Rhythmic ambiguity in the Bach E major partita prelude

I have been creating a series of beat-driven remixes of canonical classical works. I have mostly done this for my own enjoyment, because I like hearing the pieces with some groove to them. But I also sense that there might be pedagogical applications for this method as well. I finally found a good example: the rhythm in the bariolage passage from measures 17-28 of the prelude to Bach’s violin partita in E major. Listen to it at 0:24 in Viktoria Mullova’s recording, it’s the purple part:

Something strange happens whenever I listen to this passage: after the second measure, I start hearing the rhythm wrong. I bet you do too!

The passage is made of four-note groups. The lowest note in each group jumps out at you as being the most prominent one. They are in a different register from the others, and they define the harmony. You start hearing these standout notes as being accented, even if the performer isn’t accenting them. The convention in classical music is to put accented notes on strong beats. So you probably start hearing the lowest notes in each group as “downbeats,” and your sense of the meter reorients accordingly. But this is wrong! Each low note falls on the last sixteenth note of each grouping, not the first. You aren’t expecting such hip syncopation in 18th century music, so when the passage ends you get all confused about where the beat is.

Here’s the score, with the “accented” notes in red. If you are anything like me, you will quickly fall into a groove of hearing the red notes as downbeats beats, so the last note will feel strangely misplaced.

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Repetition defines music

Musical repetition has become a repeating theme of this blog. Seems appropriate, right? This post looks at a book by Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, called On Repeat: How Music Plays The Mind. It investigates the reasons why we love repetition in music. You can also read long excerpts at Aeon Magazine.

Here’s the nub of Margulis’ argument:

The simple act of repetition can serve as a quasi-magical agent of musicalisation. Instead of asking: ‘What is music?’ we might have an easier time asking: ‘What do we hear as music?’ And a remarkably large part of the answer appears to be: ‘I know it when I hear it again.’

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The Red Hot Chili Peppers unplugged

In case you don’t pay attention to such things, there’s a miniature scandal swirling around the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ performance at the Super Bowl halftime show.

Close examination of the footage reveals that the bass and guitar weren’t plugged in.

Red Hot Chili Peppers unplugged

Flea, the Peppers’ bassist, came forward and admitted that they used a pre-recorded track, and offered various excuses and explanations. I’m surprised to find myself writing about this, since if there’s anything I care about less than the Super Bowl, it’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But I was struck by Flea’s prevaricating; the whole thing points up the strangeness of live music in the age of technology.

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