Each song sets up its own mechanisms: Mr. Thorpe and Mr. Fleming picking patterns on guitar and bass, the drummer Chris Talbot tapping a woodblock or a cowbell, Benny Little drawing guitar textures from effects and tremolo strumming.
They translate traditional thumb-piano patterns into guitar picking that becomes the mainspring of three-chord rock songs, with Mr. Mtukudzi's hearty voice singing benign messages and prayers for better times.
Mr. Keita sings with sweet passion as complex patterns of guitars, African strings and percussion turn mathematics into joyful motion.
The carpets are patterned with guitars, the chair backs have eighth-note cutouts, and images of Mr. King's records are laminated into the tables.
On her album, "Yaala" (Indigo/Harmonia Mundi), her modal melodies slice through openwork patterns of guitars, marimbas and drums; backup voices answer from a respectful distance.
Her new songs expand concentrically into undulating patterns of guitars, voices and synthetic sounds, where rhythms are just as likely to come from ricocheting, contrapuntal vocal syllables as from the instruments.
It's almost always extremely pleasant: soft vocals; subtle and in-the-pocket rhythm; strummy or pattern-picked guitars in tandem with harmonically roaming bass lines, sometimes played by Mike Gordon of Phish.
You can use it to make patterns on the guitar, for example the Rising Sun pattern where the guitar is painted red, but strips of masking tape are used to leave the background white.
"When I found a tune or a pattern on the guitar, Kyp would find something that went with it.
The first verses, set to a tidy seven-beat guitar pattern, yearn for isolation: "Are you such a dreamer?
Randall crossed the stage and crouched behind him, playing a steady two-chord pattern on his guitar.
