Elvis, Guns N Roses and Taylor Swift walk into a bar...

You may think I'm about to launch into an odd joke (or brag about a legendary night out) but I'm actually going to talk about a concept that connects these artists who, at first glance, might seem to have little connecting them besides their ability to sell millions of records. Well, on second thought what I'm going to speak about does have something to do with their ability to sell millions of records.

You see, all three have had success from – in part – tapping into a long and storied musical tradition that dates back at least to the 1920s, and probably further than that. As we'll see, all three have made use of a particular rhythm which has formed the rhythmic backbone of a whole host of popular songs for nearly a century of recorded popular music.

Being that our primary job as drummers is to provide the rhythmic bedrock on which great songs are built, I think it's important that we take note of these sorts of rhythmic connections. Not only does studying these connections enrich our knowledge of the history and progression of the drum set specifically and pop music generally, but it also provides us with a creative tool for creating effective and appropriate parts when we're asked to do so.

With all that out of the way, let's get down to business. We're going to start by looking at three songs. First, Hound Dog by Elvis Presley: 

Second, Sweet Child O Mine by Guns and Roses:

And finally, I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift:

So what do these three songs have in common? The answer is that they share an underlying rhythmic structure based on this rhythm:

 

In order to hear this relationship, play all three songs again while clapping the rhythm above. You'll note that if you continue to clap this rhythm throughout each tune the various parts played by the musicians and the the rhythm of the melody dance on and off this rhythm, while continually referring back to it. In the case of Hound Dog the rhythm is played explicitly by the upright bass from the first bar of the tune. In Trouble, the guitar and then the bass drum lock into this pattern right from the beginning, though it's only implied on the choruses. In the case of Sweet Child O Mine, several of the instruments outline this rhythm distinctly though it's never as obvious as in the other two songs. But, it's undoubtedly there.

Many of you will be familiar with this rhythm which is – variously – called a One Bar Clave, African Clave, Tresillo or Habanera in Afro-Cuban music and The Charleston in North American popular music. It has found its way into popular music all around the Americas and the Caribbean and has it's roots in the music of African slaves in those locations. The Charleston style of music and dance appeared in the 1920s in a Broadway musical called Runnin Wild. Here's the rhythm as played by the composer of that show, James P. Johnson: 

 

It's likely this rhythm had prior history in North America in the music of New Orleans and other places, but Johnson took his inspiration from the music of the dockworkers in Charleston, South Carolina. Whatever its genesis, it was its incarnation as The Charleston which first engrained it in the consciousness of a wider - and whiter - popular audience. The Charleston was a popular form of dance in white speakeasies during the 1920s. After that, we hear the same rhythm popping up in the Swing era in the works of Big Band composers. It also made its way into various forms of Blues and early RnB that eventually morphed themselves into Rock and Roll. The specifics of this chunk of history are beyond the scope of this article, but it was through these influences that the rhythm found its way into 1950s music such as Hound Dog. The jump to Guns n Roses is 30 years and the jump from there to Taylor Swift another 20 years. But, as we can see, all three songs are connected to a long tradition that spans basically the entire history of 20th/21^st century popular music and the history of the drumset itself. So, if we take the time to trace the evolution and use of this rhythm, we bring ourselves into contact with nearly a century of music and begin to explore the deep roots of what we play on the drum set.

Beyond being a history lesson, why is this all important? Well, as Dave Dicenso has done a convincing job of arguing in his – absolutely stellar – book Universal Rhythms, once we become aware of the underlying rhythmic structure of any song that we're playing, we have a framework around which we can create our own patterns and improvisations without losing sight of, or detracting from the general rhythmic message of the song. As long as our patterns (say, our drum groove and/or the parts played by other instruments) refer to or are in some way based on a shared underlying rhythm such as The Charleston they will fit together and work mutually to propel the time feel forward. There needn't be one instrument playing the rhythm as explicitly as it is in I Knew You Were Trouble. These “skeleton rhythms”, as Dicenso calls them, are like the wiring under the board.

And what is it about The Charleston that makes it such an effective rhythmic tool? I think the answer lies in the natural tension and release inherent in the rhythm. To help elucidate this, we first have to define a word that drummers often use, but sometimes don't understand: syncopation. Far from being simply the title of one of the most recommended drum method books ever published, syncopation is at the heart of what we do. Simply put, syncopation means “disturbed accent.” When we say “accent” we're referring to the strongly felt pulses of either the quarter note or of the half note, depending on the style of music. Generally notes played on the strongly felt accents tend to create a feeling of rest whereas notes played on subdivisions that don't line up with these strong accents create varying kinds of rhythmic tension and propulsion.

In the Charleston rhythm, we begin on the most strongly felt pulse; beat 1. Our next note is on the and of 2, generating a feeling of jumping off of beat 2 and toward the strong pulse of beat 3. This tension is present whether we're feeling all four quarter notes as strong accents or the half notes on 1 & 3. The third and final note in our rhythm lands again on the strong pulse of beat 4. Or, if we're feeling the pulse in half notes it lands on an upbeat – creating tension of it's own between beat 3 and the 1 of the following bar. Personally, I find that I tend to conceive of the Charleston as played against a half note pulse. This creates the greatest sensation of tension and release as the second and third notes push and pull around beat 3 with the tension finally fully released on 1.

A simple exercise: clap the Charleston rhythm against both a quarter note and a half note pulse, either played with your feet or by a metronome. Pay particular attention to the sense of tension and release created by the rhythm against the constant pulse. Of course, you may hear the tension and release points differently than I do. There are no hard and fast rules about this stuff.

Another way to conceive of this rhythm, and one which can be very helpful when improvising is to think of it as the division of 8 eighth notes into groups of 3, 3 and 2. Accordingly, this allows the substitution or interjection of any rhythm totaling 3 eighth notes into the first two sections (or one idea of 6 eighths) followed by any rhythm totaling two eighths. I'll say more about the 3-3-2 concept in another installment.

If you're like me, you'll geek out on this and you'll end up hunting for this (and other underlying rhythms) in all kinds of songs. A few more examples of popular tunes that use this figure include:

All My Loving, I Want To Hold Your Hand, She Loves You and pretty much every early Beatles tune

Jumping Jack Flash 
How Sweet It Is
Brown Eyed Girl 
Billy Jean  
The Passenger (Iggy Pop)
Wake Me Up Before You Go Go 
Clocks (Coldplay)
She Said (Plan B)

etc.

Have a listen to some (or all) of these and try to find the Charleston rhythm. Once you've found it, pay close attention to how the other instruments play on and around it. All of these variations can be inspirations for constructing our own parts and improvisations when we come across a tune with the same rhythmic basis. If we collect enough of these sorts of ideas, we're never without something to say/play when confronted with such a situation. It's incredible just how many different ways various artists have found to use and embellish upon this simple framework.

Just like certain harmonic progressions (I/IV/V anyone?) The Charleston rhythm provides a musical connection between literally hundreds of hit songs from the past century. I've found that tapping into this connection helps me to better understand the inner workings of the tunes that use it. It also provides a basis on which to build and create parts that will work together when I'm working on original music. Good luck!