A Bite-Sized Introduction to Polyrhythms Part 1 – The Magic of the Hemiola

Lately I have been looking into alternate rhythmic ideas for music composition and have started what seems like it will be a very long journey to discover polyrhythms. Polyrhythms are found in all kinds of traditional “non european” music as well as Jazz and modern pop. From what I can sort out , they basically set an odd number of beats against an even number of beats or vice versa. beat patterns of 3 against 2, 5 against 4 , 7 against 4 are common. They create that cool swirling ” I can’t really find the beat” feeling of African music. At the same time I am trying to do a shared arrangement of “Afro Blue”. By accident I discovered the most basic polyrhythm of sub-Saharan Africa, the 3:2 cross-rhythm, the Hemiola.

Polyrhythms are usally found on drums , but here it is located on bar three of the melody of” Afro Blue” two notes in the time of 3 beats. A simple idea that sounds fantastic.

“Afro Blue” is a jazz standard composed by Mongo Santamaría (congas player) in 1959, when working with Cal Tjader, Tito Puente, Dizzy Gillespie. But it was perhaps best known in its arrangement by John Coltrane, who recorded it in 1963 with Elvin Jones on drums.

John Coltrane changes the melody pretty quite a bit, but you can clearly hear the rhythmic effect at the start of the head.

References and further reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemiola

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro_Blue