Initially when I started playing around with having my rhythm setup subdivide the beat I went with a very simple division of four equal pieces. This works well for some things, but it is also a very rigid sound. When I'm playing on the mandolin I often stretch the beat a bit, pulling subbeats earlier and pushing others later. This is something I learned to do by ear; I just play it.
But what am I actually doing? I took a recording of myself playing mandolin and measured exactly how far through the beat each of the four subbeats fell. I measured three repetitions worth:
| 1 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 0.154 | 0.139 | 0.168 |
| 3 | 0.275 | 0.253 | 0.264 |
| 4 | 0.444 | 0.421 | 0.420 |
| 1 | 0.574 | 0.535 | 0.549 |
Converting these into percentages, and calculating an average:
| 1 | 00.0% | 00.0% | 00.0% | 00.0% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 26.9% | 26.0% | 30.6% | 27.8% |
| 3 | 47.9% | 47.3% | 48.1% | 47.8% |
| 4 | 77.4% | 78.7% | 76.5% | 77.5% |
Here's another way of looking at it:
| strict | stretched | delta | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 25.0% | 27.8% | 11% late |
| 3 | 50.0% | 47.8% | 9% early |
| 4 | 75.0% | 77.5% | 10% late |
Here's a video walking through how this sounds and how it fits into the rest of my setup: youtube.
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