Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology – CIM14.
Berlin, Germany 2014
T HE G EOMETRY OF THE P ERUVIAN L AND Ó AND ITS D IVERSE
R HYTHMIC PATTERNS
Juan F. Miranda Medina1 , Jan Tro1
1 Department of Music, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Trondheim, Norway.
Correspondence should be addressed to: juan.miranda@ntnu.no
Abstract: The landó in Perú is considered to be sensual, musically
interesting and complex to perform. This work presents a new insight
into the landó using different metrics taken mainly from the fields
of computer science and mathematics. These measures attempt to
quantify musical concepts such as rhythmic complexity, syncopation,
and regularity. In addition, a measure based on the Fourier transform
is proposed as a rhythmic regularity measure.
During the Afro-Peruvian revival the landó suffered a period of styliza-
tion that started in the 1950s and culminated in the 1970s. The three
drum patterns that became representative for the landó are compared
to the one used in the first landó ever recorded, Samba Malató. The use
of phylogenetic trees supports the uncertain history behind the landó,
since none of these four rhythms seems to be the ancestor or progenitor
of any of the others. Nevertheless, this might open possibilities for
further research including musical transcriptions of old recordings,
which could also be analyzed using the methods discussed in this article.
1. I NTRODUCTION
The landó is a rhythm in the Afro-Peruvian répertoire that unavoid-
ably evokes mystery and uncertainty, both because of its obscure
origins as well as its multiple possible readings [1]. This work be-
gins by discussing the origins of its revival and posterior stylization,
and then presents the most representative drumming patterns for the
landó, which will be subsequently analyzed in terms of methods
borrowed from computer science [2] and mathematics [3] to gain a
better understanding of these complementary rhythms that together
constitute the basis of the landó.
2. L AND Ó : ORIGINS AND RE - PRESENTATION
There is no tracing back the roots of the landó. Nicomedes
Santa Cruz stated rather convincingly that the landó stemmed
from the Brazilian lundu, a rhythm he said was first danced
by Afro-Brazilian slaves with Angolan roots, that then became
popular among the ballrooms in Brazil [4]. Though the evidence
that supports Nicomedes’ hypothesis is questionable, much of the
Afro-Peruvian population—and among them many musicians and
performers—embraced this as a truth. Furthermore, Nicomedes
established a genealogy of rhythms according to which the landó
was the ancestor of the zamacueca, from which the marinera
derives. 1 Thus, the landó became an essential symbol of double
consciousness linking African roots to Peruvian identity [4].
The Afro-Peruvian revival was a movement that started in the
1950s, inspired partially because of migration from people from
the mountains to the capital, thus creating a nostalgic remembrance
of the colonial period. Following the example of José Durand who
founded the first dance and music theater company based on Afro-
Peruvian traditions, Nicomedes founded Cumanana in 1958 [6, p.
55], and recorded the album with the same name in 1964, which
was to become perhaps the most influential piece of work for the
perception and diffusion of Afro-Peruvian music [4]. It was in a
booklet sold together with the album that Nicomedes presented his
hypothesis for the origins of the landó. The album Cumanana was
1 Both the marinera and the zamacueca are representative rhythms in
Peruvian coastal music (also known in Peru as música criolla or creole
music) which is mostly practiced in Lima and its surroundings. The
marinera, nevertheless, has different variations in the north coast of Peru
