The Music of Hindostan c14: Chapter IX. Drumming

The Music of Hindostan c14

Language: English

Chapter IX. Drumming

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Monsieur le Grand knew only a little broken German, only the really important words—Bread, Kiss, Honour—but he could always make his meaning clear on the drum. If I wanted to know, for instance, what was meant by ‘Liberté’ he would drum the *Marseillaise*—and I understood. If I did not know the meaning of ‘Égalité’ he would drum *Ça ira, ça ira . . . les aristocrats à la lanterne*—and I understood him. If I did not know what ‘bêtise’ was he would drum the Dessau march—which we Germans, as Goethe records, used to drum in the Champagne—and I understood him. He wanted once to explain to me the word ‘L’Allemagne’, and he drummed that old, old tune, simplicity itself, the tune that you can hear on fair days outside the booth where the dancing dogs are—*Dumb, dumb, dumb*. It made me very angry, but I understood him.—HEINE.

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THE drum is used not, as with us, to assert the accent at special moments, or to reinforce a crisis, but to articulate the metre of the singer’s melody, or to add variety to it by means of a cross-metre. There are four main elements in drumming: the quality, the intensity, the pitch of the sounds, and the time-intervals between them. We do not, on the whole, use percussion much. When we do, we value it, perhaps, chiefly for the graduated intensity with which it points the rhythm. We look a little askance at varieties of quality; we recognize the drums (*grosse caisse* or *tympani*), the cymbals, and the triangle; but we are not quite sure how far the tambourine, castanets, and Berlioz’s flannel-headed drumsticks are legitimate music. Of the pitch we only demand that it should not clash with the pitch of other sounds, it is in no way a vital constituent of the harmony, which is almost invariably complete without it. The time-intervals of the drum-notes reinforce as a whole those of the other instruments; they seldom cross them, and only produce a certain amount of confusion when they do, which, however, may be a useful resource upon occasion.

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In Hindu music the graduated intensity of the sound is very little regarded, either in singing or playing or drumming, because their whole scheme is not accentual, but quantitative. It is true that the first of the bar (the *sam*) is louder than the rest often, not always; but this is not in order that it may, as with us, stand out against other accents, but because two quantitative schemes are apt to coincide there, and two sounds are louder than one. The time-intervals are with them all-important, and show great variety; it is seldom that more than a few bars, out of hundreds, are drummed in exactly the same way. And the drumming is practically continuous; it is only occasionally silenced for special contrast. The pitch, again, is all-important, for it is invariably the keynote, and frequently the drum is the singer's only accompaniment. Lastly, a maximum of variety is got into the quality; and this not mainly by the variety of the instruments. For though there are scores of shapes for drums, tambourines, cymbals, triangles, and so forth, they are not usually assembled together, because concerted music is the exception, not the rule. The variety is got out of the drum, or the pair of drums themselves. They are played with the full hand and the fingers, rarely with sticks; there are half a dozen strokes for the right hand and three or four for the left. Of these Lady Wilson's¹ drummer said, 'The beat (with the left hand) is like the seam of my coat—that must be there; the other notes (with the right hand) are like the embroidery I may put according to my own fancy over the seam.' These 'notes' are differentiated not by pitch, but quality. They are also articulated by great intricacy of time-interval. For neither of these two things has our music any real analogues; and the Bengalis do not overstate the case in their saying 'Yantrapatir mṛdāṅga' (the drum is the father of instruments). It is proposed now to examine Indian drumming under these two aspects: quality and metre.

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¹ *A Short Account of the Hindu System of Music*, by A. C. Wilson, 1904.

