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Friday Funk #17 – ‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ and ‘Hey! Last Minute’ by The Meters
Friday Funk #17 – ‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ and ‘Hey! Last Minute’ by The Meters
Friday Funk #17 – ‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ and ‘Hey! Last Minute’ by The Meters
In this Friday Funk, we’re revisiting The Meters with ‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ from their self-titled debut album (1969), and ‘Hey! Last Minute’ from Struttin’ (1970). The band’s lineup for these two albums (and Look-Ka Py Py, also ’69) was Art Neville on organ, keyboards, and vocals; Leo Nocentelli on guitar; George Porter Jr. on bass; and Ziggy Modeliste on drums and percussion.
These two songs were part of a study entitled “Syncopation, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music”, which looked at the relationship between syncopation and “wanting to move and experienced pleasure.”
Let's use Music Radar's neat definition of syncopation again: "changing up a standard rhythm by stressing beats that wouldn’t normally be stressed."
The study's authors found that “there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between syncopation, body-movement and pleasure”. In other words, if a groove has too little syncopation and is too straight, you won’t want to shake your butt. Too much syncopation, the authors say, “may prevent successful entrainment and thus inhibit the desire to move”.
The study used 50 synthesised GarageBand drum breaks, 34 of which were transcribed from funk songs (or mostly funk songs – Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Prove Your Love’ seems to have been deliberately used for its rigid funklessness). Two breaks were built from GarageBand templates, and the other 14 “were specifically constructed for the experiment in order to increase the spread of syncopation at both ends of the spectrum (i.e. weakly syncopated, and very syncopated)”.
Perhaps important to the results, “None of the drum-breaks included any microtiming.” Microtimings are tiny deviations from the rhythm. Imagine these songs were put onto grid on a computer. Some of Modeliste’s snare hits would arrive a hair away from the lines on the neatly divided grid, given that he’s human and these songs have live drum tracks. Would the results have been different if instead of using GarageBand imitations the study used The Meters’ real tracks? Which would make you want to move more?
Both these songs are full of syncopation. Two different breaks from ‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ and one from ‘Hey! Last Minute’ were all rated towards the upper end of the scale.
If we revisit the three qualities of funk that make you want to move, as discussed in earlier funky Fridays, #3 and #14, in addition to the study's focus of syncopation, there's the One and polyrhythms.
It’s possible that the Meters’ tunes here don’t place enough emphasis on the One to get those survey participants shaking. ‘Hey! Last Minute’ is undeniably groovy, and if you’re not tapping a foot along with the track then it’s questionable whether you can be funkified at all. But throughout much of the song the snare on two and four is the most noticeable rhythmic component.
‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ leans on the One more, but it’s more about where the guitar melody starts (and the study participants didn’t hear the guitar), and the beat is only slightly accented. It’s not really comparable to Parliament going all out on the Mothership.
Even if the participants had heard the rest of the band, there’s not a lot of polyrhythmic activity. The band are playing in unison a lot of the time. ‘Meter Man’’s bass and guitar follow the same progression through most of the song. Similarly, the guitar and bass, as well as the organ part, are heavily intertwined on ‘Hey! Last Minute’.
Would a heavily syncopated beat such as ‘I Got The Feelin’’, coupled with James Brown’s heavy emphasis on the One and web of polyrhythms mean the participants got moving?
We wait in funkipation for a study entitled, “The One, Polyrhythms, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music”.
In this Friday Funk, we’re revisiting The Meters with ‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ from their self-titled debut album (1969), and ‘Hey! Last Minute’ from Struttin’ (1970). The band’s lineup for these two albums (and Look-Ka Py Py, also ’69) was Art Neville on organ, keyboards, and vocals; Leo Nocentelli on guitar; George Porter Jr. on bass; and Ziggy Modeliste on drums and percussion.
These two songs were part of a study entitled “Syncopation, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music”, which looked at the relationship between syncopation and “wanting to move and experienced pleasure.”
Let's use Music Radar's neat definition of syncopation again: "changing up a standard rhythm by stressing beats that wouldn’t normally be stressed."
The study's authors found that “there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between syncopation, body-movement and pleasure”. In other words, if a groove has too little syncopation and is too straight, you won’t want to shake your butt. Too much syncopation, the authors say, “may prevent successful entrainment and thus inhibit the desire to move”.
The study used 50 synthesised GarageBand drum breaks, 34 of which were transcribed from funk songs (or mostly funk songs – Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Prove Your Love’ seems to have been deliberately used for its rigid funklessness). Two breaks were built from GarageBand templates, and the other 14 “were specifically constructed for the experiment in order to increase the spread of syncopation at both ends of the spectrum (i.e. weakly syncopated, and very syncopated)”.