such as the tondero and the marinera norteña. Both are related to the
Chilenian cueca [5].
also historical because it presented the first landó ever recorded:
Samba Malató. The only thing Nicomedes and his company had to
start with where some fragments of the melody and text of the song.
Therefore he and his sister Victoria resorted to memories both of
elder witnesses and of their own, as well as to ancestral memory [6,
ch. 2][7], thus ”‘challenging the primacy of historical documents
over collective memory”’ [6].
The landó did not undergo the same fast stylization process as
the festejo [8], but it remained largely ambiguous in its musical
form, a feature that gave it a mysterious and attractive character for
younger performers [1]. Eventually some rhythmic patterns in the
cajon 2 began to be used consistently, which interestingly enough
differed very much from those used in Samba Malató. One of these
patterns, as pointed out by Feldman, is rhythmically identical to
a bell timeline that is often used in West Africa and the ”‘Black
Atlantic”’ [4, p. 215]. It is said to have been a contribution of Caitro
Soto [1], but there is no consensus on the matter. In a personal
conversation of the main author with José ”‘Lalo”’ Izquierdo (co-
founder of Perú Negro, one of the most influential music and
dance companies of Afro-Peruvian music), he asserted that Ronaldo
Campos (founder of Peru Negro) together with other members of
the company gathered many rhythms and conducted field work
during several trips that included not only the vicinities of Lima
(such as Chincha and San Luis de Cañete) but also the Peruvian
north coast (Zaña, Lambayeque, Chiclayo), which were relevant
because they used different instrument than in the capital, such
as the checo and the angara (pers. comm., October 26, 2014).
Izquierdo emphasized on the landó as an example of ”popular
manifestation” (manifestación popular). Rosa Elena Vásquez, an
active Peruvian musicologist, stated that Caitro Soto and Pititi,
two of the most prominent cajon players of the time, together
with composer and singer Chabuca Granda and her guitarist Felix
Casaverde, may be responsible for the evolution of the rhythmic
patterns of the landó in a sort of collective creation. The musical
piece Cardo o Ceniza can be regarded as a culminating point in the
evolution of the cajon patterns for the landó (pers. comm, October
26, 2014)[1].
3. P RESENTING THE RHYTHMIC PATTERNS FOR THE
LAND Ó
There are a number of different ways in which a rhythm can
be represented [11]. Binary representation, as well as other
representation methods, divides the time it takes for a rhythm to
repeat itself in smaller time units of equal duration. Each of these
units, from now on referred to as pulses, is numbered starting the
count from zero. When a musical attack occurs, the corresponding
pulse is represented with an x or a ‘1’, and it is referred to as an
onset. Those pulses that are not onsets are designated with a o or
a ‘0’. An attack is considered to last only one pulse, which as an
important difference compared to traditional Western staff notation.
If two consecutive onsets are ones, it is because the instrument has
been struck two times in consecutive time units or pulses.
Take the clave son as an example. The binary representation
of the clave son timeline would be xooxooxoooxoxooo, or
[1001001000101000], using Arabic numbers. The minimum time
2 The cajon—in Spanish the correct spelling would be cajón—is an Afro-
Peruvian unpitched percusion instrument commonly referred to in English
as “drum box”. Rafael Santa Cruz [9] and Denegri [10] discuss from
different perspectives the role of the instrument in Peruvian coastal music.
Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology – CIM14. Berlin, Germany 2014