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TONE-QUALITY. Under a multitude of names there are two main types of drum. The *mṛdāṅga* played at both ends with the hands (or if with sticks, called *dhol*); and the pair of drums, *tabla*, the right hand *daina* and the left hand *bayan*. Both kinds are tuned in the ordinary way by braces (*dīwal*), between which and the wall of the drum (*chattu*) tuning blocks (*gaṭṭa*) are wedged. In the mṛdāṅga the driving in of these wedges sharpens both ends simultaneously. When, as in the better class music, it is desired to have both drumheads (warka) in tune with each other, another device is adopted. A mixture of flour (āṭa) and water is worked on to the middle of the larger drumhead to lower the tone to the desired amount. The two heads are commonly tuned an octave apart. The plaster also adds to the resonance, and seems to be valued for that reason. It is therefore retained in the tabla, although it was not necessary here for the tuning, because each drum has only one head, and the braces do all that is wanted. On the mṛdāṅga the plaster is fresh made whenever the drum is used; on the tabla it is applied once for all, and has frequently been mixed with iron filings to add to the resonance, and is then black. It is called siyahi (blackness) or āk (eye); the rim of the drum-wall over which the skin is passed is called kanar, and the drumhead, which is visible between that and the ak, is known as warka (lit. leaf of a book). On the left drum the ‘eye’ is in the middle; on the right it is eccentric, in the ‘north-west’ corner, lying under the tip of the forefinger.¹ The different tone qualities are obtained by striking with the full hand, or the several fingers at different places, and by damping or releasing. They are distinguished by names (bol). The tabla are generally tuned in unison, occasionally at a Fifth from each other; but there is no idea whatever of ‘dominant-tonic’ in this tuning. The alternation of sound between the two drums is incessant and instantaneous, so that the two notes merge; and they are obviously there for the same reason as they are upon the drone strings of the vīṇā or tambura, only as an enrichment of the tone. The note of the drum is also altered by way of ‘grace’. There is a special hour-glass-shaped drum, especially in South India, small enough to be held in the hand, which can then squeeze the braces and sharpen the note. On the tabla too there is a special stroke (called ghe) which can be made with either hand; after a blow from the full hand the ball of the thumb is slid forward across the drumhead. This raises the pitch slightly and produces a sound like a galosh leaving the mud, curious, and by no means unattractive.

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¹ Sometimes the ‘eye’ of the right drum is called siyahi and that of the left āk.

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‘Ta’. ‘Na’ (borrowed from the right-hand strokes).

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Both hands, ‘Dha’; Ghe + Ghe.

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‘Ta’. ‘Ka’. Bhai Santu, Amritsar.

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The mṛdāṅga and dhol are respectively barrel-shaped and cylindrical. The tabla, left and right, are of the shape of a giant tea-cup and coffee-cup respectively; the left is tucked into the crook of the knee, the right is propped against a cloth. For the other varieties of percussion, any one who has not access to Captain Day’s excellent illustrations may get a rough idea of them from the photograph opposite of some South Indian specimens. The *karadivadya*, *udukkai*, and *budubudike* are three sizes of the same make, the smallest being squeezed in the hand, the longest under the arm. The *karadivadya* is beaten with a padded drumstick. Against it leans a *kokkara*, a metal tube with serrated edges, which are rubbed, to produce a grating sound, with the metal pin on a chain, which hangs down over the tambourine (*kanjari*) below it: it is used by pariahs, especially by the Pulaiyars of Travancore, for casting out devils. The goblet-shaped *udupe* is used by Lingayets in temple worship. Below are the *nāgari*, seventeen inches in height and diameter, for use on an elephant and in the temple, with seventy turns of lacing: the *maddale* (*mṛdāṅga*-shape) hollowed out of a tree, and the Mohammedan *dolu* (*dhol*) of copper. The *dhol* is played with hands or sticks; if open at one end, as occasionally, it is played with sticks at the other end. In a Panjabi regiment a drummer (Miranbaksh, see p. 237) was pointed out to me who sometimes wielded his sticks till his hands bled.

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Confining ourselves now to the *tabla*—the *mṛdāṅga* is played in the same way—we will examine the different strokes (*bols*) given with either hand or both hands; singly, successively, or simultaneously; with one or more fingers or with the whole hand; upon the ‘black’, or the ‘rim’, or upon the ‘white’ between them; damped, or partly damped, or undamped. Indian fingers are extraordinarily supple. The forefinger, as pianoforte players know, is one of the weakest; but its stroke as it comes down flat with a whang on different parts of the drum is curiously powerful, and inimitable by Westerns. It is said to take half a lifetime to make a good drummer, and it will be seen in the following pages that there is much to learn.

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There is considerable difficulty, short of the only true way—by learning to drum oneself—in finding out what these strokes really are. Not only do both strokes and names vary in the North and the names differ entirely in the South, but the drummer regards his strokes as a synthesis, and is not accustomed to analyse them. Also if too many questions are asked, the victim begins at last in sheer desperation to say the first thing that comes into his head.

