Rhythm, a sequence in time repeated, featured in dance: an early moving picture demonstrates the waltz.

Simple [quadr]duple drum pattern, against which duration is measured in much popular music:  Play (help·info).

File:Compound triple drum pattern.png

Compound triple drum pattern: divides three beats into three.  Play (help·info) Contains repetition on three levels.

Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός—rhythmos, "any regular recurring motion, symmetry"^[1]) may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions."^[2] This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to millions of years.

In the performance arts rhythm is the timing of events on a human scale; of musical sounds and silences, of the steps of a dance, or the meter of spoken language and poetry. Rhythm may also refer to visual presentation, as "timed movement through space."^[3] and a common language of pattern unites rhythm with geometry. In recent years, rhythm and meter have become an important area of research among music scholars. Recent work in these areas includes books by Maury Yeston,^[4] Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, Jonathan Kramer, Christopher Hasty,^[5] William Rothstein and Joel Lester.

Rhythm is made up of sounds and silences. These sound and silences are put together to form a pattern of sounds which are repeated to create a rhythm. A rhythm has a steady beat, but it may also have different kinds of beats. Some beats may be stronger, longer, shorter or softer than others. In a single piece of music, a composer can use many different rhythms.

Anthropology[link]

Percussion instruments have clearly defined dynamics that aid the creation and perception of complex rhythms

In his series How Music Works, Howard Goodall presents theories that human rhythm recalls the regularity with which we walk and the heartbeat we heard in the womb. London writes that musical metre "involves our initial perception as well as subsequent anticipation of a series of beats that we abstract from the rhythm surface of the music as it unfolds in time" (London 2004, 4). The "perception" and "abstraction" of rhythmic measure is the foundation of human instinctive musical participation, as when we divide a series of identical clock-ticks into "tick-tock-tick-tock".^[6]

Joseph Jordania recently suggested that the sense of rhythm was developed in the early stages of hominid evolution by the forces of natural selection.^[7] Plenty of animals walk rhythmically and hear the sounds of the heartbeat in the womb, but only humans have the ability to be engaged (entrained) in a rhythmically coordinated vocalizations and other activities. According to Jordania, development of the sense of rhythm was central for the achievement of the specific neurological state of the battle trance. This state was crucial for the development of the effective defense system of early hominids against major African predators, after hominids descended from the safer tree branches to more dangerous ground. Rhythmic war cry, rhythmic drumming by shamans, rhythmic drilling of the soldiers, and contemporary professional combat forces listening to the heavy rhythmic rock music^[8] all use the ability of rhythm to unite human individuals into a shared collective identity where group members put the interests of the group above their individual interests and safety.

Some types of parrots can know rhythm.^[9] Neurologist Oliver Sacks states that chimpanzees and other animals show no similar appreciation of rhythm yet posits that human affinity for rhythm is fundamental, so that a person's sense of rhythm cannot be lost (e.g. by stroke).^[10] Human rhythmic arts are possibly to some extent rooted in courtship ritual.^[11]

The establishment of a basic beat requires the perception of a regular sequence of distinct short-duration pulses and, as subjective perception of loudness is relative to background noise levels, a pulse must decay to silence before the next occurs if it is to be really distinct. For this reason the fast-transient sounds of percussion instruments lend themselves to the definition of rhythm. Musical cultures that rely upon such instruments may develop multi-layered polyrhythm and simultaneous rhythms in more than one time signature, called polymeter. Such are the cross-rhythms of Sub-Saharan Africa and the interlocking kotekan rhythms of the Indonesian gamelan.

For information on rhythm in Indian music see Tala (music). For other Asian approaches to rhythm see Rhythm in Persian music, Rhythm in Arabian music and Usul - Rhythm in Turkish music and Dumbek rhythms.

Terminology[link]

Pulse, beat and measure[link]

(See main articles; Pulse (music), Beat (music))

Metric levels: beat level shown in middle with division levels above and multiple levels below.

Most music, dance and oral poetry establishes and maintains an underlying "metric level", a basic unit of time that may be audible or implied, the pulse or tactus of the mensural level,^[12][13] or beat level, sometimes simply called the beat. This consists of a (repeating) series of identical yet distinct periodic short-duration stimuli perceived as points in time.^[14] The "beat" pulse is not necessarily the fastest or the slowest component of the rhythm but the one that is perceived as basic: it has a tempo to which listeners entrain as they tap their foot or dance to a piece of music (Handel, 1989). It is currently most often designated as a crotchet or quarter note in western notation (see time signature). Faster levels are division levels, and slower levels are multiple levels (Wittlich 1975, chapt. 3). "Rhythms of recurrence" arise from the interaction of two levels of motion, the faster providing the pulse and the slower organizing the beats into repetitive groups (Yeston 1976, 50–52). "Once a metric hierarchy has been established, we, as listeners, will maintain that organization as long as minimal evidence is present" (Lester 1986, 77).

Unit and gesture[link]

Rhythmic units: division level shown above and rhythmic units shown below  Play (help·info).

A durational pattern that synchronises with a pulse or pulses on the underlying metric level may be called a rhythmic unit. These may be classified as; metric - even patterns, such as steady eighth notes or pulses - intrametric - confirming patterns, such as dotted eighth-sixteenth note and swing patterns - contrametric - non-confirming, or syncopated patterns and extrametric - irregular patterns, such as tuplets.

A rhythmic gesture is any durational pattern that, in contrast to the rhythmic unit, does not occupy a period of time equivalent to a pulse or pulses on an underlying metric level. It may be described according to its beginning and ending or by the rhythmic units it contains. Beginnings on a strong pulse are thetic, a weak pulse, anacrustic and those beginning after a rest or tied-over note are called initial rest. Endings on a strong pulse are strong, a weak pulse, weak and those that end on a strong or weak upbeat are upbeat.^[15]

Alternation and repetition[link]

Rhythm is marked by the regulated succession of opposite elements, the dynamics of the strong and weak beat, the played beat and the inaudible but implied rest beat, the long and short note. As well as perceiving rhythm we must be able to anticipate it. This depends upon repetition of a pattern that is short enough to memorize.

The alternation of the strong and weak beat is fundamental to the ancient language of poetry, dance and music. The common poetic term "foot" refers, as in dance, to the lifting and tapping of the foot in time. In a similar way musicians speak of an upbeat and a downbeat and of the "on" and "off" beat. These contrasts naturally facilitate a dual hierarchy of rhythm and depend upon repeating patterns of duration, accent and rest forming a "pulse-group" that corresponds to the poetic foot. Normally such pulse-groups are defined by taking the most accented beat as the first and counting the pulses until the next accent (MacPherson 1930, 5; Scholes 1977). A rhythm that accents another beat and de-emphasises the down beat as established or assumed from the melody or from a preceding rhythm is called syncopated rhythm.

Normally, even the most complex of meters may be broken down into a chain of duple and triple pulses (MacPherson 1930, 5; Scholes 1977) either by addition or division. According to Pierre Boulez, beat structures beyond four, in western music, are "simply not natural".^[16] Western rhythms are usually arranged with respect to a time signature, partially signifying a meter usually corresponding to measure length and grouped into either two or three beats, which are called duple meter and triple meter, respectively. If the beats are in consistently even or odd groups of two, three, or four, it is simple meter, if by admixtures of two and three it is compound meter. In other systems of music such as Indian classical music rhythms may be grouped into various number of beats. In some music styles such as Yakshagana even group rhythms into fractional beats.