6 6
00 00 5 5
11 01 11 01 4 4
10 02 10 02 3 3
2 2
1 1
09 03 09 03 0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6
08 04 08 04 Samba Malató Variation 1
07 05 07 05 6 4
06 06 5 3
4
Samba Malató Variation 1 3 2
2 1
1
00 00 0 0
11 01 11 01 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6
10 02 10 02 Variation 2 Zamacueca

09 03 09 03
Figure 2: Histogram of the inter-onset distances for the landó
08 04 08 04 cajon patterns.
07 05 07 05
06 06
Variation 2 Zamacueca
4. R HYTHMIC COMPLEXITY RELATED TO INTER - ONSET
AND ADJACENT ONSET DISTANCES
It is not trivial to try to quantify the complexity of a rhythm.
Figure 1: Four distinguished cajón patterns for the landó. African and Indian rhythms are reputed by their performative
complexity [2, p. 107][13] (i.e., how difficult they are to play even
by a trained musician), while complexity can also be related to
syncopation (a concept further discussed in Section 7. Another way
Samba Malató x x x x x x o x o o x o of understanding a rhythm’s complexity is by its unpredictability.
Variation 1 x o x o x x o x o x o x This section relates the notion of unpredictability to a rhythm’s
Variation 2 x o x o x x o x x o x x inter-onset and adjacent distances.
Zamacueca o x o x x o o x o x x o The inter-onset distance is the minimum number of pulses that must
be traversed from one of the pulses to reach the other one (either
Table 1: Binary representation of the most representative clockwise or anticlockwise). For the Samba Malató rhythm in
Figure 1, the distance between the onset at position 04 and the onset
cajon landó patterns. at position 07 is three. However between the onsets at positions 10
and 05 the distance would be 5 (moving counterclockwise), not 7.
Define the distance matrix D as a matrix containing every possible
inter-onset distance. Since the distance from onset i to onset
unit (or time between pulses) in Western staff notation would be a j is the same as that from j to i, D is symmetric matrix of
16th note, since there are 16 onsets in the clave son timeline. A K timesK elements with zeros in its main diagonal—the distance
rhythm R with N pulses and K onsets will be hereafter denoted by from an onset to itself is zero. Figure 2 shows a histogram
R(N, K); the clave son would then be represented as R(16, 5). representation of all the inter-onset distances contained in D—
distances from i to j and from j to i are counted only once—versus
Table 1 shows the main landó cajon patterns in binary notation. The the frequency of occurrence of each particular distance for each
labels are identical to those used by Feldman [4, ex. 1 p. 215]. landó pattern. An equivalent representation can be used for adjacent
Since the cajon can played as to produce both a low-pitch bass onset distances, but it is not included here for the sake of brevity. In
sound and a high-pitched slap sound, both of these sounds have the following subsections, different measures are presented based
been represented with an x for all rhythms except for the zamacueca. on the histogram representation.
In the basic zamacueca pattern all of the pulses are onsets that are
either high- or low-pitch sounds [9]. Because the high-pitch sounds 4.1. Entropy and the number of distinct inter-onset and
are more accentuated in the interpretation of the zamacueca, these adjacent onset durations
are represented with a x, and the bass sounds with a o. The concept of entropy was first proposed by Shannon in the context
Circular representation is a natural extension of binary repre- of digital communication systems [14]. In the binary representation
sentation, since the binary sequence is supposed to repeat itself of a rhythm there are two symbols that can be “transmitted”, a x or a
indefinitely. Figure 1 shows the circular representation for the o. Consider two simple rhythms, the first one given by xxx and the
landó cajon patterns. The outer large circle represents time, and second one by xox. In the first rhythm the symbol o is never used,
each pulse is numbered starting from zero. The small black circles hence, we know what to expect after the first x, another two xx.
represent the onsets. Adjacent onsets (AO) are joined with the This is not the case, however, for the second rhythm in which we
thick black line forming a different polygon for each rhythm. The have one o every three pulses. This adds an element of “surprise”,
light gray lines show all the possible inter-onset (IO) connections. unpredictability, or complexity to the rhythm.
Circular representation opens many possibilities for analysis based From the histograms in Figure 2, something equivalent to a prob-
on geometry and computer science techniques. ability can be calculated by dividing the values in the vertical axis
In what follows, many of these techniques, comprehensively de- (i.e., the frequency of occurrence of each inter-onset distance) by
scribed by Toussaint [2], are reviewed and reflected upon based the sum of all values in the vertical axis. By doing this new set
on their application to the landó patterns. First the technique is of values deriving from the histogram satisfy the condition that
explained or defined, while the numerical results of its application they should all add up to one (statistically speaking, the sum of
to the landó are summarized in Table 2. The Fourier transform all probabilities in the probability density function is equal to one).
is proposed as an alternative for the task of quantifying rhythmic Then we have that
regularity, which to the knowledge of the authors is a novel appli-
cation of a mathematical tool extensively used in acoustics [12], frequency of occurrence of the i-th distance
electronics, and telecommunications [3]. pi = , (1)
sum of the frequency of occurrences of all distances
Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology – CIM14. Berlin, Germany 2014

