The Fibonacci Konnakol Djent

The Fibonacci Konnakol Djent





Hey everyone - another video and another few sentences to write about this…
So recently I saw on YouTube a video from B C Manjunath performing a Konnakol based on the Fibonacci sequence. This is quite nerdy and impressive and thus, it caught me instantly.


I was not familiar with Konnakol rhythms before, so I read a few articles about them in order to understand what they are. Broadly speaking Konnakol is a type of vocal percussion. It consists of speaking rhythmic syllables whilst clapping the hands. It serves not only as a performing art, but also as a technique for learning and understanding rhythms as well as communicating rhythms to other musicians. In India, Konnakol rhythms are far more popular than e.g. in Germany. - Like I said, I wasn’t familiar with this although I kinda put it into practice with bandmates and other musicians already, I just never knew the term…


The Fibonacci Sequence on the other hand is a sequence consisting of numbers to the following scheme: Starting with one, the sum of two subsequent numbers predict the next number. Meaning: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on… This sequence translates into graphic phenomena, producing an oddly satisfying spiral. So taking this numerous sequence as the time signature was thrilling and exciting for me!
The Fibonacci Sequence



So why did I turn that into a metalcore/djent instrumental? This answer is fairly easy. From what I’ve learned and understood about Djent is that it has to have low-tuned chugging guitars, a brutal sounding drum kit and complex rhythms. (I know that there’s a lot more to say about Djent. But let’s be honest, this explanation suits the context) Given that, Djent is the perfect genre to perform Konnakol rhythms with instruments and not clapping and speaking. - although I’m sure that it could also translate very well into other genres!


What I did was pretty simple: I took the video and started programming just the bass drum pattern according to what the notation of this Konnakol said. When I was done with that, I tried to transform this bass drum-only Midi-File into a full drum track adding snare, toms, cymbals… It took me quite a while to figure out an arc of suspense with just a drum track. Usually I never write songs with starting only drums. So this approach by starting to arrange a full song with drums from start to finish was new to me - challenging, but very fun! When I was satisfied with what I listened to when playing the drum track I started to learn the rhythmic patterns on the guitar. First off just by using the open low A-string. As soon as I got comfortable with it, I started to change a few hits of the drums, so that the groove would fit better.


Putting this into a harmonic context was actually not too hard, since the rhythm is the main aspect of this musical piece. As written in the sheet of the Fibonacci Konnakol, the time signature cycle is the following: 6/4, 4/4, 4/4, 6/4, 7/4. —> I changed the two 4/4 bars into one 8/4 bar so that I had 4 bars for one cycle and then I chose 4 chords to play over those with an acoustic guitar: Asus2, C#m, Asus2 and G#m. I used a heavy reverb on the guitar and turned the dry signal off completely so that it sounded more like a pad. From those chords, I took the notes for the chugging rhythm guitars. Most of the times, they are following the A - C# - A - G# scheme, but with some variations.


FUN FACT: For the - what I call it - „main part“ of the song starting at 1:23, the chanting background voice is actually the voice of Positive Tascha, that I sampled from another song that I recorded together with her.


The most challenging thing about this little project was actually learning to play the rhythmic patterns on a guitar. Not only was there a constant cycle of changing the time signatures going on, the rhythmic patterns are not even close to repeating as often as I am used to it from Western Rock/Metal/Djent music. (exception: the above mentioned main part) So rather than learning a song section by section until the second verse and then repeating the parts in different orders did not apply here. I had to learn a full sequence forming a song. That really was a brain refreshing challenge for me! I hope you enjoy the outcome of this as much as I do and maybe it inspires you as well to translate one form of music into another! Cheerio!
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