Tempo and duration[link]

(See main articles; Duration (music), Tempo)

The tempo of the piece is the speed or frequency of the tactus, a measure of how quickly the beat flows. This is often measured in 'beats per minute' (bpm): 60 bpm means a speed of one beat per second, a frequency of 1 Hz. A rhythmic unit is a durational pattern that has a period equivalent to a pulse or several pulses.^[17] The duration of any such unit is inversely related to its tempo.

Musical sound may be analyzed on five different time scales, which Moravscik has arranged in order of increasing duration;^[18]:

• Supershort: a single cycle of an audible wave, approximately 1/30-1/10,000 second (30-10,000 Hz or more than 1,800 bpm). These, though rhythmic in nature, are not perceived as separate events but as continuous musical pitch.
• Short: of the order of one second (1 Hz, 60bpm, 10-100,000 audio cycles). Musical tempo is generally specified in the range 40 to 240 beats per minute. A continuous pulse cannot be perceived as a musical beat if it is faster than 8-10 per second (8–10 Hz, 480-600 bpm) or slower than 1 per 1.5 – 2 seconds (0.6-0.5 Hz, 40-30 bpm). Too fast a beat becomes a drone, too slow a succession of sounds seems unconnected.^[19] This time-frame roughly corresponds to the human heart rate and to the duration of a single step, syllable or rhythmic gesture.
• Medium: ≥ few seconds, This median durational level "defines rhythm in music"^[18] as it allows the definition of a rhythmic unit, the arrangement of an entire sequence of accented, unaccented and silent or "rest" pulses into the cells of a measure that may give rise to the "briefest intelligible and self-existent musical unit",^[20] a motif or figure. This may be further organized, by repetition and variation, into a definite phrase that may characterise an entire genre of music, dance or poetry and that may be regarded as the fundamental formal unit of music.^[21]
• Long: ≥ many seconds or a minute, corresponding to a durational unit that "consists of musical phrases"^[18] which may make up a melody, a formal section, a poetic stanza or a characteristic sequence of dance moves and steps. Thus the temporal regularity of musical organisation includes the most elementary levels of musical form^[22]
• Very long: ≥ minutes or many hours, musical compositions or subdivisions of compositions.

Curtis Roads^[23] takes a wider view by distinguishing nine time scales, this time in order of decreasing duration. The first two, the infinite and the supramusical, encompass natural periodicities of months, years, decades centuries and greater, while the last three, the sample and subsample, which take account of digital and electronic rates "too brief to be properly recorded or perceived", measured in millionths microseconds, and finally the infinitesimal or infinitely brief, are again in the extra-musical domain. Roads' Macro level, encompassing "overall musical architecture or form" roughly corresponds to Moravcsik's "very long" division while his Meso level, the level of "divisions of form" including movements, sections, phrases taking seconds or minutes, is likewise similar to Moravcsik's "long" category. Roads' Sound object (Schaeffer 1959, 1977): "a basic unit of musical structure" and a generalization of note (Xenakis' ministructural time scale); fraction of a second to several seconds, and his Microsound (see granular synthesis) down to the threshold of audible perception; thousands to millionths of seconds, are similarly comparable to Moravcsik's "short" and "supershort" levels of duration.

Metric structure[link]

(See main articles; Metre (music), Measure (music), Metre (poetry))

The study of rhythm, stress, and pitch in speech is called prosody: it is a topic in linguistics and poetics, where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented. Music inherited the term "meter or metre" from the terminology of poetry.^[24]

The metric structure of music includes meter, tempo and all other rhythmic aspects that produce temporal regularity against which the foreground details or durational patterns of the music are projected (Wittlich 1975, chapt. 3). The terminology of western music is notoriously imprecise in this area (Scholes 1977). MacPherson (1930, 3) preferred to speak of "time" and "rhythmic shape", Imogen Holst (1963, 17) of "measured rhythm".

Dance music has instantly recognizable patterns of beats built upon a characteristic tempo and measure. The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (1983) defines the tango, for example, as to be danced in 2/4 time at approximately 66 beats per minute. The basic slow step forwards or backwards, lasting for one beat, is called a "slow", so that a full "right-left" step is equal to one 2/4 measure.^[25]

File:Clavepattern.svg

Notation of three measures of a clave pattern preceded by one measure of steady quarter notes. This pattern is noted in double time relative to the one above, in one instead of two four-beat measures  Four beats followed by three Clave patterns (help·info).

The general classifications of metrical rhythm, measured rhythm, and free rhythm may be distinguished.^[26] Metrical or divisive rhythm, by far the most common in Western music calculates each time value as a multiple or fraction of the beat. Normal accents re-occur regularly providing systematical grouping (measures). Measured rhythm (additive rhythm)also calculates each time value is a multiple or fraction of a specified time unit but the accents do not recur regularly within the cycle. Free rhythm is where there is neither (Cooper 1973, 30), such as in Christian chant, which has a basic pulse but a freer rhythm, like the rhythm of prose compared to that of verse (Scholes 1977) See Free time (music).

Finally some music, such as some graphically scored works since the 1950s and non-European music such as Honkyoku repertoire for shakuhachi, may be considered ametric (Karpinski 2000, 19). Senza misura is an Italian musical term for "without meter", meaning to play without a beat, using time to measure how long it will take to play the bar (Forney and Machlis 2007,^{[page needed]}).

Composite rhythm[link]

File:Bach, Sinfonia in F minor BWV 795, mm. 1-3a composite rhythm.png

Bach's Sinfonia in F minor BWV 795, mm. 1-3  Play original (help·info)  Play with composite (help·info).

A composite rhythm is the durations and patterns (rhythm) produced by amalgamating all sounding parts of a musical texture. In music of the common practice period, the composite rhythm usually confirms the meter, often in metric or even-note patterns identical to the pulse on a specific metric level. White defines composite rhythm as, "the resultant overall rhythmic articulation among all the voices of a contrapuntal texture."^[27]

Rhythm notation[link]

Worldwide there are many different approaches to passing on rhythmic phrases and patterns, as they exist in traditional music, from generation to generation.

African music[link]

In the Griot tradition of Africa everything related to music has been passed on orally. Babatunde Olatunji (1927–2003), a Nigerian drummer who lived and worked in the United States, developed a simple series of spoken sounds for teaching the rhythms of the hand drum. He used six vocal sounds: Goon Doon Go Do Pa Ta. There are three basic sounds on the drum, but each can be played with either the left or the right hand. This simple system is now used worldwide, particularly by Djembe players.

It is noteworthy that the debate about the appropriateness of staff notation for African music is a subject of particular interest to outsiders, not insiders. African scholars from Kyagambiddwa to Kongo have for the most part accepted the conventions—and limitations—of staff notation and gone on to produce transcriptions in order to inform and to make possible a higher level of discussion and debate.— Agawu (2003: 52)^[28]

John Miller Chernoff 1979 has argued that West African music is based on tension between rhythms. This tension between rhythms is called polyrhythms and is created by the simultaneous sounding of two or more different rhythms. Often there is a dominant rhythm interacting with an independent competing rhythm, or rhythms. These often oppose or complement each other, and combine freely with the dominant rhythm creating a rich rhythmic texture not limited to any one set meter or tempo.

