So far, we’ve aimed our rhythmic telescope at odd time signatures, tempo manipulation, syncopation and polyrhythms, but perhaps the easiest (and often most effective) of all temporal tricks would be in the realm of beat displacement. As the name suggests, this is the technique of shifting patterns forwards or backwards in time so as to knock them off the beat, the idea being to make the listener think that some dramatic change has been made to the rhythm, before resolving the pattern by putting it back how it was.
The amount of displacement applied will depend to some extent on the layout of the pattern (there’s little point displacing a four-tothe-floor kick drum by a quarter-note, for example), but you’ll usually want to keep your displacements to a 16th-, eighth- or quarter-note shift – smaller note values (or ‘in between’ ones, such as a 24th-note) will see you straying into experimental territory. Feel free to go there, though, if that’s your bag…
Obviously, beat displacement is most effectively used on drum tracks, since the whole point is to shift the feel of the underlying groove of a track, predominantly defined by the ol’ tubs. However, highly effective changes of pace and direction can be spoofed by knocking basslines and melodic parts off-axis, too – or how about pushing your lead line forwards at the same time as kicking the drums backwards, while leaving your lead line or vocal where they are?