Not really—at least god-like ears aren’t required, just a little training on how to “separate the layers” of a recording and a lot of practice.
You can tell different people’s voices from each other, right? It’s the same skill, just applied a little differently.
My guess was that they meant “triplet” 
Certainly not to the extent of what a good Tabla player can do, but I still think you are selling jazz a little short. Granted a typical swing cymbal/high hat pattern is somewhat simple, but the interplay between the snare and bass drum can be rather complex when played by master jazz musicians. Say, something like this for example. That interplay is not something I would call simple.
And, of course, Frank Zappa knew a few things about complexities in rhythm. This is in 4/4.
I dunno. When I hear what some of the kids are doing these days like bands like,say, Sungazer, I’d rank the rhythmic complexity beyond tabla players, even. (And I’ve seen Western interest in Indian rhythmic syllabication, or whatever you’d call it — basically counting out rhythms using various syllables.) Just crazy stuff, quintuplet swings, 7:15 polymeters, metric modulation, etc. It’s so far beyond what I can musically even understand, it’s wild.
Interesting, I wasn’t familiar with them. Very intellectual and complex. It’s not my cup of tea, because for me, it didn’t evoke anything remotely emotional. It felt, for lack of a better term, masturbatory. Of course, it’s all personal preference. I’m sure young people might feel that way about Charlie Parker or Chick Corea. But I absolutely agree that it is some of the most intricate and rhythmically complex new music I’ve heard in a long time. Sincerely, thanks for sharing that.
Indeed. Although The Black Page was never really intended as music to be enjoyed. In some ways rather the opposite. It has become something of a flex goal for some musicians.
Zappa had a curious relationship with jazz. “Jazz isn’t dead, it just smells funny.”
And then Jazz from Hell. Music mostly not intended for playing by humans. Although after Ensemble Moderne performed G Spot Tornado live it has become another flex piece. My local professional orchestra did it some time back. (What modern musicians can manage is remarkable. The conductor Mark Wigglesworth wrote that it now takes some skill to keep The Rite of Spring sounding difficult.)
I didn’t say I was a fan, just amazed by their rhythmic complexity. My jazz tastes are firmly stuck in modal jazz of the 50s and 60s. Give me melody! Of modern stuff, I do enjoy Snarky Puppy. They’ll branch out into polyrhythms and stuff, but stay fairly understandable.
Yeah. The whole genre of Math Rock and the use of complexity for its own sake gets old IMHO.
OTOH, if musicians didn’t go down these roads things wouldn’t progress. So I’m never going to criticise people who do. Eventually as a mere punter, I’m going to patronise music that moves me and I can enjoy.
Thanks! The article is enlightening. At the same time, using my understanding of reading it, I think there are some discrepancies. Examples:
The example of 4/4 versus 2/2 should be read as 2/2 sounds like 4/4 if the 4/4 emphasises the 3rd beat to exactly the same amount as the 1.
This is perhaps where the description of time signatures is a bit lacking. It isn’t a matter of just strong or weak beats. 4/4 is strong, weak, medium, weak. 2/2 is strong, weak. The other time signatures all depend on the one being distinct and defining the basic timing. Knowing where the one is is the most critical aspect of playing. Time signatures that look as if they should be the same are distinguished from one another by how the emphasised beats inside the bar relate to the one. Some of the definitions are just convention. We want to distinguish the different forms so choose a sensible n/m notation and you are expected to know how it is counted. But they all make sense. So long as you always keep an eye on the one. The one is always special.
Odd rhythms like 5/4 or worse don’t have one single way of counting, so there is wiggle room as to where the internal emphasis is placed.
As a listener our ears latch onto the basic rhythm period, as defined by the one. Then the internal rhythm of a bar starts to define the feel. So 2/2 played twice as fast as 4/4 still feels different.
Playing two different time signatures together, leads to a heterodyning of the emphasised beats as they come in and out of phase. Huge fun may be had here.
Agree on all counts and didn’t mean to insinuate otherwise. Snarky Puppy is more my speed as well. Cory Henry drops my jaw on a regular basis. I like Dirty Loops as well for similar reasons, but always find myself digging through older catalogs of music for stuff that truly moves me.
True. At the music school I attended, they handed out The Black Page to the drum students and for months, the halls were filled with drummers working on that piece. But I never understand to what end, other than bragging rights. I think I spent about an hour on it and moved on to things I found more enjoyable. I have a friend who can play it from memory on marimba. I’d rather hear that because I think the melody that was assigned is more enjoyable to listen to than just the rhythm played on a kit. But yeah, you won’t hear it at a party or a grocery store aisle anytime soon.
Repeated bars of 3/8 will have an equally strong beat on every “1”. A bar of 6/8 or 9/8 will have a stronger 1, and a less strong 2 (and 3 in 9/8). Compound meters like 6/8, 9/8, 12/8 (even the occasional 15/8) are essentially 2/4 , 3/4, 4/4 etc. in triplets.
To put it another way, you wouldn’t think of 3/4 as the same as three 1/4 bars; similar 9/8 does not have the same feel as three 3/8 bars.
I want to recommend two YouTubers that explain a lot of music theory in a way that is easy to understand and uses well-known songs as examples. The kind of questions you are asking are exactly the kind of things you will learn by watching their videos.
There is an old and often repeated stereotype, dating from the early days of rock and roll, of black audiences clapping on the 2 and 4 while white audiences listening to the same band clapped on the 1 and 3. If this was ever true, it has surely not been true since the early- to mid-1960s.