A set of moral values underpins a full musical system based on repetition of relatively simple patterns which meet at distant cross-rhythmic intervals and call and answer schemes. Values also show up in collective utterances such as proverbs or lineages appear either in phrases that translate as drum talk or in the words of songs. People expect musicians to stimulate participation of all present, notably by reacting to people dancing the music. Appreciation of musicians is related to the effectiveness of their upholding community values.^[29]

Indian music[link]

Indian music has also been passed on orally. Tabla players would learn to speak complex rhythm patterns and phrases before attempting to play them. Sheila Chandra, an English pop singer of Indian descent, made performances based on her singing these patterns. In Indian Classical music, the Tala of a composition is the rhythmic pattern over which the whole piece is structured.

Western music[link]

In the 20th century, composers like Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich wrote more rhythmically complex music using odd meters, and techniques such as phasing and additive rhythm. At the same time, modernists such as Olivier Messiaen and his pupils used increased complexity to disrupt the sense of a regular beat, leading eventually to the widespread use of irrational rhythms in New Complexity. This use may be explained by a comment of John Cage's where he notes that regular rhythms cause sounds to be heard as a group rather than individually; the irregular rhythms highlight the rapidly changing pitch relationships that would otherwise be subsumed into irrelevant rhythmic groupings.^[30] LaMonte Young also wrote music in which the sense of a regular beat is absent because the music consists only of long sustained tones (drones). In the 1930s, Henry Cowell wrote music involving multiple simultaneous periodic rhythms and collaborated with Léon Thérémin to invent the Rhythmicon, the first electronic rhythm machine, in order to perform them. Similarly, Conlon Nancarrow wrote for the player piano.

Use of polyrhythms in American music is generally traced to the influence of black culture through Dixieland and Jazz styles. The effect of multiple soloing in these forms, often utilizing cross-rhythms comes directly from the underlying aesthetics of sub-Saharan African music. These complex rhythmic structures have been widely adopted in many current forms of western popular music.

Rhythm in linguistics[link]

In linguistics, rhythm or isochrony is one of the three aspects of prosody, along with stress and intonation. Languages can be categorized according to whether they are syllable-timed or stress-timed. Speakers of syllable-timed languages such as Spanish and Cantonese put roughly equal time on each syllable; in contrast, speakers of stressed-timed languages such as English and Mandarin Chinese put roughly equal time lags between stressed syllables, with the timing of the unstressed syllables in between them being adjusted to accommodate the stress timing.

Narmour^[31] describes three categories of prosodic rules which create rhythmic successions which are additive (same duration repeated), cumulative (short-long), or countercumulative (long-short). Cumulation is associated with closure or relaxation, countercumulation with openness or tension, while additive rhythms are open-ended and repetitive. Richard Middleton^[32] points out this method cannot account for syncopation and suggests the concept of transformation.

See also[link]

• Meter (music)
• Drumming
• Polyrhythm
• Cross-rhythm
• Prosody (linguistics)
• Timing (linguistics)

Sources[link]

Further reading[link]

• McGaughey, William (2001). Rhythm and Self-Consciousness: New Ideals for an Electronic Civilization. Minneapolis: Thistlerose Publications. ISBN 0-9605630-4-0. 
• Honing, H. (2002). "Structure and interpretation of rhythm and timing." Tijdschrift voor Muziektheorie [Dutch Journal of Music Theory] 7(3): 227–232.
• Humble, M. (2002). The Development of Rhythmic Organization in Indian Classical Music, MA dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
• Lewis, Andrew (2005). Rhythm—What it is and How to Improve Your Sense of It. San Francisco: RhythmSource Press. ISBN 978-0-9754667-0-4.
• London, Justin (2004). Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter. ISBN 0-19-516081-9.
• Williams, C. F. A., The Aristoxenian Theory of Musical Rhythm, (Cambridge Library Collection - Music), Cambridge University Press; 1st edition, 2009.
• Toussaint, G. T., “The geometry of musical rhythm,” In J. Akiyama, M. Kano, and X. Tan, editors, Proceedings of the Japan Conference on Discrete and Computational Geometry, Vol. 3742, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg, 2005, pp. 198–212.

External links[link]

Look up rhythm in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Melodyhound has a "Query by Tapping" search that allows users to identify music based on rhythm
• Louis Hébert, "A Little Semiotics of Rhythm. Elements of Rhythmology", in Signo

v t e Musical notation and development Staff Bar & bar line Clef Da capo Dal segno Key signature Ledger line Musical mode Musical scale Rehearsal letter Repeat sign Time signature Transposition Transposing instrument Notes Accidental Flat Natural Sharp Dotted note Grace note Note value Beam Note head Stem Pitch Rest Tuplet Interval Helmholtz pitch notation Letter notation Scientific pitch notation Articulation Dynamics Ornament Trill Mordent Grace note Portato Accent Legato Tenuto Marcato Staccato Staccatissimo Tie Slur Fermata Tonguing Development Cell Coda Exposition Figure Harmony Hook Lick Melody Motif Ossia Ostinato Period Phrase Recapitulation Repetition Rhythm Beat Meter Tempo Theme Tonality Atonality Related Braille music Chord chart Figured bass Graphic notation Lead sheet Eye music Neume Tablature List of musical symbols

Marina Abramović
Abramović performing The Artist is Present, MoMA, May 2010
Born	(1946-11-30) November 30, 1946 (age 65) Belgrade, PR Serbia, FPR Yugoslavia
Field	Performance Art
Training	Academy of Fine Arts, Belgrade Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb
Movement	Conceptual art
Works	Rhythm Series (1973–1974) Works with Ulay (1976–1988) Balkan Baroque (1997) The Artist is Present (2010)

Marina Abramović (Serbian Cyrillic: Марина Абрамовић; born November 30, 1946) is a Belgrade-born New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the "grandmother of performance art". Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and audience, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind.

Early life[link]

Marina Abramović's great uncle was Patriarch Varnava of the Serbian Orthodox Church.^[1] Both of her parents were Partisans^[2] during the Second World War: her father Vojo was a commander who was acclaimed as a national hero after the War; her mother Danica was a major in the army, and in the mid-sixties was Director of the Museum of the Revolution and Art in Belgrade.

Abramović's father left the family in 1964. In an interview published in 1998, she described how her "mother took complete military-style control of me and my brother. I was not allowed to leave the house after 10 o'clock at night till I was 29 years old. ... [A]ll the performances in Yugoslavia I did before 10 o'clock in the evening because I had to be home then. It's completely insane, but all of my cutting myself, whipping myself, burning myself, almost losing my life in the firestar, everything was done before 10 in the evening."^[3]

Abramović was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade from 1965–70. She completed her post-graduate studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, SR Croatia in 1972. From 1973 to 1975, she taught at the Academy of Fine Arts at Novi Sad, while implementing her first solo performances.

From 1971 to 1976, she was married to Neša Paripović. In 1976, Abramović left Yugoslavia and moved to Amsterdam.

Selected early works[link]

[edit] Rhythm 10, 1973

In her first performance Abramović explored elements of ritual and gesture. Making use of twenty knives and two tape recorders, the artist played the Russian game in which rhythmic knife jabs are aimed between the splayed fingers of her hand. Each time she cut herself, she would pick up a new knife from the row of twenty she had set up, and record the operation.

