The Rite of Spring by Stravinski and almost everything by Haitus Kaiote 😅 This is definitely one of my favorite aspects of music to play as a violinist and electric bassist.
Self trained drummer here. 32 years experience. The only way I can explain this using words is that all time signatures can be infinitely divided in infinite combinations. As long as the measure resolves correctly according to the signature, you can do anything.
The other rhing I'll say is that I love Charles in this video because be stresses FEELING the beat first instead of trying to understand the notation first. I always believe in letting the music define what the beat needs to be. Once you stop thinking in terms if notation and using it only to describe, an entire universe of rhythm opens up.
Hi, I worked with II-L to compose/commission that first song for a rhythm game event. If anyone is into it, would strongly recommend looking at just about any of his other music which all features this same disorienting vibe, always in 4/4. They're pretty much all available on his youtube channel! Even more interestingly, II-L will often theme entire albums around the same baseline track, but modify it in increasingly crazy polyrhythmic ways. The stuff he makes is truly unique, really strongly recommend taking a look.
I hope it's the one that ended up in osu!Taiko because it's one of my absolute favourites because sure there are a few 7/8 (yoyuyuppe - 7/8) songs or even rubato songs (like Middleisland - Roze) but II-L is mind breaking in rhythm games because that fluidity together with it not *actually* being as confusing as it is it results in variable approach rates with different rhythmic speeds and I love it. It's the full package between polyrhythms and superimposing like what happens in Golden Brown by Stranglers where 4 repeats of 13 notes fits in a regular 4/4 again.
Really cool to see someone who has worked with II-L before. Been a big fan them since I heard sputnik-3. As a rhythm gamer especially their stuff is so incredibly satisfying. Not often that understanding a rhythm is a challenge in osu, but when it is it is so gratifying to overcome.
Oh wow! Robin is awesome, I first heard him with Zero 7 and then with Jacob Collier. And this Brotherly song really got me, haven't heard of them before. I really have to check out more of his work! And Brotherly for sure!
@@FrancoBits believe it or not charles cornell was the person who introduced me to meshuggah and prog metal as a whole. he already listens to them dont worry lol. go find the "the songs that made me love metal" or whatever theyre called
Oh I think he might have heard about Meshuggah quite a few times already. Nowadays the tricky part is rather to talk about odd rythmic stuff _without_ talking about Meshuggah or Tool ^^
Listening to bands like Leprous and Meshuggah definitely helps your mind lock in the feeling of these more odd, syncopated rhythms. The Brotherly one was a bit more difficult but the Tigran one I locked in very quickly. Which is interesting in and of itself imo
Leprous is fascinating. Honestly I think the best examples of this I can think of is when they do this to different time signatures as well. The Sky is Red is a WILD piece of music and I'm still fascinated by the way it approaches rhythm. The song is in 11/4 the entire time as far as I'm aware but it just feels so bizarre even for 11/4. It's like if aliens came to earth and tried to imitate our music without knowing how it actually worked... Yet still managed to make an absolute monster of a track.
This math teacher LOVES what you're doing here. It's a great example of how our minds can be challenged when rhythms deviate from culturally entrained patterns. Thank you!
What really helped me was to realize that musical notation is just that - a representation of the “true” thing. Often, there are multiple equivalent ways to notate the same piece of music. Sometimes there are conventions which restrict these, which also helps communication.
Progressive metal dude here. One of my favorite things to do when writing a thick djenty riff is to play around with snare placement. Everything else continues playing the exact same rhythm but the only thing that changes is the snare. Great for building tension and when you bring in the backbeat, you just can’t help but headbang and open the mosh pit in your living room. Periphery does this perfectly and it’s my biggest inspiration.
I've been saying for a while that the future of pop music is in Japan. Unlike western pop musicians, they're not afraid of experimenting and being creative, and they pull it off while still managing to write catchy tunes.
