How can I count this unusual rhythm?

Question

I want to be able to play this rhythm below. Here are my best attempts at notating it:

My best attempt at a mnemonic (after trying all day, and going a little crazy) is:

TAY-(toom) d-da-toom Tay-toom DAH-AAH toom TAY-AY too da-dum

I was inspired a bit by South Indian Konnakkol, but I have no idea what I'm doing. 😜

Answer 1

If you write it in larger note-values

I think the palindrome becomes clearer.

Did you transcribe it from some recording, or make it up?

Answer 2

This notation is absolute nonsense! The aim of a rhythmic notation is to convey and transfer a rhythmic idea that is readable and hopefully performable for the musicians and understandably for the audience.

We even don’t know what to count and where to place an accent, which notes are on or off beat.

If 1/8 is the beat a 15/8 time could be notated in 3x5/8 and then play it counting the 32nd notes (5 times one two three four = 1 bar of 5/8 and the underline or circle in the number where you have to play:

To make this process easier I propose to notate the value of 32nd above the rests!

I do just for the first note by bolding it ... the rest is up to you:

(1234 1234 1234 1234 1234 ( 5x1234 = 5/8 or 15*1234 = 15/8 for sado - masochists)

I also would suggest to double the note lengths for easier reading: 15/4 respectively 5/4 and transcribe it grouping them differently to find a sense.

Or just don’t notate it, as you can improvise anything that nobody can decode and understand but just have good feelings.

Resume:

If you have problems with reading a rhythm try following steps:

• Double the note lengths and rests
• Divide the whole measures in sub-measure
• Count 1234 the elements of sub-groups and don’t read with daa-da ...

• Underline the numbers of the accented notes in the soup-groups

• Regroup or reorganize the entire passage if necessary (May be you or the program didn’t understand what you’ve been playing )

Answer 3

Better notation would be a start. The notation you gave actually isn't enough to figure out what the rhythm is; the notation tells us the duration of each note, but it fails to tell us what the grouping of notes is.

I listened to it, and to me, the grouping sounds like this:

But quite honestly, to me, the above just sounds like a less precise version of this:

Go ahead and give that a listen; does it sound like it's the rhythm you're going for, or do you really want the 15/8 version?

(A side question for those who have more experience with music notation than I do: do the tied sixteenths above look good, or would it be better to just use an eighth?)