After cutting herself twenty times, she replayed the tape, listened to the sounds, and tried to repeat the same movements, attempting to replicate the mistakes, merging together past and present. She set out to explore the physical and mental limitations of the body – the pain and the sounds of the stabbing, the double sounds from the history and from the replication. With this piece, Abramović began to consider the state of consciousness of the performer. “Once you enter into the performance state you can push your body to do things you absolutely could never normally do.”^[4]

[edit] Rhythm 5, 1974

Abramović sought to re-evoke the energy of extreme body pain, in this case using a large petroleum-drenched star, which the artist lit on fire at the start of the performance. Standing outside the star, Abramović cut her nails, toenails, and hair. When finished with each, she threw the clippings into the flames, creating a burst of light each time. Burning the communist five-pointed star represented a physical and mental purification, while addressing the political traditions of her past.

In the final act of purification, Abramović leapt across the flames, propelling herself into the center of the large star. Due to the light and smoke given off by the fire, the observing audience didn't realize that, once inside the star, the artist had lost consciousness from lack of oxygen. Some members of the audience realized what had occurred only when the flames came very near to her body and she remained inert. A doctor and several members of the audience intervened and extricated her from the star.

Abramović later commented upon this experience: “I was very angry because I understood there is a physical limit: when you lose consciousness you can’t be present; you can’t perform.”^[5]

[edit] Rhythm 2, 1974

As an experiment testing whether a state of unconsciousness could be incorporated into a performance, Abramović devised a performance in two parts.

In the first part, she took a pill prescribed for catatonia, a condition in which a person’s muscles are immobilized and remain in a single position for hours at a time. Being completely healthy, Abramović's body reacted violently to the drug, experiencing seizures and uncontrollable movements for the first half of the performance. While lacking any control over her body movements, her mind was lucid, and she observed what was occurring.

Ten minutes after the effects of that drug had worn off, Abramović ingested another pill – this time one prescribed for aggressive and depressed people – which resulted in general immobility. Bodily she was present, yet mentally she was completely removed. (In fact, she has no memory of the lapsed time.) This project was an early component of her explorations of the connections between body and mind, which later took her to Tibet and the Australian desert. Following Rhythm 2, she set to develop the rest of the series of rhythm projects, continually testing her endurance.

[edit] Rhythm 0, 1974

To test the limits of the relationship between performer and audience, Abramović developed one of her most challenging (and best-known) performances. She assigned a passive role to herself, with the public being the force which would act on her.

Abramović had placed upon a table 72 objects that people were allowed to use (a sign informed them) in any way that they chose. Some of these were objects that could give pleasure, while others could be wielded to inflict pain, or to harm her. Among them were a rose, a feather, honey, a whip, scissors, a scalpel, a gun and a single bullet. For six hours the artist allowed the audience members to manipulate her body and actions.

Initially, members of the audience reacted with caution and modesty, but as time passed (and the artist remained impassive) people began to act more aggressively. As Abramović described it later:

“What I learned was that... if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you.” ... “I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation.”^[6]

Works with Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen)[link]

In 1976, after moving to Amsterdam, Abramović met the West German performance artist Uwe Laysiepen, who went by the single name Ulay. They have the same birthday, in different years.

When Abramović and Ulay began their collaboration, the main concepts they explored were the ego and artistic identity. This was the beginning of a decade of influential collaborative work. Each performer was interested in the traditions of their cultural heritages and the individual’s desire for ritual. Consequently, they decided to form a collective being called “the other”, and spoke of themselves as parts of a “two-headed body”.^[7] They dressed and behaved like twins, and created a relationship of complete trust. As they defined this phantom identity, their individual identities became less accessible. In an analysis of phantom artistic identities, Charles Green has noted that this allowed a deeper understanding of the artist as performer, for it revealed a way of “having the artistic self made available for self-scrutiny.”^[8]

While some critics have explored the idea of a hermaphroditic state of being as a feminist statement, Abramović herself denies considering this as a conscious concept. Her body studies, she insists, have always been concerned primarily with the body as the unit of an individual, a tendency she traces to her parents' military pasts. Rather than concern themselves with gender ideologies, Abramović/Ulay explored extreme states of consciousness and their relationship to architectural space. They devised a series of works in which their bodies created additional spaces for audience interaction. In "Relation in Space" (1976) they ran around the room – two bodies like two planets, mixing male and female energy into a third component called “that self.” "Relation in Movement" had the pair drive their car inside of a museum for 365 laps; a black liquid oozed from the car, forming a kind of sculpture, each lap representing a year. (After 365 laps they entered the New Millennium.)

In discussing this phase of her performance history, Abramović has said: “The main problem in this relationship was what to do with the two artists’ egos. I had to find out how to put my ego down, as did he, to create something like a hermaphroditic state of being that we called the death self.”^[9]

To create this “Death self,” the two performers devised a piece in which they connected their mouths and took in each other’s exhaled breaths until they had used up all of the available oxygen. Seventeen minutes after the beginning of the performance they both fell to the floor unconscious, their lungs having filled with carbon dioxide. This personal piece explored the idea of an individual's ability to absorb the life of another person, exchanging and destroying it.

In Imponderabilia (1977, reenacted in 2010) two performers, both completely nude, stand in a doorway. The public must squeeze between them in order to pass, and in doing so choose which one of them to face.

In 1988, after several years of tense relations, Abramović and Ulay decided to make a spiritual journey which would end their relationship. Each of them walked the Great Wall of China, starting from the two opposite ends and meeting in the middle. As Abramović described it: “That walk became a complete personal drama. Ulay started from the Gobi desert and I from the Yellow Sea. After each of us walked 2500 km, we met in the middle and said good-bye.”^[10]

Abramović conceived this walk in a dream, and it provided what she thought was an appropriate, romantic ending to a relationship full of mysticism, energy and attraction. She later described the process: “We needed a certain form of ending, after this huge distance walking towards each other. It is very human. It is in a way more dramatic, more like a film ending … Because in the end you are really alone, whatever you do.”^[10]

Abramović reported that during her walk she was reinterpreting her connection to the physical world and to nature. She felt that the metals in the ground influenced her mood and state of being; she also pondered the Chinese myths in which the great wall has been described as a “dragon of energy.”

[edit] Seven Easy Pieces, November 2005

Abramović performing Bruce Nauman's "Body Pressure." Guggenheim Museum, November 2005.

Beginning on November 9, 2005, Abramović presented Seven Easy Pieces at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. On seven consecutive nights for seven hours she recreated the works of five artists first performed in the 60s and 70s, in addition to re-performing her own "Lips of Thomas" and introducing a new performance on the last night. The performances were arduous, requiring both the physical and the mental concentration of the artist. Included in Abramović's performances were recreations of Gina Pane's Self-Portraits, which required lying on a bed frame suspended over a grid of lit candles, and of Vito Acconci's 1972 performance in which the artist masturbated under the floorboards of a gallery as visitors walked overhead. It is argued that Abramović re-performed these works as a series of homages to the past, though many of the performances were altered from their originals.^[11]

Here is a full list of the works performed:

• Bruce Nauman's Body Pressure (1974)
• Vito Acconci's Seedbed (1972)
• Valie Export's Action Pants: Genital Panic (1969)
• Gina Pane's The Conditioning (1973)
• Joseph Beuys's How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965)
• Abramović's own Lips of Thomas (1975)
• Abramović's own Entering the Other Side (2005)

[edit] The Artist Is Present, March–May 2010

Abramović performing in "The Artist is Present" at the Museum of Modern Art, March 2010.

