Sample excerpts from
Roots Jam 3: Arrangements for West African Drum & Dance
Koreduga – A Time Puzzler
We might well call this eccentric rhythm that of the trickster. The timing is in the oddball signature 9/8, which to our struggling ears we can break into more bite-sized chunks. The basic rhythm is:
o – o – o – O o –
g – d – T – d P –
This group of notes combines familiar phrases from 4/4 and 12/8 rhythms and melds them together. One way we can hear it is like this, 4 + 5:
g – d – | T – d P –
While counting in 5 is generally unheard of, we can recognize the standard triplet phrase, [ T – d P – – ], so really what’s happening is the final rest gets dropped; or rather, the final double rest [ – – ] gets shortened to a single rest. Come to think of it, this isn’t so uncommon after all. Remember the clave pattern [ x – – x – – x – ]?
That’s 3 + 5, where once again the 5 comes from a shortened triplet.
Getting back to Koreduga, our 4 + 5 then is really more of a 4 + 3 + 2. It begins with the binary feel, switches to a triplet feel and then quickly back to the binary.
Another way to hear it is 6 + 3, with the initial 6 having a binary feel:
o – o – o – | O o –
This phrase is reminiscent of the Mendiani sangban in 12/8:
O – O – O – | x M – …
where the phrase extends by doubling the triplet (thereby increasing the 9 to 12 total notes).
O – O – O – x M – x M – = 6 + 3 + 3
