two three four ONE, two three four ONE
2008-05-08
One of my favorite artists of all time is Fela Kuti from Nigeria.
At Berklee, I was in an Afropop ensemble that would play a lot of Fela Kuti arrangements.
The teacher/bandleader explained that what we know as the “1” - the downbeat, the start of a phrase - in West African music is considered the end of a phrase.
Instead of “How you get to main street?”, it's “You get to main street, how?”
Instead of “ONE two three four, ONE two three four”, it's “two three four ONE, two three four ONE”.
Later I found out that Fela Kuti never performed songs after he had already recorded them.
I couldn't help but notice the similarity. As if to him, the recording was the end of the life of a song, instead of the beginning. Makes just as much sense if you think about it that way.
Which of course makes me wonder about all the other beginnings and endings and things we just take for granted as fact, but make just as much sense in their opposite.
yes.........jazz !
Hi Derek!
I learned that thing about the 2-3-4-1 just recently from a book called African Rhythm And African Sensibility, by John Miller Chernoff - great book for anyone interested, and I heard about Chernoff's book, in turn, from a re-reading of Mickey Hart's Drumming At The Edge Of Magic (super inspiring regardless of what one might think of Hart's "dayjob" in the Dead)...
In any case, I learned that particular rhythmic perspective just as I was about to record a set of songs written in a J-psych style for electric guitar and voice, and it completely turned my musical thinking inside out for weeks and weeks - I had to overhaul my ways of thinking about music more completely than maybe ever before - and I am a flexibly minded dude!
Don't know if the change will even be evident in what I actually play, although I seem to mess with drummers' heads now more than ever - I suspect that mainly it was an internal change that should lead to a more complete expression, but it may not be apparent to anyone else - we'll see when I get the tracks out there!
Thanks for spreading the word, about everything, always,
5-Track
Yes ! Yes ! Yes ! A legend : Afrobeat. Afropop music.
Inspiration.
Respect.
I think this has significance far beyond just the layout of a song or a beat. For instance, all of those programs that allow a musician to collect money from their fans ahead of the recording process flips the whole music production timeline into a 2-3-4-1 format.
More importantly, it changes the entire concept of selling music from industry push to market pull. When a product is selling in pull mode, everything is different. And in a time of experimentation, as the music industry is in now, pull needs to be used more often.
Actually, I guess it would be a 4-1-2-3 format since the paying comes first, but you get the idea. ;)
"Sorrow, Tears and Blood" is what comes to mind...the drums come in and flip the guitar part around to fit.
Hey Derek: Thanks for another cool post. I had never heard of Fela Kuti before I read your entry, so naturally I Googled his name, read his Wikipedia bio, then watched some YouTube footage. I'm really digging it. I love Jazz Fusion, and his style is great - I can see why his music is so influential all over the world. Thanks again.