From March 14 to May 31, 2010, the Museum of Modern Art held a major retrospective and performance recreation of Abramović's work, the biggest exhibition of performance art in MoMA's history.^[12] During the run of the exhibition, Abramović performed "The Artist is Present," a 736-hour and 30-minute static, silent piece, in which she sat immobile in the museum's atrium, while spectators were invited to take turns sitting opposite her.^[13] A support group for the "sitters", "Sitting with Marina", was established on Facebook^[14] as was the blog "Marina Abramović made me cry".^[15] In September 2011, a video game version of Abramović's performance was released by Pippin Barr.^[16]

Later life[link]

Marina Abramović purchased a theater two hours north of Manhattan in Hudson, NY, intending to establish a nonprofit organization, Marina Abramović Foundation for the Preservation of Performance Art. She will use the space to work and develop ideas with video and post-production equipment and there will be a second property to house resident artists.^[17]

In 2009, Abramović was featured in Chiara Clemente's documentary Our City Dreams and a book of the same name. The five featured artists – also including Swoon, Ghada Amer, Kiki Smith, and Nancy Spero – "each possess a passion for making work that is inseparable from their devotion to New York," according to the publisher.^[18]

Abramović is also the subject of an independent feature documentary movie currently titled "MARINA" that is based on her life and performance at her retrospective "The Artist is Present" at the Museum of Modern Art in 2010. The film will be broadcast in the United States on HBO.^[19]

In January 2011, Abramović was on the cover of Serbian ELLE, photographed by Dushan Reljin.

Prizes and awards[link]

• Golden Lion Award, XLVII Venice Biennale, 1997
• Niedersächsischer Kunstpreis, 2003
• New York Dance and Performance Awards (The Bessies), 2003
• International Association of Art Critics, Best Show in a Commercial Gallery Award, 2003
• Honorary Doctorate of Arts, University of Plymouth UK, 25 September 2009
• Cultural Leadership Award, American Federation of Arts, 26 October 2011
• Honorary Doctorate of Arts, Instituto Superior de Arte, Cuba, 14 May 2012

See also[link]

• Avant-garde
• Experimental theatre
• Fluxus
• Richard Foreman
• Happening
• Dick Higgins
• Intermedia
• Allan Kaprow
• Elizabeth LeCompte
• Ontological-Hysteric Theater
• Performance art
• Richard Schechner
• Speculations: An Essay on the Theater
• The Flea Theater
• The Wooster Group
• Mac Wellman

Bibliography[link]

Works by Abramović and collaborators[link]

• Artist Body: Performances 1969–1998, artist, Abramović; authors Abramović, Toni Stooss, Thomas McEvilley, Bojana Pejic, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Chrissie Iles, Jan Avgikos, Thomas Wulffen, Velimir Abramović; English ed. (Charta, 1998) ISBN 978-88-8158-175-7.
• The Bridge / El Puente, artist Abramović, authors Abramović, Pablo J. Rico, Thomas Wulffen (Charta, 1998) ISBN 978-84-482-1857-7.
• Performing Body, artist Abramović, authors Abramović, Dobrila Denegri (Charta, 1998) ISBN 978-88-8158-160-3.
• Balkan Baroque, (Pierre Coulibeuf, 1999)
• Public Body: Installations and Objects 1965–2001, artist Abramović, authors Celant, Germano, Abramović (Charta, 2001) ISBN 978-88-8158-295-2.
• Marina Abramović, fifteen artists, Fondazione Ratti; co-authors Abramović, Anna Daneri, Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, Lóránd Hegyi, Societas Raffaello Sanzio, Angela Vettese (Charta, 2002) ISBN 978-88-8158-365-2.
• Student Body, artist Abramović, vari; authors Abramović, Miguel Fernandez-Cid, studenti; (Charta, 2002) ISBN 978-88-8158-449-9.
• The House with the Ocean View, artist Abramović; authors Abramović, Sean Kelly, Thomas McEvilley, Cindy Carr, Chrissie Iles, RosaLee Goldberg, Peggy Phelan (Charta, 2004) ISBN 978-88-8158-436-9; the 2002 piece of the same name, in which Abramović lived on three open platforms in a gallery with only water for 12 days, was reenacted in Sex and the City in the HBO series' sixth season.^[20]
• Marina Abramović: The Biography of Biographies, artist Abramović; co-authors Abramović, Michael Laub, Monique Veaute, Fabrizio Grifasi (Charta, 2004) ISBN 978-88-8158-495-6.
• Balkan Epic, (Skira, 2006).
• Balkan Erotic Epic, as producer and director, Destricted (Offhollywood Digital, 2006)
• Seven Easy Pieces, artist, Abramović; authors Nancy Spector, Erika Fischer-Lichte, Sandra Umathum, Abramović; (Charta, 2007). ISBN 978-88-8158-626-4.

Critical and academic studies[link]

• Laurie Anderson, “Marina Abramović,” Bomb Summer 2003: 25–31.
• Patrick Anderson, "How to Stage Self-Consumption," So Much Wasted: Hunger, Performance, and the Morbidity of Resistance. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010. pp. 85–109.
• Klaus Biesenbach (ed.), Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present, Exhibition Catalog with essays by Klaus Biesenbach, Arthur C. Danto, Chrissie Iles, Nancy Spector, and Jovana Stokić, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2010
• Aline Brandauer,. "Marina Abramović: Double Blind." Sculpture, July/August 1995, pp. 23–27.
• A Daneri, et al., (eds.), Marina Abramović, (Charta, 2002)
• Jovan Despotovic, Marina Abramović, ’Fin de siecle’ – Balkans way, Borba, Belgrade, September 6–7, 1997, p. 17
• Jennifer Fisher, “Interperformance: The Live Tableaux of Suzanne Lacy, Janine Antoni, and Marina Abramović,” Art Journal 56 (1997): 28–33.
• Charles Green, “Doppelgangers and the Third Force: The Artistic Collaborations of Gilbert & George and Marina Abramović/Ulay,” Art Journal 59.2: 36–45.
• Shogo Hagiwara, “Art Hurts: Blood and Pain are Abramović’s Media,” The Daily Yomiuri April 1, 2004 p18.
• Janet Kaplan, “Deeper and Deeper: Interview with Marina Abramović,” Art Journal 58:2 (1999):6–19.
• Zoe Kosmidou, “A Conversation with Marina Abramović,” Sculpture Nov. 2001: 27–31.
• Tom Lubbock, “Visual Arts: Caught In the Act; It’s Video But Not As We Know It,” The Independent September 2, 2003.
• Thomas McEvilley, “Performing the Present Tense,” Art in America April 2003: 114–117; 153.
• Thomas McEvilley, "Art, Love, Friendship: Marina Abramović and Ulay, Together & Apart," book, Documentext (McPherson & Company), 2010.
• Asami Nagai, “Art in Harmony with Nature,” The Daily Yomiuri July 24, 2003, p. 13.
• Anna Novakov, “Point of Access: Marina Abramović’s 1975 Performance Role Exchange,” Woman’s Art Journal Fall 2003/Winter 2004: 31–35.
• Jennifer Phipps, “Marina Abramović/Ulay/Ulay/Marina Abramović,” Art & Text 3 (1981).
• Theresa Smalec, “Not What It Seems: The Politics of Re-Performing Vito Acconci's Seedbed,” PMC: Postmodern Culture 17 (1) 2006^[21]
• “Writing Art,” Art Monthly 1999 230:13–17.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiversity has learning materials about Performance art

• Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present at MoMA
• Artfacts.Net profile with major exhibitions and public collections.
• Coulibeuf, Pierre. Balkan Baroque 1999 (video). "The autobiography, both real and imaginary, of Marina Abramović...."
• Interview with Bernard Goy for Journal of Contemporary Art, June 1990
• Marina Abramović, The Hero (for Antonio) – 2001. Vejer de la Frontera, Spain: NMAC Foundation.
• Marina Abramović, Human Nests – 2001. Vejer de la Frontera, Spain: NMAC Foundation.
• Marina Abramović Institute, San Francisco, California, USA.
• Marina Abramović: Seven Easy Pieces, November 9–15, 2005, 5PM to 12AM. New Way: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
• Mediateca Media Art Space documentary archive with biography, works, and references.
• Rosenberg, Karen. Provocateur: Marina Abramović (interview). New York magazine, December 4, 2005.
• Lisson Gallery Marina Abramović artist page. Including works, bio, exhibitions and catalogues
• Sean Kelly Gallery artist page with biography, works, press, exhibitions, and catalogues.
• Spector, Nancy. Marina Abramović, Rhythm 5, 1974, published 1994. Guggenheim collection online.
• "Marina" the feature documentary film
• Interview, March 2010, with Robert Ayers at A Sky filled with Shooting Stars.
• Arthur C. Danto, "Sitting with Marina", New York Times, 2010/05/23
• Vice magazine interview, November 2010.
• 2011 James T. Demetrion Lecture: "How Performance Art is Entering the History of Art", press release, March 9, 2011, Hirschorn Museum, Washington, DC, USA; lecture April 5, 2011.
• Conversation: Marina Abramovic, interview with Jeffrey Brown, PBS Newshour Art Beat, April 8, 2011; transcript and video. Link: The Hirshhorn conducted a Twitter forum with Abramovic in late March; Q&A here.
• Tate: Meet the Artist: Marina Abramovic The artist talks about her performance practice. January 29, 2009.
• | EAI Artist biography and list of video works.

Rod Stewart
Stewart performing in Zaragoza, Spain, 5 November 2006.
Background information
Birth name	Roderick David Stewart
Also known as	"Rod the Mod"
Born	(1945-01-10) 10 January 1945 (age 67) Highgate, North London, England[1]
Genres	Rock, pop, blues rock, soul
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, harmonica
Years active	1964–present
Labels	Mercury, Warner Bros., RCA,[2] J
Associated acts	Shotgun Express, The Steampacket, The Jeff Beck Group, Faces
Website	RodStewart.com

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE (born 10 January 1945)^[3] is a British singer-songwriter, born and raised in North London, England, and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English^[4] ancestry.

With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with The Jeff Beck Group and then Faces. He launched his solo career in 1969 with his debut album An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down (US: The Rod Stewart Album). His work with The Jeff Beck Group and Faces influenced heavy metal genres.^[5][6]

With his career in its fifth decade, Stewart has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best selling artists of all time.^[7] In the UK, he has had six consecutive number one albums, and his tally of 62 hit singles include 31 that reached the top 10, six of which gained the number one position.^[8] He has had 16 top ten singles in the U.S, with four of these reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked him the 17th most successful artist on the "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists".^[9] He was voted at #33 in Q Magazine's list of the top 100 Greatest Singers of all time,^[10] and #59 on Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Singers of all time.^[11] As a solo artist, Stewart was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and was inducted a second time, as a member of Faces, in April 2012.^[12][13]

Early life[link]

Roderick David Stewart was born at 507 Archway Road, Highgate, North London, the youngest of the five children of Robert Stewart and Elsie Gilbart.^[14] His father was Scottish and had been a master builder in Leith, Edinburgh, while Elsie was English and had grown up in Upper Holloway in North London.^[15] Married in 1928,^[15] the couple had two sons and two daughters while living in Scotland, then they moved to Highgate.^[14] Stewart came after an eight-year gap following his youngest sibling; he was born at home during World War II, half an hour after a German V-2 missile warhead fell on the local Highgate police station.^[14][15]

The family was neither affluent nor poor, and by all accounts Stewart was a spoiled child as the youngest;^[14][15] Stewart has called his childhood "fantastically happy".^[15] He had an undistinguished record at Highgate Primary School and failed the eleven plus exam.^[16] He then attended the William Grimshaw Secondary Modern School in Hornsey.^[17] His father retired from the building trade at age 65, then opened a newsagent's shop on the Archway Road when Stewart was in his early teens; the family lived over the shop.^[14][15] Stewart's main hobby was railway modelling.^[18]

The Stewart family was mostly focused on football;^[19] Robert had played on a local amateur side and managed some as well, and one of Stewart's earliest memories were the pictures of Scottish players such as George Young and Gordon Smith that his brothers had on the wall.^[20][21] Rod was the most talented footballer in the Stewart family and was a strong supporter of Arsenal F.C..^[20][22] Combining natural athleticism with near-reckless aggression, he became captain of the school football team and played for Middlesex Schoolboys as centre-half.^[20]

The family were also great fans of the singer Al Jolson and would sing and play his hits.^[19][23] Stewart collected his records and saw his films, read books about him, and was influenced by his performing style and attitude towards his audience.^[19][21][24] His introduction to rock and roll was hearing Little Richard's 1956 hit "The Girl Can't Help It" and seeing Bill Haley & His Comets in concert.^[23] His father bought him a guitar in January 1959; the first song he learned was the folk tune "It Takes a Worried Man to Sing a Worried Song" and the first record he bought was Eddie Cochran's "C'mon Everybody".^[18] In 1960, he joined a skiffle group with schoolfriends called the Kool Kats, playing Lonnie Donegan and Chas McDevitt hits.^[18][25]

Stewart left school at age 15^[26] and worked briefly as a silk screen printer.^[27] Spurred on by his father, his ambition was to become a professional footballer.^[22][26] In 1961 he joined on as an apprentice with Brentford F.C.,^[26][28][29] a Third Division club at the time.^[30] However, he disliked the early morning travel to West London and the daily assignment to clean the first team's boots.^[26] His playing effectiveness at centre-half was hindered by his slight build — 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) but only 9 stone (130 lb; 57 kg) — and he pushed himself so much that he sometimes vomited at the side of the pitch.^[26] After up to two months of play in pre-season fixtures,^{[nb 1]} Stewart left the team, to the great disappointment of his father.^[26] Stewart later reflected that: "I had the skill but not the enthusiasm."^[26] Regarding possible career options, Stewart concluded, "Well, a musician's life is a lot easier and I can also get drunk and make music, and I can't do that and play football. I plumped for music ... They're the only two things I can do actually: play football and sing."^[19][26]

Music career[link]

1961–63: Early efforts[link]

