Listen at about :14 as Snoop says “Ready to make an entrance…” and at about :19 as he says “Gimme the microphone…”
I’m not sure of how to describe what he’s doing, except to say that he sort-of “clips” his words, similar to how an auctioneer might do.
Seems to be a common thing in Hip Hop - Snoop does it all the time, and Dr. Dré himself does it in the very song I linked to up above, at about 1:27 (“With a producer…”)
Anyway, does this vocal technique have a specific name?
I don’t believe that is a stutter. He not saying “G-G-Give me the microphone” - he is using one type of talky flow, then slips into a rhythmic, beat flow that takes advantage of the syllables and consonants of the words.
Another example that immediately jumps to mind is Anthony Kiedis saying “Give it Away” in the chorus of that song.
I don’t know of an official jargon name for it. I would be very interested if a rapper can share if there is. I would say the person is popping the pronunciation - hitting a set of syllables that serve the song.
It just a triplet. Meaning, in a 4/4 song like that one, where there are four beats per measure, he’s putting three notes in a beat (well, half a beat, for those familiar with music theory, but that’s not relevant). It sounds weird to us because 3 is an odd number, and we’re used to hearing 2 or 4 in that type of beat.
Guys. Again, it’s called a triplet. It’s not patter. “Modern Major General” is a good example of what patter is, but that’s not what we’re talking about in this thread. Patter is just a stream of quick notes that usually don’t fall on a specific pitch, but the rhythms of those notes are usually consistent (i.e. mostly 8th notes, as in MMG).
What we have in the Dr. Dre song the OP linked to is nothing more than a musical tool called a triplet. It’s not a vocal technique; it’s simply putting 3 notes into a beat that’s usually reserved for 2.
The examples in question are indeed on triplets. But the general technique of fitting a lot of syllables into a short time is patter. The rhythm is irrelevant. The auctioneer analogy employed by the OP is actually spot on
I think of a stereotypical rat-a-tat-tat as two sixteenths and an eighth (plus whatever the next beat is; probably a quarter).
Sorry, but I still respectfully disagree. If the rhythm was irrelevant, the OP would have linked to a performance of “Modern Major General”, and we all would have said “Oh, that’s a patter song”. End of story, do not pass Go.
But as it happens, he was specifically asking about this one particular song where the performer employed the use of a 16th-note triplet figure, which is what gave it the peculiar characteristic the OP was asking about.
If you want to bend the meaning of the word–and I don’t mean that in a snarky way at all–but if you want to stretch the meaning of “patter” to include that song, then fine, I’ll concede to that. But that doesn’t change the fact that what’s making that particular moment sound the way it does is the triplet figure, not the fact that it’s a patter song (i.e. not all patter songs will have triplet figures in them).
As a musician who doesn’t know formal music theory and terms, this seems to make sense. I think my voice teacher, er, fachverwirrt (he helped a few of us wannabee singers with an Ask the Vocal Coach thread) is framing the whole style.
I would never have thought of them as triplets, but as I hear you guys talk shop, it makes sense. Reminds me of the rapid-fire tongue exercises I know trumpet players do to hit triplets on their horns.
How does one pick up that rhythm? How do you train for that? I can play triplets for days on my guitar, but couldn’t flow that into a lyric flow if my life depended on it.
Sure you can. Tap your foot or clap your hands at a speed of 120 beats per minute (in other words, double the speed of one second–use a watch if you want). Now say the word “nevertheless”, where the syllables “nev-” and “-less” fall on the claps. Now speed up your clapping, still keeping the accents on those syllables. If you go fast enough, you’ll be saying it as fast as he says “Ready to make…”.
Voilà, you’ve conquered triplets, and now you’re a rapper!
Cool - thanks. I will try it. If you don’t mind my asking, I can’t recall what your vocal background is, but you seem to have some how do you come by your know-how?
I think you’re fixating on the specific example. The question the OP had was about how
That sort of rapid fire chattering is, in a general sense, patter. I’m not really calling it a “patter song” (and perhaps it was a mistake to bring Modern Major General into it), just going by the dictionary definition of the word:
They could be triplets, quintuplets, sixteenth notes, whatever.
Perhaps the OP could clarify whether he means this specific rhythmic pattern or the more general idea of rapid, clipped wordplay.