A very interesting concept and, in particular, of interest to what, for the purposes of argument, I will call 'western music'. We're used to working in strict counts of the beat. 1, 2, 3, 4. Very mechanical and, if you grow up with it culturally, very hard to see past.
Once you look outside commercial and popular music, the concepts become more alien and the rhythm wheel demonstrated above is a great way to demystify the rhythms of other cultures which are not based on a strict, unchanging pulse.
A great example, to me, is afro-cuban or latin american music which are based on what is known as the clave. This forms the basis of a rhythm which is either 2:3 or 3:2. I'll *try* and visualise it below! Each dash (-) is a sixteenth note in traditional 4/4, so there's four to each beat. Each plus (+) is the 'beat' or 'count'. Each example consists of the same number of 'beats' (16).
Using 4/4: +---+---+---+---
2:3 Clave: --+-+---+--+--+-
3:2 Clave: +--+--+---+--+--
As far as natives of that form of music is concerned, that is the pulse or rhythm. Not counting 1, 2, 3, 4, even though you can. Natives of afro-cuban music neither count nor feel the rhythm as '1, 2, 3 ,4'!
I'll give up trying to visualise it. I hope you get what I'm driving at. The closest analogy I can give is Dave Brubeck's 'Take Five'. See how a complex time signature (5/4) becomes easy with such a dominant and obvious pattern to it. You don't count '5', you just feel the rhythm.
The video demonstrates what I'm trying to say so well when it comes to visualising patterns and rhythms, especially those of us who have been brought up on popular music - we're just not used to the 'beat' not being dead straight! But this 'clock' concept I can see being very helpful to teaching an understanding of world rhythms.
I'll stop talking now. I think I'm starting to make no sense at all.
Edited by
mpointon on November 20 2017 15:44