Help on understanding time signatures.

[Sascha Franck]

IMO there's a big, big difference between using polyrhythmic stuff (such as superimposing odd meter patterns over even meters) and playing in odd time signatures.
To me, the first comes easy. And especially in days of sequencers, we can all just try things.
Fwiw, *the* most common polyrhythm probably being any funk guitars accenting each 3rd 16th note. Couldn't sound any more familiar (I'll gladly provide a sound example, if anybody wants).

However, working in odd time meters doesn't seem to come in naturally for most of us western folks. And that's the very problem.

I have been spending quite some holidays in greece. And I've been exposed to quite some spontaneous "musical events" as well, such as in taverns (mind you, not the touristic kind of thing), in old villages, whatever.
Something that always happened: People were singing and clapping along happily (and sucessfully), whereas I, the "trained" musician, completely failed to get the job done, even if the melodic and harmonic structures were rather simple.
It's just that in most cases, these songs are strongly based on some verse metrics, which I obviously didn't know shit about. In short, there might be a line of text that just doesn't fit into any 8/8 metrum - so why not just add another 1/8 to make it fit? This seems to happen a lot in that very case. And, to make things worse, the next line of text might just fit well into 8/8, whereas there might be other lines that require 10/8. Or 11. Or only 7.

This, in our traditional western music, is very rare. Most of what we "inhale" during growing up is based on eiher plain 4/4 or 3/4 at best (with the occasional shuffle or 12/8 mixed in). There's not much other signatures, others than probably mixing in half bars or extended bars for a break or such.

IMO this is what things just boil down to. We (us "westerners" that is) simply don't have any culture of odd meters (ok, some jazz folks may have). And, more or less naturally, we do have a problem in getting really "into" any other meters.

Still making me wonder how something such as Pink Floyds "Money" (which is in 7/8) is sounding so natural...

[jens]

Still making me wonder how something such as Pink Floyds "Money" (which is in 7/8 ) is sounding so natural...

it just feels natural because it has a strong melody - a great hookline - it's in no way dance music - people automatically concentrate on the melody when they listen to it and it's easy to whistle along to it - that's exactly what I others wrote in our previous posts in this thread:

it's rather the melody carrying the rhythm than the other way around

[duncanparsons]

I suggest looking out for older bands like Gentle Giant, 72-74 and 81-84 era King Crimson, 70's Yes (notably on Fragile [Heart of the Sunrise] and Close to the Edge, along with Tales from Topographic Oceans ), Soft Machine, Genesis upto about 1979, almost anything with Bill Bruford on, BrandX (also here)...

I find it weird when folk say that you can't dance to odd times, considering that Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' was a ballet...

DSP

[Sascha Franck]

it just feels natural because it has a strong melody

Personally, I don't think so. To me, it's the bass groove that's making it sound natural.

[jens]

it just feels natural because it has a strong melody

Personally, I don't think so. To me, it's the bass groove that's making it sound natural.

the bass is playing the hookline I was referring to

[jens]

notably on Fragile [Heart of the Sunrise]

I was watching Vincent Gallo's 'Bufallo 66' on saturday and there's a fantastic shooting scene in a strip-club where 'heart of the sunrise' is played throughout the sence (for another scene Gallo used 'moonchild' so he seeems to be a big prog fan) and the music and the visuals fit so perfectly together to make one of the most stunning scenes in the entire movie-history

[jens]

and while we're at it:

[duncanparsons]

I started writing the script for a film a number of years ago, with the idea of having the soundtrack made up from mostly old prog and 70s pop... The 'final chase' would be accompanied by the guitar solo from Genesis' 'The Musical Box' - I have the whole scene storyboarded in my head

DSP

[AgonisThorn]

...Still making me wonder how something such as Pink Floyds "Money" (which is in 7/8) is sounding so natural...

The "discomfort" with so-called odd meters is so ingrained that both transcriptions I've seen notate the 7/8 section as alternating measures of 3/4 and 4/4. To be honest,it could be interpreted that way, but I'd had less than a semester of music theory when the song was first released, and my IMMEDIATE reaction upon hearing it was "WOW! 7/8, on the radio!"

My hard-rock trio Euphoria has a couple of songs where I play a three-beat bassline poly over (under? behind?) a four-beat guitar and drums, and we're working on one that's five over three. My drummer loves it, and we both love watching the smoke come out of the guitarist's ears as he wrestles with it.

[.jon]

Thanks for this thread, wonderful stuff.

[duncanparsons]

...Still making me wonder how something such as Pink Floyds "Money" (which is in 7/8) is sounding so natural...