As soon as I saw the title my brain immediately went to Pyramid Song by Radiohead. At first listen, you think it’s alternating bars of 3/4 and 4/4, but it’s just 4/4 swung in a funny way and you can’t tell until the percussion comes in.
bro I was about to comment the same thing lmao. there is a pretty cool vid out there with the rhythmic map of the song at definitely makes it feel even more similar to a pyramid
if it helps one to imagine the timing, you can definitely use different time signatures to align with the syncopation. For example using alternating bars of 3/4 and 4/4 until the percs start. Especially in 4/4 songs with complex syncopations splitting the song into imaginary parts and aligning time signatures for the proper feel of an instrument is super easy and helpful for people that count. I for one do not count, ever. And yes, I play drums.
: Pyramid Song is the sort of music that shakes you out of certain dogmatic thinking. Common time doesn't need to be held down by the kick drum - in this case, it's Phil Selway keeping time with the ride cymbal. Great example, I'm glad you brought it up!
@@kjdude8765He's definitely not. From what I gather, he's prioritized touring and his band for the last couple years over the music theory videos, but he still makes them occasionally
A song that totally fits this bill is TOOL’s The Pot. It starts out with a syncopated bass riff that’s hard to follow, lays a guitar riff over it that is easier but still syncopated, and the vocals are syncopated differently as well. But when the drums kick in you realize it’s in 4/4 and it suddenly becomes super easy to bop your head to. Very fun on a first listen
@@lukesteiner8934 well, technically there is one (repeated) section that switches to 3/4, it’s the build up before the bridge and the buildup before the scream at the end
what immediately comes to mind is a song called "Fall" by Chon. it sounds like insane things go on with the time signature, but one way I broke it down was 5/4 but every 5th 16th note is emphasized in one measure, and then every downbeat is emphasized in the next measure.
There is one song that completely broke my brain: Crime of the Century by Supertramp. The solo piano build up to the end is so misleading, and I love it for that. It makes you think the strong beats are so obviously placed, and then the rest of the band kicks in and suddenly you realize you had it wrong the whole time. I don’t know how else to describe it, but it absolutely tickles my brain when I heat that part. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times trying to force my brain to naturally count the time right, and I still have trouble!
We NEED a full breakdown of the Grid by Tigran, that stuff just hits different, the metric mods there, polyrhythms, harmony...they're just out of this world
It's not complete if you only include The Grid alone w/out its follow-up track "Out of the Grid", basically the "second movement" of the same piece of song. He went into some unironic heavy Meshuggah shit on that part, also even more of that syncopated and interlocking polyrhythmic madness. The live in Yerevan 2014 version of both songs' performance is the best one. Also, his other songs such as Ara Resurrected, Nairian Oddysey and his rendition of the jazz standard "Softly As in the Morning Sunrise" are far crazier than The Grid on virtually every aspect, except maybe in terms of accessibility and memorability.
@@GuyWhoLikesTheSnarkies1435 yeah, that's why I didn't exactly specified which one :D "Out of the Grid" is hands down my favorite and the live versions just blow my mind
Imo The Grid is actually surprisingly "simple" rhythmically. It starts with a 5+5+7+5+5+5/32 which I feel like a quintuplet swing 6/4 where one of the beats is extended a bit. It then switches to an 8/4 where the exact same 557555 patter is a syncopated over a 4/4 feel (as explained in the video). It then switches back and forth between those versions a few times. So you "only" need to know two grooves, which are "just" the same pattern viewed from two perspectives. As a the main beat and snycopated over 4/4.
@@antarctic214 oh I know, I just want to see his reaction and breakdown of how he feels that, especially the Out of the Grid part where 5+5+5+5+5 is layered with 4+4+5(2+3)+4+4+4
@@tigran2210 Is that the part 1:43 to 2:09 of the version of spotify? Back when I tried to play it on the drums (not following hnatek, just figuring out what works by ear) it was the only section I never quite figured out. But what you wrote works I think.