and the entropy H of a given rhythm is defined as S. Mal. Var. 1 Var. 2 Zamac.
H = − ∑ pi log2 (pi ). (2) Nr. of pulses 12 12 12 12
i Nr. of onsets 8 7 8 6
IO and AO Distances
The entropy can be computed both for inter-onset and adjacent onset
Nr. disctint IO dur. 6 6 6 6
histograms. Since it is an indirect measure of the number of distinct
inter-onset/adjacent onset distances, these have also been counted. Nr disctint AO dur. 3 2 2 3
From Table 2 we notice that all four landó patterns have six different Entropy – IO 2.51 2.40 2.55 2.52
IO distances, while only the Samba Malató and the Zamacueca Entropy – AO 1.15 0.65 0.99 1.52
reach an AO distance of 3. This is interesting since these two Unique nr. of IO dist. 40 33 41 26
rhythms could be intuitively perceived as simpler compared to Shallowness 7 0 7 8
variations 1 and 2. Counting the number of IO distances did not Tallness 6 6 6 6
differentiate the rhythms between each other. The IO-distance
entropy of variation two, however, is higher than the other three. Syncopation
As a reference, the entropy of a rhythm that spans six distances and Off-beatness 3 3 3 2
with a perfectly flat IO histogram is 2.59. Syncopation – score 18 16 19 16
Syncopation – worst 24 22 24 20
4.2. Onset complexity and distinct distances
Syncopation – best 16 14 16 12
The complexity with which an onset contributes respect to all the
Syncopation – norm. (%) 25 25 37.5 50
others can be measured by counting the number of distinct IO
distances with which the onset contributes. This calculation can Dir. swap 14 14 17 12
be carried out for all of the onsets and added up, which will Many-to-many 14 14 17 12
yield a different approach towards rhythmic complexity. Table 2 Chronotonic 50 50 52 44
shows that it is variation two that has the highest score. Though Regularity
musical perception is inherently subjective, it is worth mentioning Reg. - Fourier 1.82 1.83 2.08 1.58
that variation two is often perceived as difficult to play in the cajon
Reg. - dir. swap 8 8 9.25 6.75
while singing at the same time for young Peruvian cajon players,
compared for example to the zamacueca. It is left to future work Reg. - Many-to-many 8 8 9.25 6.75
to carry out a perceptual test on the complexity of interpretation of Reg. - Chronotonic 24.5 23 25 20
these rhythms. Oddity 4 5 2 0
4.3. Deepness
Deepness is the property by which the frequency of occurrence of
Table 2: Summary of different measures applied to the four
each IO distance is different. The rhythmic pattern of variation cajon patterns for the landó.
1, for example, is a deep rhythm. The degree of shallowness of
a rhythm can be measured by comparing its sorted frequencies of Direct Swap Many-to-many Chronotonic
occurrences sorted in ascending order to those of a deep rhythm,
also sorted in ascending order [2, p. 285]. From Table 2 we see that SM V1 V2 Z SM V1 V2 Z SM V1 V2 Z
the Samba Malató and the va. 2 patterns are tied with seven, while SM 0 8 15 7 0 4 4 6 0 8 10 12
the zamacueca is the least deep of all rhythms with a score of eight. V1 8 0 2 3 4 0 2 3 8 0 2 8
V2 15 2 0 5 4 2 0 5 10 2 0 10
Z 7 3 5 0 6 3 5 0 12 8 10 0
5. D ISTANCE METRICS AND PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS
If we were to listen to a rock song, and next a salsa, we would