The "discomfort" with so-called odd meters is so ingrained that both transcriptions I've seen notate the 7/8 section as alternating measures of 3/4 and 4/4. To be honest,it could be interpreted that way, but I'd had less than a semester of music theory when the song was first released, and my IMMEDIATE reaction upon hearing it was "WOW! 7/8, on the radio!"

My hard-rock trio Euphoria has a couple of songs where I play a three-beat bassline poly over (under? behind?) a four-beat guitar and drums, and we're working on one that's five over three. My drummer loves it, and we both love watching the smoke come out of the guitarist's ears as he wrestles with it.

Sounds pretty cool You should look up Gentle Giant's 'Just the Same' from their 'Freehand' album: the drums are 12/8 whilst the guitar and keys swap a 5/4 based riff between themselves..

other odd times you might hear on the radio would be Peter Gabriel's 'Solsbury Hill' (7/4) and the glockenspiel at the end of Supertramp's 'Dreamer' (5/4); and didn't Sting do one on '10 Summoner's Tales'

Oh yes, and Abba's 'ChickenTikka' and Stranglers' 'Golden Brown' both drop in extra beats periodically...

DSP

[Sascha Franck]

Ok, a little observation, probably not *that* directly related, but still:
When you see a crowd of people clapping their hands along some music in germany, they will usually either clap on all 4 quarters, or (even worse) on beats 1 and 3.
Now, when you move the scenario to the USA, most folks will at least clap on beats 2 and 4.
Moving this even further, to, say, some south european countries or even south america, you may find people clapping on all sorts of offbeats (think Flamenco or Samba). All with ease - things seem to flow naturally.

Now, more or less obviously, strong onbeats (such as 1 and 3) are *the* "enemy" of any odd meters.
They don't even fit into any 5/4 anymore, let alone more sophisticated stuff such as 9/8.
With beats 2 and 4, things still won't fit into any odd meters, but it's at least a sort of a start to deal with offbeats. Take that approach a bit further and you are into accenting smaller subdivisions of whatever metrum - which is more or less exactly what odd meters are all about.

Fwiw, there's a few approaches to "timeline" playing (sorry, I'm not experienced in that, so no links or anything). By definition (at least from what I remember), there's almost no meters existing in that kind of approach. What you basically do is to adjust to one common denominator, so your "signature" might be x/16, the only important thing being a common 16th note grid, any further accents just falling "anywhere" inside that grid.
To me it seems that some eastern music might be based on such things. There's rhythmic superimpositions all over the place. Also, serialism might be affected. And probably some of the works of people like Phillip Glass. As said, I'm no expert in this.

A side observation: Sequencers usually don't deal with all that stuff very well - they're defenitely improving, but still.... What you typically get is "bar-based" operation. As soon as you throw in odd meter bars here and there, the trouble starts.
Heck, until recently, most sequencers (but Logic, I may add) were even dealing rather badly with syncopations, pickups and what not. Probably one of the reasons why a lot of dance music is based on what I'd call "full bar starts". There's not much of anticipated kicks, which may as well start on beat "4 and" of the preceeding bar - defenitely becoming even more of a problem when dealing with pattern-based hosts, as patterns usually are "full bar based".
At least, these days we're seeing all sorts of sequencers offering "relative snap" (moving things "by" a grid instead of "to" a grid), signature tracks and what not. But IMO most of them still have a long way to go. Composing authentic gamelan music might still be a nightmare with our western music based sequencers...

[grillo]

Recently i have been asked to provide music for a documentary, and it was about an algerian writer, so the director wanted some kind of arabic sounding but still very modern electronic styles, just to keep up the mood during 'boring' sections of the film.

So i dug a bit into this and found out that i couldn't really get the feel of the music right with a 4/4 steady beat like hip hop or house. The odd times are very much the backbone of it, although sometimes they sound like they're not leading anywhere.

In the end i did a lot of chopping to rein in the samples he gave me and made it somehow fit, but losing a good bit of soul from it. The director liked the pieces very much, but honestly the only one that i felt came out really interesting was a glitchy / idm thing where i went all over the place with the beats to complement the ethnic percussions and that did it perfectly.

[BertKoor]

Great post, Sascha, but:

... Pink Floyds "Money" (which is in 7/8 )...

That's not correct. Money is in 7/4 signature

[Hovmod]

Great post, Sascha, but:

... Pink Floyds "Money" (which is in 7/8 )...

That's not correct. Money is in 7/4 signature

Plus it has a very obvious and strong 'on-beat' on one...