{"id":20725,"date":"2020-06-04T10:10:43","date_gmt":"2020-06-04T14:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/?p=20725"},"modified":"2024-06-03T20:07:45","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T00:07:45","slug":"remixing-bartoks-mikrokosmos-no-133-syncopation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/2020\/remixing-bartoks-mikrokosmos-no-133-syncopation\/","title":{"rendered":"Remixing Bart\u00f3k&#8217;s Mikrokosmos No 133 &#8211; Syncopation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6AaAKbKD_Pw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/B%C3%A9la_Bart%C3%B3k\">B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k&#8217;s<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mikrokosmos_(Bart%C3%B3k)\">Mikrokosmos<\/a> (not the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LXOJk2PFKgY\">BTS song<\/a>) is a six-volume collection of short pedagogical piano pieces. The early volumes are beginner-level exercises, and the later ones are professional-level challenges. They&#8217;re all pretty strange. My favorite is number 86, &#8220;Two Major Pentachords,&#8221; a counterpoint exercise where <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7tQYtCdMhqA\">the right hand plays in C major and the left hand plays in F-sharp major<\/a>. &#8220;Hot Cross Buns,&#8221; this is not.<\/p>\n<p>Mikrokosmos Number 133 is called &#8220;Syncopation,&#8221; and as the name suggests, it&#8217;s a study of complex rhythms. Here&#8217;s a recording of it by Bart\u00f3k himself:<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MMXnHgodDqw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p><!--more-->Barto\u0301k composed Mikrokosmos No 133 in the summer of 1932, one of dozens of short works that he wrote during a productive vacation. The funny thing is that the first half of the piece doesn&#8217;t technically use any <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/2015\/syncopation\/\">syncopation<\/a> at all. The time signature is changing constantly, but the rhythmic groupings don&#8217;t cross the barlines. There does start to be syncopation in the second half, where the time signatures settles into steady 4\/4, and the asymmetric note groupings scatter across the grid seemingly at random. You need a steady underlying meter for deviations from that meter to be meaningful.<\/p>\n<p>I learned from <a href=\"http:\/\/xn--urnalai-cxb.lmta.lt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/MKP-17-Nakahara.pdf\">Yusuke Nakahara&#8217;s dissertation<\/a> that Barto\u0301k originally wrote the whole piece in 4\/4. Then he moved the bar lines around in the first half to create all the time signature changes. I wonder whether he was trying to show you two different ways of thinking about odd metrical groupings: first, as unsyncopated with lots of meter shifts, and then in steady meter but with lots of syncopation. It would be easier to keep a grip on all the rhythmic complexity if the harmony was simpler, but that is not how Bart\u00f3k rolls. Mikrokosmos 133 uses all twelve chromatic pitches. Nakahara says that it&#8217;s not systematic like a serialist composition, that the harmony is intuitive. You can hear what he means <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/MMXnHgodDqw?t=26\">at 0:26<\/a>, where Bart\u00f3k repeats a cluster chord several times, stacking another semitone on top each time. Mostly he&#8217;s as serious as a heart attack, but I appreciate the playful quality of this little passage.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s my remix of Mikrokosmos 133 using the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/2011\/the-amen-break\/\">Amen break<\/a> to reinforce the changing meter:<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 350px; height: 470px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=605536220\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/track=86799823\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ethanhein.bandcamp.com\/album\/classical-remixes-volume-two\">Classical Remixes Volume Two by Ethan Hein<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s rich untapped potential for turning Bart\u00f3k&#8217;s music into drum n bass or other experimental electronic dance music subgenres. What do you say, producers?<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/ethanhein.bandcamp.com\/album\/classical-remixes\">Hear all of my classical remixes here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k&#8217;s Mikrokosmos (not the BTS song) is a six-volume collection of short pedagogical piano pieces. The early volumes are beginner-level exercises, and the later ones are professional-level challenges. They&#8217;re all pretty strange. My favorite is number 86, &#8220;Two Major Pentachords,&#8221; a counterpoint exercise where the right hand plays in C major and the left &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/2020\/remixing-bartoks-mikrokosmos-no-133-syncopation\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Remixing Bart\u00f3k&#8217;s Mikrokosmos No 133 &#8211; Syncopation&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[909,924,9],"tags":[1121,1485,1828,2305,1141,1160,1928,1430,610,903],"class_list":["post-20725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-composition","category-key-musicians","category-music","tag-amen-break","tag-bartok","tag-classical-music","tag-classical-remixes","tag-modernism","tag-music-teaching-2","tag-pedagogical-remixing","tag-piano","tag-rhythm","tag-syncopation","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pAPdE-5oh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20725"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29566,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20725\/revisions\/29566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}