As a progrock fan, I love odd time signatures, but I didn't realize how weird rhythms can be in plain, old 4/4! Such interesting music. And yeah, a time signature like 6/4 can really fool you because it *seems* like 4/4 when it's not. I unintentionally wrote a verse in 6/4 just because it felt right, but I assumed I was still in 4/4 when I wrote and played it. But that wasn't so much a difficult rhythm as it was simply giving the chords the proper length to play out.
All of a sudden red became blue and my mind melted a bit around the edges. When you explained it then I heard it as clear as a bright sunny day. And now I can't unhear it.
Tigran Hamasyan’s “The Grid” is one of my favorite pieces ever, I love the 15-minute version with all its crazy metric modulations and the coolest breakdown ever
No Signal by Chon is a great example of this. The main riff can be heard as 3 bars of 9/16 followed by one bar of 5/16 or just entirely in 4/4. They also cited Tigray Hamasyan as a big influence so
One of my favourite examples of a brain-bending 4/4 is Bonnie The Cat by Porcupine Tree. It's ostensibly a straight-feel 4/4 but the way Gavin Harrison phrases the drum pattern against what the bass is doing makes it sound very 'odd-timey'. It's great.
As a percussionist the first song is just 6/8 into 4/4 over and over. Then each measure has its own rhythms going on. You could also call it 10/8 which I would subdivide as 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2 (2 dotted quarter notes into 4 quarter note pulse) so it’s a cool feel. Kind of like 7/8 with an extra dotted quarter note pulse.
My drumming teacher once gave me the music sheet (for drumkit) of 'Cissy strut' by The Meters. If you played the notes in the length they were written in - you would never hit the groove correctly. Once I released myself from what's written and started to feel - that's when I was able to play the groove right. And it was awesome!
I learnt piano as a child and hat to learn about all the different time signatures. Then in my teens I learned dancing where I learned doing 8-count and everything just ends up as 4/4 no matter what. On rare occasions 3/4.
Here are some songs with rhythmical illusions that I found interesting: 1. Knockin’ Em Down by Phat Phunktion: the intro into verse really throws your brain for a loop. 2. Top Secret by Yellowjackets: also the intro you kinda get a feel, but when the drums begin the groove, it’s also confusing the first time listening. 3. Du du - Kristian Kristensen: this one opens up with a pattern of 5’s and 7’s (5/16+5/16+5/16+7/16+5/16+5/16 which equals 2 measures of 4/4 haha) so you can either feel the subdivisions of 16ths or the slow 4/4 beat 4. Molasses - Hiatus Kaiyote: I think it’s only me perhaps, but in my head the part of «Bet-ter, bet-ter» from 3 mins 33 secs my feel is always one 16th note off (only in studio ver., not live ver.), so every 2nd kick drum gets to be a downbeat in my head even though I know from the live ver. that they intended the 1st 16th note of the kickdrum pattern to be downbeat. But I guess that’s just how my brain works🤷🏽♂️
A common technique in rudimental drumming is to use “the grid”. We take the thing we are working on, be it an accent, flam, or diddle, and then move it onto every part of a given subdivision. Example would be if we are working on our diddles we would play a measure of 16ths, next measure diddle all of the down beats, next measure all of the “e”s, and so on.
Isorhythmssss. That's what my old composition teacher at uni called this: isorhythm. Also, for interesting subdivision stuff, check into how J. Dilla got his swing sound by subdividing on 5's.