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[Figure: Udukkai Udupe Udukkai Karadivādya Budubūdike Tambourines Kokkara

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Tambourines Maddale Nāgarī Dolu (From the collection in the Museum, Bangalore).]

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NANNE KHAN'S BOLS (BHAVNAGAR).

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| Bol. | Hand. | Degree of complexity. | Fingers. | Part struck. | Damping. | Remarks. |
| Ta | Right | Single | 1st on / others on . | rim / white . | damped | The normal right-hand stroke. |
| " | " | " | 1st | rim | released | Gives a short, matter of fact sound, easily recognizable. |
| " | " | " | 1st | rim | 4th damps | Gives the upper octave as overtone when the stroke dies away. |
| " | " | " | 1st | black | 3rd damps and releases | Metallic. |
| Ti or Tin | " | " | 1st | black | released | The 2nd and 3rd damp lightly. |
| Di | " | " | 1st three | black | released | Heavier than *Ti*, more resonant. |
| Ka | Left | " | whole hand | black | damped lightly | The normal left-hand stroke. |
| Ga | " | " | finger tips | white | released | Struck lightly; dully resonant. |
| Ghe | " | " | whole hand | whole surface | moderately damped | The ball of the thumb follows across the drum, pressing and sharpening. This stroke is also used by the right hand. |
| Ke | " | " | whole hand | whole surface | completely damped | The hand rests on the surface after striking. |
| Titi | Right | Successive | 4th on / 1st on . | black / rim . | released | = *Ta + Ta*. The 1st follows the 4th quickly. |
| Gidi | Both | " | " | " | " | = *Ghe + Di*. |
| Gina | " | " | " | " | " | = *Ghe + Na*. |
| Dhā | " | Simul-taneous | " | " | " | = *Ghe + Ta*, or *Ghe + Ghe*. The normal stroke for both hands. It occurs generally at the 'sam', though not exclusively. |
| Dhi | " | " | " | " | " | = *Ga + Di*. |
| Dhin | " | " | " | " | " | = *Dhi + Na = Ga + Di + Na*. |

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Nor is much help to be got from the books; the author takes for granted that a thing which he sees and hears every day will be familiar to his reader, and accordingly omits to differentiate the strokes in words, and he does not always state their duration, which is of vital importance for the normal drum-phrases (*theka*) and their variants (*parand*) which we shall examine later. The list on p. 231 was obtained from the court drummer, Nanne Khan, at Bhavnagar (Gujarāt), and is supplemented by statements of various others at Calcutta, Bombay, Allahabad, Lahore, Jhelum, and other places, and checked by the list in T. B. Sahasrabuddhe’s book (in Marathi) and A. B. Pingle’s *Indian Music*, the only full account of the matter in English.

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The list is not complete, although the most important *bols* are probably there. Those of the right hand begin with dentals, those of the left with gutturals,¹ and those of both hands simultaneously with aspirated dentals. There are a variety of other ‘successive’ and ‘simultaneous’ strokes. A few of the ‘single’ *bols* are shown in the photographs of two drummers (at Mysore and Lahore) facing pp. 225, 227.

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¹ We use *k* and *t* for double tonguing on brass instruments similarly, because of their distinctness.

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TIME-INTERVAL. These drum-words (*bol*) are distributed in drum-phrases (*theka*), which constitute the drummer’s *memoria technica* for the particular *Tāl*, and in drum-variants (*parand*)²; the former’s duty is to ‘keep up’ the *tāl*, the latter’s to ‘swell’ it (Pingle). In the next diagram are exhibited *thekas* of *tintāl* from different localities.

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² Pronounce ‘pürründ’.

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The first six of these are genuine *thekas*: the alteration of *d* to *t* in the first *thekas* and the *trikara* in the sixth is intended to distinguish the blank (*khālī*) section of the bar (marked 0) from the others. The eighth (from Jhelum) is an instance of four bars of Surphakta treated as one of *Tintāl*. The seventh (from Calcutta) is in the nature of a *parand*, that is, the drumming of the various beats is contrasted.

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The six *parands* from Bombay are continuous. At the end of the fourth line, at ‘ta ta ghinna’ begins a new rhythm in three time, which comes to an end just as the singer, going on in four time, reaches his *sam* at the beginning of the seventh line. This is a simple instance of a thing which is often enormously complex.

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Tīntāl.

