Clapping Shepard Tone

February 3rd, 2010

Something that has been stuck in my mind for a few days:

First, you should be familiar with the Shepard Tone. If you don’t know what that is:

So, that out of the way, something that has often both bugged and amused me is the tendency of Japanese audiences to “clap the beat”. That is, some musician is playing something, in a TV show or the like, and the audience slowly starts to keep time by clapping. The other day I was watching a TV show folks started clapping the beat, but the music used a lot of upbeats, and the audience was just terrible at finding and keeping the beat.

So I started thinking, “I wonder if you could take a Shepard Tone-like approach and wear the audience out?”

The way I imagine it is, say, you have a musical group with any number of instruments, and two drummers. The musical piece starts out slow, and the drum beat keeps time.

Bump................Bump................Bump................Bump................
Clap................Clap................Clap................Clap................
 

The audience starts clapping along. Now you have the music start speeding up a little, slowly, so the audience is slowly speeding up too.

Bump...........Bump...........Bump...........Bump...........
Clap...........Clap...........Clap...........Clap..........
 

After a while, it’s just plain fast:

Bump......Bump......Bump......Bump......
Clap......Clap......Clap......Clap.....
 

And this is where the second drummer comes in. The first guy keeps playing at that speed, but the second guy plays (quietly) at half speed:

Bump......Bump......Bump......Bump......Bump......Bump......Bump......Bump......
Bump................Bump................Bump................Bump................
Clap......Clap......Clap......Clap......Clap......Clap......Clap......Clap......
 

The blue drummer starts playing louder and louder, and the red guy plays quieter and quieter, until eventually, what started out as:

Bump................Bump................Bump................Bump................
Clap................Clap................Clap................Clap................
 

is now:

Bump................Bump................Bump................Bump................
Clap......Clap......Clap......Clap......Clap......Clap......Clap......Clap......
 

You do the same thing, of course, with the instruments / melody line. Now that you’ve doubled the audience speed without tiring out your musicians, they do it again. And again. And, sure, the audience could also take the same approach, but I’ve seen these audiences. It’s clear that they have no musical sense, and it wouldn’t even occur to them.

Eventually, you’ve got a leisurely tune, about the BPM of “Moon River” or “White Christmas”, with an audience machine-gun clapping, veins popping out of their necks, sweat pouring down the backs.

So, yeah, that mental image has been floating around in my head a little lately.

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