With the sort of "automatic" quantization in a lot of music making that involves a digital interface it becomes a lot "easier" to play around with rhythms like this. You can lay down a clear 4/4 groove, and layer tracks over it, manipulating them in various ways. Using these digital interfaces makes approaching the music from the instrument AND from the perspective of how it functions in the end much easier. For example: I noticed when I first started using a notation software (finale and sibelius) to write music instead of pen and paper, having the ability to copy and paste, transpose, layer, stretch or shorten, at the click of a button (sometimes by accident) lead to ways of thinking about the music that didn't come as easily just sitting at a piano with pen and paper. An example of a similar effect in music history was Steve Reich's comping up with "phasing". He discovered this, and the resulting intricate rhythms, by playing around with tape recording and noticing them going out of phase with each other. Also, if you're making music directly on paper/computer in an abstract sense, and not "hearing" it, you can write the meter as 4/4, but have it notated in a way that no matter who plays it, it will never sound like "4/4". For example, write all your measures in 4/4 but write every measure with tuplets of 5 or 7 in the space of 4 with accents alternating every 3 and 6 notes. it's in "4/4" but no one will ever hear it that way...although it will effect how a good performer plays it and possibly create certain effects you wouldn't get otherwise (see any of Morton Feldman's later compositions as an example). sorry for the effort post
Man, I am obsessed with this kind of music, so cool to see it broken down like this! One artist I'd love to see you react to sometime is Anna Meredith, she's the absolute master of overlapping polyrhythms & mid-song downbeat changes
Not a multi-layered groove, but I'm reminded of Gentle Giant's 'So Sincere'. The first verse gives you just the violin and voice (IIRC) and it all sounds just rhythmically unhinged, really. Enter the drums on the second verse with a very simple 4-4 rhythm and it locks down in a very surprising and satisfying way.
One of my favorite “sounds odd but isn’t” is two bars of 12/8 time done in 7 + 7 + 7 + 3 groups. It feels like the weirdest odd time signature shift but keeps that even time total, and makes for a stark contrast going between that feel and a standard 12/8 swung feel.
The last track on Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain, “Solea” is a great example of this. I tried to count it every which a way until realizing its in 4. Which filled me with awe. It may very well be my favorite (secular) song in the world.
This takes me back to high school Big Band (Jazz Orchestra). Our group loved highly syncopated pieces across the wind and percussive sections with wacky time signatures because the interpretations were truly endless. Every run was different and it challenged us to get into the composer’s head to try and understand the message and create it over and over again. It’s like a musical puzzle and that’s awesome.
I had this with the Eurovision song for Russia a few years ago. It was a song by Sergey Lazarev, “You’re the only one” if I’m not mistaken is what it was called. With the intro and the verse it sounded like a classic 6/8 song, but then the prechorus came in and all of a sudden it had this four on the floor in the background, and it just threw me for a loop especially the first time and because of the fact that it’s a regular pop song. It’s not weird now anymore but I still would’ve preferred it if the song was in 6/8.
This video got on my feed; i'm a self taught bassist and have been playing bass since 2008 and just recently got into real music theory and this quote about "The Grid" composer saying that you can hear it anyway you want really goes to show how music and rythm are built into our brains; also Victor Wooten adressed this on his tedxtalk saying music it's is own language.
We are raised, musically, on fours. Popular music is four-beat centric, with notable exceptions. Our brains don't have the pathways for fives, and it takes time to get accustomed. It's like when you first encounter Money by Floyd, or Outshined by Soundgarden, they are songs that make perfect sense once you are used to the bar ending a beat earlier that your brain has been trained to expect.
0:28 It feels like 7/4 because four groups of five subdivisions is ALMOST the same as seven groups of three subdivisions (and it's much more common to encounter triplets than quintuplets). So when the initial melody has a repeated rhythm of two long and four shorter notes, it tricks you into feeling two dotted quarter notes followed by four quarters. But those first two notes are actually slightly shorter than true dotted quarters would be, by half a subdivision each (11%). You'd be more correct to call them fifth notes, followed by dotted tenth notes.
I remember first time hearing Animals as Leaders in 2009 i was stunned. Couldn't guess where the first beat is so i felt lost and i loved it. Thanks to Metal, now I'm so familiar with irregular rhythms patterns.
Great video, Charles! Been a subscriber for a while, but I clicked on this video specifically because Tigran was in the thumbnail. I've been fascinated by his rhythms for years, and his scatting is a far more polished example that I can show others of how/why I geek out about complex rhythms and drum patterns in my head.
I've been testing how healed my hearing is by (re)listening to a bunch of your videos. This video reminded me I can still access some parts of music, even with my busted, muffled, robo-pitchy ears 😊 Keep up the good work!