Stewart worked in the family shop and as a newspaper delivery boy,^[31] then as a grave digger at Highgate Cemetery,^[32] partly to face a childhood fear of death.^[31] He worked in a North Finchley funeral parlour^[31] and as a fence erector and sign writer.^[27] In 1961 he went to Denmark Street with The Raiders and got a singing audition with well-known record producer Joe Meek, but Meek stopped the session with a rude sound.^[33] Stewart began listening to British and American topical folk artists such as Ewan MacColl, Alex Campbell, Woody Guthrie, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and especially Derroll Adams and the debut album of Bob Dylan.^[33][34] He became attracted to beatnik attitudes and left-wing politics, living for a while in a beatnik houseboat at Shoreham-by-Sea.^[33] Stewart was an active supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament at this time, joining the annual Aldermaston Marches from 1961 to 1963 and being arrested on three occasions when he took part in sit-ins at Trafalgar Square and Whitehall for the cause.^[27][33] He also used the marches as a way to meet and bed girls.^[33][35] In 1962 he had his first serious relationship, with London art student Suzannah Boffey (and a friend of future model and actress Chrissie Shrimpton); he moved to a bed-sit in Muswell Hill to be near her.^[36] She became pregnant, but neither Rod nor his family wanted him to enter marriage; the baby girl was given for adoption and Rod's and Suzannah's relationship ended.^[36]

In 1962, Stewart began hanging around folk singer Wizz Jones, busking at Leicester Square and other London spots.^[37] Stewart took up playing the then-fashionable harmonica.^[38] On several trips over the next 18 months Jones and Stewart took their act to Brighton and then to Paris, sleeping under bridges over the River Seine, and then finally to Barcelona.^[37] Finally this resulted in Stewart being rounded up and deported from Spain for vagrancy during 1963.^[29][37][39]

In early 1962, Stewart joined The Ray Davies Quartet, later known as the successful British band The Kinks, as their lead singer. He had known three of their members at William Grimshaw School^[16][34] and at the time, Ray Davies was uncomfortable with the lead vocalist role.^[40] He performed with the group on at least one occasion, but was soon dropped due to complaints about his voice from then-drummer John Start's mother as well as musical differences with the band and (as Pete Quaife later recalled) Davies' fear that Stewart would take over.^[40][41]

In 1963, Stewart adopted the Mod lifestyle and look, and began fashioning the spiky rooster hairstyle that would become his trademark.^[42] (It originated from large amounts of his sisters' hair lacquer, backcombing, and his hands holding it in place to protect it from the winds of the Highgate Underground station.^[42][43]) Disillusioned by rock and roll, he saw Otis Redding perform in concert and began listening to Sam Cooke records; he became fascinated by rhythm and blues and soul music.^[42]

After returning to London, Stewart joined a rhythm and blues group, the Dimensions, in October 1963 as a harmonica player and part-time vocalist.^[28][44] It was his first professional job as a musician, although Stewart was still living at home and working in his brother's painting and picture frame shop.^[45][46] A somewhat more established singer from Birmingham, Jimmy Powell, then hired the group a few weeks later, and it became known as Jimmy Powell & the Five Dimensions, with Stewart being relegated to harmonica player.^[28][44] The group performed weekly at the famed Studio 51 club on Great Newport Street in London, where The Rolling Stones often headlined;^[44] this was Stewart's entrée into the thriving London R & B scene,^[47] and his harmonica playing improved in part from watching Mick Jagger on stage.^[38] Relations soon broke down between Powell and Stewart over roles within the group^[45] and Stewart departed.^{[nb 2]}

1964–67: Long John Baldry, Steampacket, and "Rod the Mod"[link]

On or around 5 January 1964,^{[nb 3]} Stewart was drunk and waiting on the Twickenham railway station platform, playing "Smokestack Lightnin'" on his harmonica after having seen a rhythm and blues show by Cyril Davies and the All Stars at Eel Pie Island.^[28][48][49] All Stars singer Long John Baldry discovered him and invited him to sit in with the group (which passed into his hands and was renamed the Hoochie Coochie Men when Davies died of leukaemia on 7 January); when Baldry discovered Stewart was a singer as well, he offered him a job for £35 a week, after securing the approval of Stewart's mother.^[48] Quitting his day job at age nineteen, Stewart gradually overcame his shyness and nerves and became a visible enough part of the act that he was sometimes added to the billing as "Rod the Mod" Stewart,^[38][48][50] the nickname coming from his dandyish style of grooming and dress.^[34] Baldry touted Stewart's abilities to Melody Maker magazine and the group enjoyed a weekly residence at London's fabled Marquee Club.^[50] In June 1964, Stewart made his recording début (without label credit) on "Up Above My Head", the B-side to a Baldry and Hoochie Coochie Men single.^[51]

While still with Baldry, Stewart embarked on a simultaneous solo career.^[52] He made some demo recordings,^{[nb 4]} was scouted by Decca Records at the Marquee Club and signed to a solo contract in August 1964.^[53] He appeared on several regional television shows around the country and recorded his first single in September 1964.^[52][53] Turning down Decca's recommended material as too commercial, Stewart insisted that the experienced session musicians he was given, including John Paul Jones, learn a couple of Sonny Boy Williamson songs he had just heard.^[54] The resulting single, "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl", was recorded released in October 1964; despite Stewart performing it on the popular television show Ready Steady Go!, it failed to enter the charts.^[53] Also in October Stewart left the Hoochie Coochie Men after having a row with Baldry.^[53]

Stewart played some dates on his own in late 1964 and early 1965, sometimes backed by the Southampton R & B outfit The Soul Agents.^[55] The Hoochie Coochie Men broke up, Baldry and Stewart patched up their differences (and indeed became lifelong friends),^[56] and legendary impresario Giorgio Gomelsky put together Steampacket, which featured Baldry, Stewart, Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll, Micky Waller, Vic Briggs, and Rick Brown; their first appearance was in support of The Rolling Stones in July 1965.^[57] The group was conceived as a white soul revue, analogous to The Ike & Tina Turner Revue, with multiple vocalists and styles ranging from jazz to R & B to blues.^[58] Steampacket toured with the Stones and The Walker Brothers that summer, ending in the London Palladium;^[58] seeing the audience react to the Stones gave Stewart his first exposure to crowd hysteria.^[59] Stewart, who had been included in the group upon Baldry's insistence, ended up with most of the male vocal parts.^[58] Steampacket was unable to enter the studio to record any material due to its members all belonging to different labels and managers,^[58][60] although Gomelsky did record one of their Marquee Club rehearsals.^{[nb 5]}

Stewart's "Rod the Mod" image gained wider visibility in November 1965, when he was the subject of a 30-minute Rediffusion, London television documentary titled "An Easter with Rod" that portrayed the Mod scene.^[29][61] His parallel solo career attempts continued on EMI's Columbia label with the November 1965 release of "The Day Will Come", a more heavily arranged pop attempt, and the April 1966 release of his take on Sam Cooke's "Shake", with the Brian Auger Trinity.^[61] Both failed commercially and neither gained positive notices.^[62] Stewart had spent the better part of two years listening mostly to Cooke; he later said, "I didn't sound like anybody at all ... but I knew I sounded a bit like Sam Cooke, so I listened to Sam Cooke."^[46] This recording solidified that singer's position as Stewart's idol and most enduring influence; he called it a "crossing of the water."^[34][46][58]