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The ordinary *ṭhekā*.

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| 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| dha | dhin | dha | dha |
| dhin | dhin | dhin | dhin |
| dha | dhin | dha | ta |
| na | na | na | na |
| na | na | na | na |
| ta | ta | ta | ta |
| na | na | na | na |

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Lahore (Degambur). Jhelum. Gujarāt (Pingle). Amritsar. Allahabad. Pind Dadan Khan, Punjab. Calcutta.

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Compound time; 4 bars (*vibhāg*) of 5 units (*mātrā*) to make one section (*āvard*) of Tīntāl.

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Jhelum.

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Six *parands*.

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Bombay.

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which is very common, and which gives great pleasure to an Indian audience, who invariably greet it with appreciative *acchcha’s* (‘good’), It is rare in our music, though instances are to be found, as of most things, in Bach; here, for instance, is one from the first movement of the Violin Concerto in E major:

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Ex. 328.

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in which the violin breaking into three bars of 3/4 arrives at the reprise of the theme simultaneously with the piano, which continues in common time. Another instance is the common Handelian close:

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Ex. 329. Sweet is plea-sure af - ter pain

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which, though a still simpler device, is used for the same purpose of clinching the final note. (Cp. Int. Mus. Monthly Journal, Oct. 1913, pp. 3–7.)

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What appear in the *parands* given above to be a number of new *bols*, are really those we have already met with subjected to phonetic decay. Thus (in alphabetical order):

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dene = dhi + na det = dhi + ta dhāg(e) = dhā + ghe dhān = dhā + na dhikita = dhi + ka + ta gadi = ga + di gidi = ghe + di gina = ghe + na ghitira = ghe + ti + ta greden = ghe + ta + dhi + na kiridha = ka + ti + dhā krita = ka + ti + ta trika = ta + ti + ka trikara = ta + ti + ka + ta tutu ?

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The time-value of the stroke is not implied in its name, though the compound *bols* naturally take longer than the simple. These values have to be learned by watching and noting performance; and those given here have no more authority behind them than a few mornings devoted to that rather tedious occupation.

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But without inducing a climax, *parands* in a different rhythm are often introduced just for fun. The singer and drummer like to play hide and seek with each other; and the audience watch the contest with amusement. The drummer is worsted in the contest in the following (phonographed) passage:

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Rāg Sārang. Tāl Āḍachautāla. Phonogram.

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Ex. 830. ♩ = 110. rit. a tempo. 3

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A ♩ = 130.

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The last few notes are inaudible because the player took his reed out to utter the Han.

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in *Aḍachautāla*,¹ between *shahnai* (oboe) and *tabla*. They were asked to begin with four *thekas* and go on with *parands*. The section (*āvard*) is marked off by the double bar. Down to the first double bar, however, is *ad libitum*. It is the *Ālāp* (prelude) with which the music always begins, in order to establish the *Rāg*, and it is not in strict time. But the drummer is trying over his *Tāl* too, and though he gets the same number of beats as the singer they did not, as a matter of fact, exactly synchronize. From A onwards it is in strict time, and after the four *thekas*, the *parands* begin at B. Here the drummer breaks into an eight-rhythm (instead of seven) for variety. The oboist also varies. His phrase should have ended at C, but it ends a bar before. He ends the next one, however, correctly at D. Then he has a short one of two bars; and then, at ♩ = 170, a long one of six bars and an extra minim. At this point the pace becomes furious, and, shortening his phrase by that extra minim, he ends it up with *Haṇ* (yes) at G. Meanwhile the drummer, about D, has dropped his cross-rhythm, and seems to be plotting something a little more interesting. When the oboist begins his six-bar phrase, the drummer varies the little figure with which he started at B; thus:

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¹ Properly one bar of 14 crotchets; here given for convenience as two bars of 7.

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Ex. 331. ♩ = 170. (musical notation) E (musical notation) (musical notation) { The figure is dislocated to give a subsidiary cross rhythm. (musical notation)

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which now becomes three-quaver rhythm:

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Ex. 332. (musical notation) > > (musical notation) F

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and so through an orgy of triplets, accented on the middle note, to the end.