immediately notice that the two are based on very different rhythms, Table 3: Distance matrix using the directed swap, many-to-
though both might have the same time signature. Can this difference many assignment distance, and chronotonic distance applied
between two rhythms be quantified? Computer science has several to the four landó rhythms: SM:Samba Malató, V1: variation
methods that are used on binary strings, and that can therefore be 1, V2: variation 2, Z: Zamacueca.
applied to rhythms in binary/circular representation [2, ch. 33].
One of these methods is the directed swap distance. Directed swap
maps each element of the rhythm with the most onsets (i.e., the we can call r(t). The chronotonic distance dchron between two
dense rhythm) to the one with the least number of onsets—the rhythms R1 and R2 is the sum of the areas between the two curves,
sparse rhythm, with the condition that every onset in the sparse or mathematically speaking
rhythm must be connected to at least one element of the dense
rhythm. Then, it calculates the distance of each pair of mapped
Z
elements, and the total rhythmic dissimilarity results from the dchron = (r1 (t) − r2 (t)) dt (3)
addition of these pair-distances. The mapping process is illustrated
in Figure 3 for the Samba Malató and var. 1 patterns. While In this work, the many-to-many assignment distances is preferred
for some cases directed swap may yield satisfactory results, it not over the directed swap measure due to the reasons mentioned above.
always matches the judgment of musicologists [2, p. 252], and from Table 3 shows the distance matrices using all three distance metrics.
Figure 3 it is not difficult to see why. In some cases, two of onsets Note that the distance matrix from the many-to-many assignment
that are at the same time position are not mapped to one another, distance is significantly different than that of the directed swap
because mapping can only happen in one direction. The alternative distance. In the following subsection, the matrices of the many-
is the many-to-many assignment distance, in which mapping is done to-many assignment and chronotonic distances are used to generate
both ways with the condition that no element of any of the two philogenetic trees to better understand the relation of the four landó
rhythms should remain unassigned (“non-mapped”). patterns to each other.
A third alternative is the chronotonic distance which is very clearly
explained for the case of Flamenco timelines [15, 16]. In order 5.1. Philogenetic analysis
to calculate the chronotonic distance, a rhythm R = xooxxox, for The use of phylogenetic trees not only allows the graphic repre-
example, would be represented by the sequence of values of its sentation of the distance matrices in Table 3; it is also used to
adjacent onset distances, s = [3, 1, 2]. By plotting the sequence s identify clustering relationships and information that can be used
against itself (something known as TEDAS notation [2, ch. 33]) to reconstruct ancestral rhythms [2, ch. 35][15]. A technique
we obtain a we obtain a continuous-time representation of R which called SplitsTree has been used to generate a graph from the
Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology – CIM14. Berlin, Germany 2014

Directed swap Zamacueca

Zamba Mal.

Var. 1 Many-to-many
2.5

Many-to-many
Zamba Mal. 0.5
Var. 1 1
2.5 Samba
1
Var. 1 0.5 Mal.

1
Figure 3: Comparing the directed swap and the many-to-
many distance measurements for the Zamba Malató and Var. Var. 2
1 cajon patterns. The direct swap distance measurement
yields 8, while the distance is only 4 for using many-to-many
assignment. Zamacueca

ρ1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Chronotonic 6
ρ2 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0
ρ3 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0
ρ4 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 6 Samba
ρ6 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 Mal.
2
ρ12 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Var. 2
Var. 1

∑ ρi 6 1 2 2 3 1 4 1 3 2 2 1 Figure 4: SplitTrees from the many-to-many and chronotonic

∩i6=1 ρi 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1
Table 4: Matrix containing all regular rhythms for N = 12
pulses. The two last rows are used in Section 7.
distance matrices which in this cases perfectly matches the distance
matrices [17]. In the SplitsStree technique new nodes are inserted
if necessary to improve the distance matching. These nodes may
suggest the presence of ancestral rhythms. In the case of the landó,
as discussed in Section 1, there are very little traces of what could
have been the original ancient rhythm that was once played, and
nothing indicates that this rhythm would be similar to any of the
four patterns that this work examines. In the case of the many-
to-many SplitsTree, the three inserted nodes (i.e., the white nodes)
have the same total distance to all other nodes. The chronotonic tree
seems to suggest that there is a rhythm, located exactly in the middle
of the tree (the only white node) which can be the ancestor of all
the other rhythms, in the sense that its distance to all four rhythms
would be minimum. It is interesting to note that neither the samba
landó nor the zamacueca are anywhere near the center of both trees.
The zamacueca, in particular, is considered to be the ancestor of
the marinera. It may be that one can find a connection between
the zamacueca and the other three patterns not by comparing them
to the basic zamacueca pattern, but by listening to all recordings
and notate the variations that where commonly used when the Afro-
Peruvian revival started and continued.
6. R HYTHMIC R EGULARITY
Using circular representation, regular rhythms may be simply
described as regular polygons. Let a regular polygon (or rhythm)
with a side length of l be denoted as ρl . For ρl to be considered a
regular rhythm, the number of pulses N divided by l must yield an
integer number. Hence the number of regular rhythms in N pulses is
equal to the number of dividers of N. Table 6 shows all the regular
rhythms for the landó, where N = 12. Two additional rows are
included at the end that will be used in to quantify syncopation and
off-beatness in the next section.
distance metrics for the cajon landó patterns.
6.1. Average distance to regular rhythms as a measure of
regularity
A proposed measure for rhythmic regularity is to average the
directed swap distance of rhythm R to all regular rhythms except
ρ1 and ρN . Despite the limitations of the directed swap distance
already mentioned in Section 5, there is an interesting fact that
might not have been taken into consideration before. If we measure
the regularity of ρ2 , ρ3 , ρ4 , ρ6 individually based on the principle
of averaging the directed swap distance we obtain 5, 3.5, 3.5
and 5, respectively. But should not every regular rhythm have
the same value of regularity according to a rhythmic regularity
measurement? Despite this flaw the metric was computed for the
four landó patterns using the directed swap distance, many-to-many
assignment distance and the chronotonic distance. As Table 2
shows, the three yield the same main result: the most complex
pattern is variation 2, while the Samba Malató pattern comes in
second place, followed by variation one and finally the zamacueca,
which is the most regular of all according to the average directed
swap distance method.
6.2. The Discrete Fourier Transform and regularity
The Fourier Transform is certainly not new to the field of music
and acoustics. Its usefulness resides in its ability of decomposing
a signal—a discrete or continuous sequence of values ordered in
time—in to its periodic components.
Every signal used in music and acoustics can be decomposed into
a sum of periodic functions (i.e., functions that repeat themselves
identically after a certain period of time) which in the case of the
Fourier transform are cosine functions (considering real signals
only). Hence, an audio signal can be reconstructed from the sum
of cosine signals after there frequency, amplitude, and phase is
determined. From this explanation it would seem that the Fourier
transform is the perfect tool to find out what regular cycles added
together build a rhythm, and hence determine its regularity.
The Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) of a discrete-time signal (a
signal that has been sampled in time and that four our purposes can
considered to be a vector) yields also a discrete set of values equal
Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology – CIM14. Berlin, Germany 2014

to the length of the discrete-time signal, which in our case is N, the 1

number of pulses. Its equation is given by ρ1 ρ2 ρ3
0.8 ρ4 ρ6 ρ12

|DFT{R}|
N−1 0.6
1
Γ [k] =
N ∑ R[n]e−i2πkn/N (4)
0.4
n=0

where Γ [k] is the k-th sample 0.2

√ of the DFT, e corresponds to the
exponential function and i = −1. Figure 5 shows the amplitude 0
and phase of the DFT, where the amplitude is given by [3] 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
q Frequency index
|Γ [k] | = ℜ {Γ [k]}2 + ℑ {Γ [k]}2 (5) 1
and the phase by 0.5

∠Γ [k] = arctan (ℑ {Γ [k]} /ℜ {Γ [k]})
where ℜ{•} and ℑ{•} denote the real and imaginary operators,
respectively.
Figure 5 shows the DFT of the regular rhythms for N = 12. Note
that for the regular polygon of side l, ρl , the only non-zero values of
the amplitude of the DFT are at multiples of N/l, and these values
are identical to each other. Furthermore, note that for all of the
regular rhythms in Figure 5, the sum of the non-zero values adds up
to one. The phase of the DFT is zero for all the regular rhythms,
which is not surprising since none of them is delayed in time.
Applying the DFT to the four landó patterns we observe a very
different response. Figure 6 shows that for none of the patterns
do the amplitudes of the DFT add up to one. Not also that the
zamacueca has zero-valued amplitude DFT coefficients every other
value. This should not come as a surprise, for the zamacueca is
actually a rhythm that is six pulses long, so it is present two times
in a 12-pulse sequence. Figure 1 also shows that there is an axes of
odd-symmetry by tracing a straight line between pulses 04 and 10.
We see that the DFT is useful to identify regular patterns and axes
of symmetry for a rhythm.
Based on the preceding discussion, the authors propose the follow-
ing regularity measure g based on the discrete Fourier transform,
N−1
g= ∑ |Γ [k] |.
k=0
The proposed measure is of astonishing simplicity, and an upper
bound is not difficult to derive if we take into account Parseval’s
theorem [3]
N−1 N−1
2 i=0
∑ R[n] = N ∑ |Γ [k] | =K
n=0 k=0
which bounds the energy of the DFT, and since binary representa-
tion is used, this bound is equal to the number of onsets.
Then, to find the upper bound the general problem can be posed as
follows: given that x12 + x22 + · · · + xN
2 = a2 , where a is a real and
positive constant, and xi for all i ∈ {1, 2, . . . , N} is real and positive,
what values of xi maximize the sum x1 + x2 + · · · + xN ? It can be
shown that this sum is maximized when x1 = x2 = · · · √ = a/sqrt(N).
Hence, the maximum value the sum can attain is a N. For the
case
p of the DFT, from (8), we find that the upper bound equals
(K). Then, if a rhythm R(N, K) is regular, its regularity measure
g equals one. If it is not, then the√ maximum value of irregularity
that it can reach is bounded by K. The reader may have noticed
that this measure does not take into account the phase of the DFT
coefficients, which means that even if a rhythm is delayed in time
(i.e., rotated) the value of g will remain the same. We can say
that g quantifies the regularity of the necklace of R (the set of all
the rhythms that can be obtained by rotating R one pulse to N − 1
pulses).
From Table 2, we see that the Fourier regularity measure also ranks
the zamacueca as the most regular of all the four patterns, while
variation 2 is ranked as the most irregular. According to this
measure, var. 1 is slightly more irregular than the Samba Malató
pattern, with a score of 1.83 compared to 1.82.
∠DFT{R}
(6) 0
−0.5
−1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Frequency index
Figure 5: Discrete Fourier transform of the regular rhythms
that fit in N = 12 pulses.
7. S YNCOPATION AND OFF - BEATNESS
Syncopation is certainly a basic concept in music that is not easy
to define in an absolutely precise (i.e., quantitative) manner [2,
p. 67]. Lerdahl and Jackendoff presented a metrical hierarchy for
rhythms with sixteen pulses. The method can be applied to the
landó twelve-pulse patterns by generating the syncopation matrix
shown in Table 6. The rows of the syncopation matrix S contain
all the regular rhythms for a 12-pulse sequence (or equivalently, all
regular polygons in 12-pulse circular cycle). By regular rhythm we
refer to those who repeat a smaller sequence an integer number of
times in N pulses. By adding the rows of this matrix, a weight
(7)
vector ws = [6, 1, 2, 2, 3, 1, 4, 1, 3, 2, 2, 1] is obtained. A measure SC
for syncopation can then be defined as
N−1
SC =
∑ ws [i]R[i]. (9)
(8)
The higher SC, the less syncopated the rhythm is. By sorting the
elements in ws ascendent/descendent order, and adding only the
first K values we can find the lowest/higher values of SC for a
rhythm with N pulses and K onsets. These values are also included
in Table 2. An additional value (expressed as a percentage) is
computed by normalizing SC respect to the highest and lowest
values. This indicates how “unsyncopated” a rhythm is considering
that it has N pulses and K onsets, as opposed to only considering
SC, which is not a relative measure.
It is rather surprising that var. 2 has a slightly higher SC score than
the samba malató pattern. But when considering the normalized
syncopation in percentage, the zamacueca turns out to be the least
syncopated with a score of 50. The authors are aware that this
measure must be taken with caution, in the sense that thorough
perceptual tests would have to be carried out with people trained
and not trained in music in order to validate the measure.
Another measure that Toussaint proposes that is indirectly related to
syncopation is the off-beatness measure. The method be understood
as counting the number of onsets that fall in an unaccented position.
It can be defined as multiplying every element in rhythm R with
a vector resulting from the column-wise intersection of rows two
to six of the matrix presented in Table 6. As shown in Table 6,
in the row labeled ∩i6==1 ρi , for N = 12 this off-beatness vector
is voffb = [0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1]. The off-beatness measure is
Proceedings of the 9th Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology – CIM14. Berlin, Germany 2014
0.8
S. Mal. Var. 1
0.6 Var. 2 Zamac.
|DFT{R}|
0.4
0.2
0 and guitarrist Adolfo Zelada. Our special gratitude to Rosa Elena
0 2 4 6 8 10
Frequency index
200
100
∠DFT{R}
0 [1] J. F. León Quirós: The aestheticization of tradition:
−100
−200
0 2 4 6 8 10
Frequency index
Figure 6: Discrete Fourier transform of the landó cajón
patterns.
hence defined as
N−1
OFFB = ∑ voffb [i]R[i].
i=0
This measure is of questionable usefulness because it does not
consider the number of onsets. A rhythm with N = K = 12 will
score the maximum value for the off-beatness measure, but it can
hardly be considered to be off-beat. The shortcomings of the
measure are also notorious for the landó, since from Table 2 we
obtain an off-beatness value of three for all rhythms except the
zamacueca, which scored a two.
8. C ONCLUSION
This work has studied four drumming patterns for the Afro-
Peruvian rhythm landó using computational and mathematical
methods related to rhythmic complexity, dissimilarity, syncopation,
regularity, and number of perceived durations. Phylogenetic
analysis corroborates the little connection that these patterns have
to each other, in the sense that none of them can be considered to
be an ancestor of the other three. Possible future work would be to
transcribe drumming patterns (and especially the variations of these
patterns) from early recordings of the Afro-Peruvian revival. It
might for example be, that the vast array of variations surrounding
the zamacueca provides the ancestral rhythm that is missing in the
chain.
The result from the computational measures suggest that the second
landó variation is the most complex and irregular, while the first
variation is the most syncopated. Despite its deceivingly simple
structure, the Samba Malató pattern has a rather high syncopation
value. The zamacueca is not prominent in any of the measures,
possibly because it is a supporting rhythm in the ensemble. Only the
first landó variation is deep, which means that its onsets encompass
a wide variety of distances that may be perceivable by the listener.
A new measure for rhythmic regularity based on the discrete Fourier
transform has been presented. The measure is easy to calculate, and
all regular rhythms score one, while the measure’s value increases
with irregularity. The measure has an upper bound limit that
depends only on the number of onsets.
The field of computational ethnomusicology is relatively new,
and it seems promising to continue using computer science and
mathematical techniques to gain a better understanding of the
mysteries surrounding rhythm in general as well as the genealogy
between rhythms.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the kind contribution of
Peruvian musicians such as Victor Garcı́a V., Lalo Izquierdo,
Maria del Carmen and Mano Madera, Pancho Vallejos, “Pepe”
Villalobos and his family, Juan Cotito Medrano, Manongo Mujica,
12 Vásquez for the interesting discussions, as well as to Carl H.
Waadeland for his insight. Our gratitude also goes to Per Jørgen
and Steffen Kirkness for encouraging this adventurous path into
Peruvian music.
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