Perhaps important to the results, “None of the drum-breaks included any microtiming.” Microtimings are tiny deviations from the rhythm. Imagine these songs were put onto grid on a computer. Some of Modeliste’s snare hits would arrive a hair away from the lines on the neatly divided grid, given that he’s human and these songs have live drum tracks. Would the results have been different if instead of using GarageBand imitations the study used The Meters’ real tracks? Which would make you want to move more?
Both these songs are full of syncopation. Two different breaks from ‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ and one from ‘Hey! Last Minute’ were all rated towards the upper end of the scale.
If we revisit the three qualities of funk that make you want to move, as discussed in earlier funky Fridays, #3 and #14, in addition to the study's focus of syncopation, there's the One and polyrhythms.
It’s possible that the Meters’ tunes here don’t place enough emphasis on the One to get those survey participants shaking. ‘Hey! Last Minute’ is undeniably groovy, and if you’re not tapping a foot along with the track then it’s questionable whether you can be funkified at all. But throughout much of the song the snare on two and four is the most noticeable rhythmic component.
‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ leans on the One more, but it’s more about where the guitar melody starts (and the study participants didn’t hear the guitar), and the beat is only slightly accented. It’s not really comparable to Parliament going all out on the Mothership.
Even if the participants had heard the rest of the band, there’s not a lot of polyrhythmic activity. The band are playing in unison a lot of the time. ‘Meter Man’’s bass and guitar follow the same progression through most of the song. Similarly, the guitar and bass, as well as the organ part, are heavily intertwined on ‘Hey! Last Minute’.
Would a heavily syncopated beat such as ‘I Got The Feelin’’, coupled with James Brown’s heavy emphasis on the One and web of polyrhythms mean the participants got moving?
We wait in funkipation for a study entitled, “The One, Polyrhythms, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music”.
In this Friday Funk, we’re revisiting The Meters with ‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ from their self-titled debut album (1969), and ‘Hey! Last Minute’ from Struttin’ (1970). The band’s lineup for these two albums (and Look-Ka Py Py, also ’69) was Art Neville on organ, keyboards, and vocals; Leo Nocentelli on guitar; George Porter Jr. on bass; and Ziggy Modeliste on drums and percussion.
These two songs were part of a study entitled “Syncopation, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music”, which looked at the relationship between syncopation and “wanting to move and experienced pleasure.”
Let's use Music Radar's neat definition of syncopation again: "changing up a standard rhythm by stressing beats that wouldn’t normally be stressed."
The study's authors found that “there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between syncopation, body-movement and pleasure”. In other words, if a groove has too little syncopation and is too straight, you won’t want to shake your butt. Too much syncopation, the authors say, “may prevent successful entrainment and thus inhibit the desire to move”.
The study used 50 synthesised GarageBand drum breaks, 34 of which were transcribed from funk songs (or mostly funk songs – Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Prove Your Love’ seems to have been deliberately used for its rigid funklessness). Two breaks were built from GarageBand templates, and the other 14 “were specifically constructed for the experiment in order to increase the spread of syncopation at both ends of the spectrum (i.e. weakly syncopated, and very syncopated)”.
Perhaps important to the results, “None of the drum-breaks included any microtiming.” Microtimings are tiny deviations from the rhythm. Imagine these songs were put onto grid on a computer. Some of Modeliste’s snare hits would arrive a hair away from the lines on the neatly divided grid, given that he’s human and these songs have live drum tracks. Would the results have been different if instead of using GarageBand imitations the study used The Meters’ real tracks? Which would make you want to move more?
Both these songs are full of syncopation. Two different breaks from ‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ and one from ‘Hey! Last Minute’ were all rated towards the upper end of the scale.
If we revisit the three qualities of funk that make you want to move, as discussed in earlier funky Fridays, #3 and #14, in addition to the study's focus of syncopation, there's the One and polyrhythms.
It’s possible that the Meters’ tunes here don’t place enough emphasis on the One to get those survey participants shaking. ‘Hey! Last Minute’ is undeniably groovy, and if you’re not tapping a foot along with the track then it’s questionable whether you can be funkified at all. But throughout much of the song the snare on two and four is the most noticeable rhythmic component.
‘Here Comes the Meter Man’ leans on the One more, but it’s more about where the guitar melody starts (and the study participants didn’t hear the guitar), and the beat is only slightly accented. It’s not really comparable to Parliament going all out on the Mothership.
Even if the participants had heard the rest of the band, there’s not a lot of polyrhythmic activity. The band are playing in unison a lot of the time. ‘Meter Man’’s bass and guitar follow the same progression through most of the song. Similarly, the guitar and bass, as well as the organ part, are heavily intertwined on ‘Hey! Last Minute’.
Would a heavily syncopated beat such as ‘I Got The Feelin’’, coupled with James Brown’s heavy emphasis on the One and web of polyrhythms mean the participants got moving?
We wait in funkipation for a study entitled, “The One, Polyrhythms, Body-Movement and Pleasure in Groove Music”.