breakbeat science

Musicologist blogger Ethan Hein with a breakdown of a famous break, that sono-icono imperishable known as Amen. 

However, Hein confesses that notation can only get you so far in terms of penetrating the mysterious power and inexhaustibility of the Gregory Coleman drum part. After much talk of snare pickups and sixteenth note subdivisions, the last of 13 steps in his analysis more or less involves throwing up his hands:

"Apply groove, which in this context, means the specific microtiming of the break as performed by Gregory S. Coleman. You can’t represent this step in notation!

Groove is much more than just the timing of drum hits, but it’s a starting place. In the Ableton screencap below, the grid lines are sixteenth notes. The yellow markers show the onset of each drum hit. As you can see if you look closely, hardly any of them are exactly where they are 'supposed' to be."

He further admits defeat when he comes to the timbral characteristics of the break, a huge part of why Amen have its effect (which is then intensified further by choppage and EQ):  

"You can’t adequately represent the Amen via MIDI or music notation. Its timbre is doing as much musical work as the placement and timing of drum hits. The sound of those drums is instantly recognizable, even when they are sped up, slowed down, transposed in pitch, chopped up and so on. Maybe once I have a better handle on how timing works in this kind of groove, I can start thinking more seriously about timbre too."

It's consoling to know that technically informed scholars have not completely put out of work those of us who work with feelings and images - at least for now.  

Here's an earlier Hein analysis of "The Funky Drummer" break. 

And here's a really interesting blogpost in which Hein discusses The Headhunters's "God Made Me Funky". He is dead right in saying that the track gets much less compelling when it loosens up into more freeform playing with the entry of the sax solo. But that first ultra-tight section , ooh goshhh