Principle #3 - Playing 2-bar or 4-bar rhythms

If we keep doing something repeatedly for 100 times, we would get pretty bored and sick of it !

Likewise, if we keep repeating the same 1-bar rhythm for 100 bars ( a regular-length song is about 96 bars ) , the audience would get bored to death hearing it.

So how to keep the music refreshing and interesting for 100 bars? Use 2-bar or 4-bar rhythms.

Instead of hearing the same rhythm 100 times, now the audience hears 2 alternating different rhythms for 50 times each.

And if we play a 4-bar rhythm , the audience would hear 4 different rhythms for 25 times each !

Imagine hearing this bar Twist beat for 96 times !


We create a 2-bar rhythm by slightly modifying the first bar. In the example below, we added a bass drum 8th note (quaver) at the 3 1/2 beat and play the bass drum instead of the snare at the 4th beat.
Similarly, we could create a 4-bar rhythm ..

It would be ridiculously hard to play and memorize ( especially for those who cannot read music ) more than a 4-bar rhythm. So in my humble opinion , the 2-bar is the best.

And here is the whole 4-bar Twist rhythm ..


Notice that the piano's bass is kept to the minimum. That is because the bass guitar is already playing a complicated rhythm.

An excellent idea is to have the stanzas and chorus in different musical styles.