Stewart departed from Steampacket in March 1966,^[61] with Stewart saying he had been sacked and Auger saying he had quit.^[58] Stewart then joined a somewhat similar outfit, Shotgun Express, in May 1966 as co-lead vocalist with Beryl Marsden.^[58][61] Amongst the other members were Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green (who would go on to form Fleetwood Mac), and Peter Bardens.^[61] Shotgun Express released one unsuccessful single in October 1966, the orchestra-heavy "I Could Feel The Whole World Turn Round", before disbanding.^[58][61] Stewart later disparaged Shotgun Express as a poor imitation of Steampacket, and said "I was still getting this terrible feeling of doing other people's music. I think you can only start finding yourself when you write your own material."^[61] By now, Stewart had bounced around without achieving much success, with little to distinguish himself among other aspiring London singers other than the emerging rasp in his voice.^[47]

1967–69: Jeff Beck Group[link]

Guitarist Jeff Beck recruited Stewart for his new post-Yardbirds venture,^[63] and in February 1967, Stewart joined the Jeff Beck Group as vocalist and sometime songwriter.^[64] This would become the big break of his early career.^[34] There he first played with Ronnie Wood^[58] whom he had first met in a London pub in 1964;^[53] the two soon became fast friends.^[63] During its first year, the group experienced frequent changes of drummers and conflicts involving manager Mickie Most wanting to reduce Stewart's role; they toured the UK, and released a couple of singles that featured Stewart on their B-sides.^[64][65] Stewart's sputtering solo career also continued, with the March 1968 release of non-hit "Little Miss Understood" on Immediate Records.^[64] The Jeff Beck Group toured Western Europe in spring 1968, recorded, and were nearly destitute; then assistant manager Peter Grant booked them on a six-week tour of the United States starting in June 1968 with the Fillmore East in New York.^[64][66][67] The first-time-in-America Stewart suffered terrible stage fright during the opening show and hid behind the amplifier banks while singing; only a quick shot of brandy brought him out front.^[64] Nevertheless, the show and the tour were a big success,^[34][67] with Robert Shelton of The New York Times calling the group exciting and praising "the interaction of Mr. Beck's wild and visionary guitar against the hoarse and insistent shouting of Rod Stewart,"^[66] and New Musical Express reporting that the group was receiving standing ovations and pulling receipts equal to those of Jimi Hendrix and The Doors.^[64]

In August 1968, their first album Truth was released; by October it had risen to number 15 on the US albums chart but failed to chart in the UK.^[64] The radical, groundbreaking, landmark album featured Beck's masterly guitar technique and manipulated sounds as Stewart's dramatic vocalising tackled the group's varied repertoire of blues, folk, rock, and proto-heavy metal.^[47][65][68] Stewart also co-wrote three of the songs,^[68] and credited the record for helping to develop his vocal abilities and the sandpaper quality in his voice.^[46] The group toured America again at the end of the year to a very strong reception, then suffered from more personnel upheaval^[64][69] (something that would continue throughout Beck's career). In July 1969, Stewart left, following his friend Wood's departure.^[46][70] Stewart later recalled: "It was a great band to sing with but I couldn't take all the aggravation and unfriendliness that developed.... In the two and a half years I was with Beck I never once looked him in the eye – I always looked at his shirt or something like that."^[64] The group's second album, Beck-Ola, was released in June 1969 in the US and September 1969 in the UK, bracketing the time the group was dissolving; it also made number 15 in the US albums chart and placed to number 39 in the UK albums chart.^[34][70][71] During his time with the group, Stewart initially felt overmatched by Beck's presence, and his style was still developing; but later Stewart felt the two developed a strong musical, if not personal, rapport.^[64][72] Much of Stewart's sense of phrasing was developed during his time with the Jeff Beck Group.^[46] Beck sought to form a new supergroup with Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert (of the similarly just-breaking-up Vanilla Fudge) joining him and Stewart, but Stewart had other plans.^[73]

1969–71: Solo Career establishment[link]

Stewart performing in Oslo, Norway, 5 November 1976.

Mercury Records A&R man Lou Reizner had seen Stewart perform with Beck, and in October 1968 signed him to a solo contract;^[64] but contractual complexities delayed Stewart's recording for him until July 1969.^[70][74] Meanwhile, in May 1969, guitarist and singer Steve Marriott left English band The Small Faces.^[70] Ron Wood was announced as the replacement guitarist in June and in October 1969 Stewart followed his friend and was announced as their new singer.^[70] The two joined existing members Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan, and Kenney Jones, who soon decided to call the new line-up Faces.

An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down became Stewart's first solo album in 1969 (it was known as The Rod Stewart Album in the US). It established the template for his solo sound: a heartfelt mixture of folk, rock, and country blues, inclusive of a British working-class sensibility, with both original material ("Cindy's Lament" and the title song) and cover versions (Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" and Mike d'Abo's "Handbags and Gladrags").

Faces released their debut album First Step in early 1970 with a rock and roll style similar to the Rolling Stones. While the album did better in the UK than in the US, the Faces quickly earned a strong live following. Stewart released his second album, Gasoline Alley that autumn (Elkie Brooks later achieved a hit with a version of the title track in 1983). Rod's approach was similar to his first album, as exemplified by the title track; and mandolin was introduced into the sound. He then launched a solo tour. Stewart sang guest vocals for the Australian group Python Lee Jackson on "In a Broken Dream", recorded in April 1969 but not released until 1970. His payment was a set of seat covers for his car. It was re-released in 1972 to become a worldwide hit.

[edit] 1971–74: Every Picture Tells a Story

Stewart's 1971 solo album Every Picture Tells a Story made him a household name when the B-side of his minor hit "Reason to Believe", "Maggie May", (co-written with Martin Quittenton) started receiving radio play. The album and the single hit number one in both the US and the UK simultaneously, a chart first, in September. A loss of innocence tale set off by a striking mandolin part (by Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne), "Maggie May" was also named in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, which is one of three songs by him to appear on that list. The rest of the album was equally strong, with "Mandolin Wind" again showcasing that instrument; "(I Know) I'm Losing You" adding hard-edged soul to the mix; and "Tomorrow Is a Long Time", a cover of a Bob Dylan song. But the ultimate manifestation of the early Stewart solo style was the Stewart-Wood-penned "Every Picture Tells a Story" itself: powered by Mick Waller's drumming, Pete Sears's piano, and Wood's guitar work in a largely acoustic arrangement; it is a fast, rocking, headlong romp relating the picaresque adventures of the singer.

The second Faces album, Long Player, was released in early 1971 and enjoyed greater chart success than First Step. The Faces also got their only US Top 40 hit with "Stay With Me" from their third album A Nod Is as Good as a Wink...To a Blind Horse released in late 1971.^[75] This album reached the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic on the back of the success of Every Picture Tells A Story.^[75][76] Steve Jones from The Sex Pistols regarded The Faces very highly and named them as a main influence on the British punk rock movement.^[77]

The Faces toured extensively in 1972 with growing tension in the band over Stewart's solo career enjoying more success than the band's. Stewart released Never a Dull Moment in the same year. Repeating the Every Picture formula for the most part, it reached number two on the US album charts and number one in the UK,^[78] and enjoyed further good notices from reviewers. "You Wear It Well" was a hit single that reached number 13 in the US and went to number one in the UK, while "Twisting the Night Away" made explicit Stewart's debt to Sam Cooke. For the body of his early solo work Stewart earned tremendous critical praise. Rolling Stone's 1980 Illustrated History of Rock & Roll includes this in its Stewart entry:^[47]