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Whatever the reader may think of the melody, he will not deny the oboist a firm grip of a difficult rhythm. (His name was Panna, and he was said, incidentally, very likely with truth, to be the ‘best Shahnai player in Hindostan’; the axis of the earth sticks up, however, in every city of India just as visibly as Heine said it did in Germany.) It is probably not accidental that the *tempo* ends up at ♩ = 260, exactly twice as fast as it began, and the phonograph leaves no doubt about the fact. The drummer is not so strong. He drums throughout in *Tintāl*; and there is nothing in his *parands* which shows that he feels the rhythm of *Āḍachautāla* at all. He ought to arrange to meet the player at one or other of the *sams* (A, B, C, &c.), and he does not do so in any case, although he manages to get a general sense of climax towards the end.

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The next is a Panjabi *ghazal*, on two *Shahnais* (Havildar Rashu and Naik Nawab) and *dhol* (Sipahi Miranbaksh):

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*Ghazal* (Dorian). Tāl Dhamār, 5 + 5 + 2 + 2 quavers. 33rd Punjabis. Two *Shahnais* in unison. ♩=140. Phonogram.

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Ex. 333.

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Phonogram ends.

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The two oboes, always nearly and never quite in tune with one another, produced ‘beats’ which in the phonograph are heart-rending. Afterwards the Havildar played alone these two bars of *Chautāl*, which the drummer ornamented at different places:

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Rāg Sindora (Dorian, hexatonic). Tāl Chautāl. (4 + 4 + 2 + 2 quavers.) d=80. Phonogram.

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Ex. 334.

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These give but a slight idea of the intricacy which is sometimes attained by a really good drummer. They are given because the phonograph guarantees their accuracy. Unfortunately it is difficult to get both player and drummer into the phonograph, and I could only manage it when both, as in these cases, were very loud. In the case of song and drum, the song, and in the case of *vīṇā* and drum, the drum alone is audible. In this last specimen at the places marked ‘inaudible’ the drum was quietly tapping the regular beats of *Chautāl*.

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Drumming of this kind is in fact the substitute for counterpoint; it serves the same purpose as that does of carrying on the interest of the music over the ‘dead’ points, or of converging on a crisis. We are familiar with just such cross-rhythms in fugues; in the following example the voices are never all in the same rhythm, and throughout bars 80 and 81 they are all in different rhythms:

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The 46th of the forty-eight Fugues.

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Ex. 335.

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N.B.—The numbers are placed at the end of the bar to which they refer.

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A few *thekas* of other *Tāls* than *Tintāl* may be added in order to give an idea of the kind of thing; the one or two new *bols* they contain will not offer any difficulty:

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*Rūpak.* 2 + 3 = 5 units. 1 2 (no *khālī*) Tin trikad dhī nana ♩ ♫ ♩ ♩

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*Rūpak.* 2 + 4 = 6 units. 1 2 0 1 2 0 Dhīga nana tunna | dhinna nana tunna ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫

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*Tevra.* 3 + 2 + 2 = 7 units. 1 2 3 1 2 3 (no *khālī*) Kadhina dhina dha | katina tina ta ♫ ♫ ♩ ♫ ♫ ♩

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*Gajala.* 4 + 5 = 9 units. 1 2 (no *khālī*) Tin taka dhin nana ♩ ♫ ♩ ♩

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*Surphakta.* 4 + 2 + 4 = 10 units. 1 0 2 3 0 Dhagi tita dhagi dhagi tita ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫

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*Jhampa (Jhap).* 2 + 3 + 2 + 3 = 10 units. 1 2 0 3 Dhin dhatuna katta dhatuna ♩ ♫ ♫ ♫

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*Chautāl.* 4 + 4 + 2 + 2 = 12 units. 1 0 2 0 3 4 Dhadhadhinta kiṭadhadhinta tiṭakita gadigina ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫

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*Āḍachautāl.* 2 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 14 units. 1 2 0 3 0 4 0 Dhitrik dhinatuna kattadhindhin nadhindhinna ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫

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*Dhamār.* 5 + 5 + 4 = 14 units. 1 2 3 (no *khālī*) Tadhe dhe dha takita kitataka ♩ ♩ ♩ ♫ ♫

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The above is the method, or it would be better to say a method, at Poona. The last two contain a cross-rhythm. They end respectively

