Aboot
Composer, keyboardist, music theorist and educator. Canadian, based in Calgary. Known for rhythms that refuse to sit still — and for explaining exactly why they work.
The short version
(01) Origin
Israel Strom is a Canadian composer, keyboardist, music theorist and educator based in Calgary, Alberta.
He has toured with Louis Cole and Knower, as well as collaborating on records with phonon, Anatole Muster and Everything Yes.
Strom has cultivated a large following on social media by utilizing rhythmic concepts like polyrhythms, nested tuplets and non-dyadic time signatures — turning music theory into something people actually want to watch.
Music theory shenanigans
(02) The deep end
Pushed the overtone window in music theory.
Strom did foundational work defining bridge tuplets, as well as creating Stromian tuplet notation (STN), a system for writing out complex rhythms in text.
His YouTube video titled “10:2 10[4:3+7]:2 12:4 11:4 3[9:1+4:1+9:1]:4” (written in STN) became the most viewed video about nested tuplets on the internet.
10:2 10[4:3+7]:2 12:4 11:4 3[9:1+4:1+9:1]:4
On the road
(03) Louis Cole / Knower
Tours, records, and very fast notes.
From the Louis Cole trio to Knower, from phonon records to the Fizz universe, the through-line is rhythm: how it locks, how it breaks, and how to make the break feel inevitable.
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