coffee houses or college campuses, within moments of him beginning to play this song people began to smile, tap their feet, and clap along to the music. Little children would even begin to dance.

What was it about Jim’s playing that caused this to happen? I believe the answer lies in the power and meaning of living rhythm. Living rhythm is something far beyond playing music in time, it comes within and finds expression through the body.

I recall that James Joyce in his, A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, said, “Rhythm in art is the relationship that exists between the whole and its parts, the relationship that exists between any part and another part within the whole, and the relationship that exists between any part and the whole.” This definition applies equally to all the arts, music, poetry, sculpture, painting, and dance, as well as to life in general, creation, the movement of the stars and planets, and the proportions of the human body and even the makeup of the mind.

Kahlil Gibran spoke about Jesus through the character of Mary Magdeline, “When I saw him in the garden, He moved like none other—he moved as if his every part loved every part of Himself.” – (paraphrase).

Relationship and love, they seem to go together, but how does that make us better musicians and specifically better at rhythm? As a teacher and a musician, it just doesn’t seem appropriate to leave it at that. There must be some practical way to study and practice rhythm. Metronomes and counting will only lead us so far. The “play it like this” approach used by many teachers perhaps takes one a bit further, but I wonder if the most practical approach may turn out to be the one that at first appears to be the least practical and the most impossible to teach or learn, and that is love—love for the music, love for others, and love for oneself?

Above the entrance to Meher Baba’s tomb in India is written, “Mastery in Servitude,” and somewhere in the scriptures it is said, “There was a time when the kingdom of Heaven could be taken by force, but those days are gone. Now the way to the Kingdom of Heaven is through love.”

As a fortunate teacher and performer of classical guitar, I have had the opportunity to attend many guitar concerts. I have seen the best the genre has to offer, and I have observed something very unique about the concerts of Andre Segovia. I saw it manifested in the audience during intermissions and at the end of his concerts.

Contrary to other artist’s concerts, during intermissions and after the concert when leaving the hall and the building, the audiences were generally quite talkative, commenting and discussing the performer, the performance, and the music, but the audiences attending the Segovia concerts were different. They tended to be much quieter, smiled more, talked less, and seemed to be more serene.

I observed this on many occasions, and I wondered why. I have concluded that the difference was due to how Segovia came to become a master musician. I believe he mastered the music by serving it, rather than by force of ego will, in other words, Mastery in Servitude through love.

Of course, love cannot be taught, but I have observed that it can be communicated. As Meher Baba said, love can be caught from those who have it. That love can manifest itself across all genres of music, it is not limited to the works of Bach or musicians like Horwitz and Segovia. It can also be found in the simple folk blues of Blind Jim Brewer and even the simple pop songs and singers of the 1950’s and 60’s.

So, it is love that brings the music to life, love that makes melody, harmony, and rhythm live. Love manifests through the hands and the voice of the musician, through the body of the musician.

Love and service are connected. By continuing to serve the needs of the music, by continuing to sacrifice for the needs of the music, one may gradually learn to love the music, and when love for the music is supported by successful work connected to learning the music, living with the music, and playing the music, the end result is that the musician is raised beyond himself, effaced, as it were, and the music soars to the highest levels of human endeavor.

Studs Terkel once asked Andre Segovia why, after becoming a true master of the music, he still continued to practice scales and other exercises daily. To this question Segovia replied, “Studs, I know I don’t have to remind you of the story of Jacob’s Ladder. Even though the angels had wings to fly, they still ascended and descended the ladder step by step.”

                                                                                                           (c) copyright, Michael Kovitz, 2023