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dhindhinna dhindhinna ♫ ♫

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and

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taka takita taka ♫ ♫ ♫

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PACE (*lāya*) AND ‘SPEED’ (*kāla*). There are three degrees of tempo; slow (*velambit*), moderate (*madhya*), and fast (*druta*). In whatever tempo, the music has a normal speed-unit, i. e. it is in crotchets, as we should say, or else in quavers, and so on. Doublings and halvings of this unit (*mātrā*)—as we say, augmentation and diminution—are common, and have names. The normal speed is called the ‘time of the time’ (*bārobārī*), or it is named *dhā* from the average length of the principal drum-beat of that name. The alterations of this speed are, taking the crotchet as the unit:

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* *Thā* (lit. a loud sound).
* *Dhā*, or *Bārobārī* (the time of the time).
* *Dviguni* (*Dūni*, *Digan*), ‘twofold’.
* *Caturguni* (*Chaugan*), ‘fourfold’.

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A ‘sixfold’ speed is known; but this generally not the [Figure:], but the triplet-semiquaver as in [Figure:]. We need only concern ourselves with *Dūni* (twofold). This principle of doubling the speed is at the root of the curious form the *thekas* have assumed; it results in ‘convergence’ of the *Tāl*, either (1) in itself, or (2) with some other *Tāl*.

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CONVERGENCE of one *Tāl*. A bar of a *Tāl* is beaten with one hand while two bars of its *Dūni* are beaten with the other. Using *Ta* for the right-hand stroke, *Ka* for the left, *a* for the empty beat, and *Dhā* for both hands, *Tintāl* may be converged:

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| 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | Right, Ta |
| 1 | | 2 | | 0 | | 3 | | Left, Ka |
| Dha | ta | ka | ta | ta | ta | ka | ta | |

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or Surphakta.

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| 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | Ta |
| 1 | | 0 | | 2 | | 3 | | 0 | | Ka |
| Dha | a | ta | ta | ka | ta | ka | ta | ta | a | |

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or Chautāl.

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| 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| 1 | | 0 | | 2 | | 0 | | 3 | | 4 | |
| Dha | a | ta | a | dha | ta | ta | a | dha | a | dha | ta |

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or Tevra

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| 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 1 | | 0 | | 0 | | 2 | | 0 | | 3 | | 0 | |
| Dha | a | a | ta | a | ta | ka | ta | a | a | dha | a | ta | a |

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The striking thing about these Tāls is their length: 15, 16, and 20 units respectively. There may be a reason for this. It will be noticed that a is in geometrical, c in arithmetical progression. (On those principles the cumulations might have been variously arranged, but it will be found on trial that other arrangements are not so satisfactory.) We are told that Savārī (a), 15 units, in this its true form, is no longer in use, and that in its modern form it is simply taken as Tintāl (16 units); and we can see that fifteen units is difficult to count, and that Brahmatāla (b) of sixteen units is an adulteration of it and a substitute for it. It was clearly necessary in these progressions to take a reasonable number of cumulations in order to display the principle; but there are other reasons for not taking a lower number of them than has been taken.

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In (a) ‘one, one, two’ would not have shown the progression, and ‘one, one, two, two’ would have been too symmetrical, and Hindu Tāl loves variety.

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In (c) ‘one, two, three’ produces nine units, which is seldom wanted; and ‘one, two, three, four’ produces fourteen units, which there are quite half a dozen other ways of counting. However, no doubt both these could be used, and probably are somewhere, and under some name or other.

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Indian drumming, then, varies the quality rather than the quantity of the tone. It practically ignores accent for its own sake. Such accent as there is on the first of the bar is due to the fact that two rhythms diverge from that point and converge at the beginning of the next or a later bar. It is the accent induced by the juxtaposition of opposing metres, as in the Rondo of Beethoven, Op. 22

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Ex. 337.

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(Subject.)

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that pleases the Indian; not the accent which is sought for its own sake as a means of contrast, as, in the same movement, between the subject and the episode:

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Ex. 338.

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Here is a piece of rhythm that he would delight in (Brahms, Second Symphony):

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Ex. 339.

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N.B.—The small numbers refer to crotchets, the large to bars.

c14.117

He would not have devised it exactly in this way, since, in the absence of harmony (which he does not mentally supply, as we do) and in the disregard (4 + 4 + 5 + 4 + 5) of the fixed section (4 + 4, &c., or 5 + 5, &c., which he demands), there is nothing to hold it together. But he would be in sympathy with the metrical scheme: