During my August vacation I listened to Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall quite a bit. It’s really good.
I have been particularly drawn to “Day and Night,” the third track on the album, written by Jackson, and here present a short analysis of two rhythms used in the song and attempt to understand why these rhythms are so effective. The rhythms themselves are very straightforward:
1.
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This rhythm is highly typical in many styles of music. It’s a simple syncopation easily described as 123-123-12. Louis Johnson, the bassist on “Day and Night,” uses this pattern and variations on it 10 times in the song. This particular 123-123-12 rhythm occurs in the last two beats of a 4/4 measure (if you’re feeling the quarter note at around 130 bpm), and the final pitch anticipates 1 by a half beat. This is not unlike the second part of a 2/3 son clave or tumbao grooves, which commonly accent the last fractional 1/8 of their pattern (this is often notated as dotted-quarter/dotted-quarter/eighth, but sounds the same as 1. above).
2.
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This is also familiar, and only notable as it functions as a break in the song. Unlike the first rhythm, this one has no syncopation. It does, however, accent beat 4 (with a snare hit), and anticipates 1 by a full beat.
Both these rhythms are interesting in terms of their effect on the downbeat that occurs after they are sounded. Throughout “Day and Night” the downbeat is prominent in John Robinson’s bass drum pattern. While this pattern is faithfully “funky on the one,” the rhythm section and horn arrangement (by Jerry Hey) also work to reinforce that funky one. The two examples above, by accenting 4 or the and of four, tend to create aural room for 1 to sound especially good. Number 1 works by holding across the barline (Johnson varies the point of next attack in his part, sometimes the and of 1, sometimes the “e”), allowing Robinson’s 1 to fill the 1 space usually occupied by the bass. Number 2 functions by creating unfamiliar space before 1, which is pleasingly ended by the now familiar groove when 1 returns.
In “Day and Night” these patterns occur at phrase and section endings, and are only two of innumerable methods that musicians and arrangers use to signal form in popular music, a way of saying “here it is…the bridge!” etc etc. There is, however, a logic and nuance in Johnson’s exact choices about when to play that bass pattern, and how he responds in the sections where horns join him, that bears further investigation into how the top pattern functions in the higher (whole-song-length) formal system of the song. In addition the top rhythm is an integral part of Jackson’s demo version of the song (which can be heard on the Special Edition re-release of Off The Wall), indicating that it’s a core part of the song structure. When I decided to look into that first pattern, the second one (such a prominent part of the song, with the pleasing snare CRACK on 4, but also easy to forget) also started to sound significant on that whole-song-form level. In “Day and Night” all phrases are 4 or 8 measures, and there isn’t much sense of melodic or harmonic progression. Could these rhythms help create the song’s infectious momentum? It’s easy to hear both rhythms above as transitions from one section to another, and stop thinking about their groovyness and formal role as soon as they’ve sounded. Do they have any formal pattern on the macro level?
The diagram below shows the full time (5:13) of the song as a bold line from left to right. Points on that line indicate occurrences of the rhythms described above, with the quarter note pattern lettered on top and the eighth note pattern numbered below. I found these points by calculating which measure (“Day and Night” has 169 measures at the point of complete fadeout) each “hit” appears in. Using time in minutes and seconds as a measurement unit would yield the same results, but, as the song is strongly metrical, the measure level seemed like a gestalt unit of measurement.
Referring to the diagram (click for larger), hit A introduces both the lyric and its own function as a big break in the song. A along with E bookend the whole form. 1 is introduced to mark the second verse. Both these initial occurrences establish the patterns as “markers” of form and illustrate their effectiveness (they both make the upcoming beat 1 groove). Hits B and D divide the whole form of the song into thirds, while bass patterns 2-5 systematically develop the pattern in different ways; as tenths in the bass (a thicker texture), then with horns and a great bass fill after beat 1, then with bass in tenths and horns.
The break at C is set up by a long build that starts at pattern 5. This build is a feature for the rhythm section following an amazing horn soli. After C there’s an 8 measure instrumental before a big break at D (the exact 2/3 mark, a classic spot to begin a climactic section), which leads to the final chorus and the densely spaced group 6-9, which continue to develop the original idea with alternating variations of the initial riff. As B and D divide the form into thirds, 2, 3, 5 and 8 are spaced exactly 1/6 the whole form apart from each other, a pattern that is itself centered within the form.
While much of this symmetry simply reflects the general properties of popular song form, these rhythmic ornaments both reinforce the dense and infectious overall groove and, through their carefully orchestrated development, delimit the form at the song level. In an earlier post I discussed how “Cheek to Cheek” developed into a flexible song space for listeners and performers as a result of its continuing reinterpretation and familiarity. How do the rhythmic cliches analyzed above help to create a groove space for “Day and Night?” The processes involved in creating these repeated gestures is both notated (in horn parts, rhythm charts, etc) and aural (improvised fills and compositional process). As I continue to develop concepts for an organic drum machine the function and concepts dictating the development of such fills and riffs within both phrase and higher level forms will be a subject of research.
