Future Rhythms (1.20)

In response to the challenges of remote music creation during the age of Covid-19 and the current hinderance of sonic latency, I predict that future rhythms (in popular, concert and experimental music forms) will become: slower, less metronomic, less quantized, more independent, more conversational and more extreme than ever before as they embrace the following:

Pads, Fermatas and Grand Pauses where a musical event’s duration is not related to a pulse or a number of beats, but rather very slow moving, organic gestures of long tones contrasted with thick silence.
Big, Fat, Sloppy Down Beats where sections change or hits happen not following a precise, sharp moment in time (like the initial attack of a metronome’s click), but rather following a wider beat or macro time (like feathers falling into one’s hand).
Independent Orbits where loops of varying length occur simultaneously, yet independent of each other, each other's specific pulse rate and subdivisions.
Conversational Etiquette where performers alternate in uninterrupted musical statements relating to a given theme(s).

Though (in many ways) these concepts accept the natural rhythmic disconnect inherent in remote music making, thereby moving against the idea of rhythmic togetherness, it is my strong recommendation that to compensate, every note and sound be performed with the utmost intention, conviction, patience and attention to dynamics, articulation and stylization.

Questions on Time? (10.20)

What is time?

“Time is the measurement of change.”

~Aristotle

“Time is of your own making...”

~Angelus Silesius

Who is time?

"Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river;

it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger;

it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.”

~Jorge Luis Borges

Where is time?

“Everywhere where there is interaction between a place, a time and an expenditure of energy there is rhythm. This includes:

A) Repetition”

B)Interferences of linear processes and cyclical processes

C) birth, growth, peak, decline and end.”

~Henri Lefebvre.

When is time?

"Time is, time was, but time shall be no more."

~James Joyce

Why is time?

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”

~Albert Einstein

Don't have time?

"To say 'I don't have time' is to say 'I don't want to.'"

~Lao Tzu

Want more on time?

“Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future

And time future contained in time past.

If all time is eternally present.

All time is unredeemable.

What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility

Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.”

~ TS Eliot, The Four Quartets

Manifesto (9.15)

music is a conversation

a reflection of what is within and what is without

a physical and sonic release from holding

a mapping of pathways through the creation, repetition and destruction of patterns

a celebration of the present moment

an expression of respect towards one's self, community and global environment.

the instrument is a spaceship

an extension of your voice

where do you want to go?

what do you want to say?

follow the ear

obsess over the perception of time

find comfort in the extremes

don't rush.

Brian Shankar Adler

Drummer . Percussionist . Composer

Brian Shankar Adler

Drummer . Percussionist . Composer