That way to aproach polyrithms and odd signatures with vocal phrases and common speech remind me how Marco Minemann explain it, and once became musical to you is a joy!
So the phrasing is 332222 4/4 is usually felt as either 2222 or 332, so you brain here does 332 222, or 4/4+3/4. In isolation this is the most natural feel. The thing about any odd rhythm is that you can quadrouple it and then play on 4/4...like obviously. This song just does that, essentially turning a 7/4 rhythm at 120bpm or so into a 4/2 rhythm at 60pm. It does this really gradually with heavy subdivisions, but its no different really than fading in a syncopated slower tempo (by 4/7ths) pulse while fading out the original.
I love this stuff! I’m a trained opera singer who has worked as a non-singing opera musician for the past 25 years, and I’m constantly analyzing and picking apart the structure and rhythm of interesting pop songs I hear. I remember hearing Ne-Yo’s "Let Me Love You" years ago and trying to figure out the time signature; the vocal part is all dotted eighth notes and tied sixteenth and eighth notes across bar lines, so finding the 4/4 structure underneath took me a few minutes. Maybe not as difficult as Britten writing polymetric and polyrhythmic music, but still very rhythmically interesting.
While the entire song isn't complicated like these are, I'm reminded of the first time I heard Anima by Alex Smoke. It starts off with all these seemingly random percussive sounds that are in an 8-measure pattern, so the sounds don't repeat enough for you to get a sense of the beat. Then the kick drum comes in with 4 on the floor and it all clicks. Such a cool moment and I never get tired of the look on people's face when I introduce them to the song.
Joe Jackson's "Will Power" (from the album of the same name) starts by layering disconnected rhythms on top of each other, one at a time, until suddenly 4/4 time condenses out the ether. Once you've listened to it enough you can count it from the start, but until you get your brain wrapped around it, it's more than a bit confounding. As for polyrhythms, I would suggest going all the way back to the 50s and Dave Brubeck. Just give a listen to "Kathy's Waltz" from _Time Out_. It's in 4. No, it's in 3. No, 4. And by the time he leads you through it, you can hear and feel 4/4 and 3/4 all at the same time.
My last band was a technical death metal band. The main song writer wrote all the music in odd time signatures. 3/8, 5/8, 7/8 and then just to mess with you, he'd add one MORE 8th note on the repeat. So the ONE time you play an 8/8, it actually messes you up because you finally liked into that odd groove only to trip on that 8th note. Then it goes back to being odd again. It was nuts. Sometimes the drummer would actually play a 4/4 groove underneath the odd beats creating a NEW feel.
The intro to that first song uses a pattern often used in 5/4. I think that thinking of it as 5/4 that metrically modulates later to 4/4 using quintuplets is more user friendly than thinking of it in terms of quintuplets from the start. The first two beats serve as a grounding point in every measure, before the mayhem of 4 dotted eight hits in a row.
I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU COVERED II_L, THEY'RE FAMOUS FOR CREATING THESE CRAZY RHYTHMIC FEELS!! Consider checking out the rest of their songs because it has that same feeling of intrigue.
I know what this is. Some rookie was making a beat in Protools and had no idea what he was doing. Then someone more learned came along and said "that sounds dope, let's build on it"!!!
My brain: any complex rhythm just feels like 4/4 when you dissociate enough. Sometimes it's a broken 4/4 but I simply can't think in any other rhythm terms and time signatures
Zappa did these sort of "Nested quintuplets"/"Septuplets" all the time. Steve Vai talks about transcribing them as a young 19 yo kid, mailing them to Frank to see it they were correct. It ultimately landed him the job of Zappa's guitar player and official transcriptionist for several years. There are lots of interviews here on YT. The @ChananHanspal(el?) channel has some of the best.
I never count. I just feel. The last 9:18 was not a "what?!" for me. It is a lovely example of a nice feeling 4/4. It is simple. I cannot write nor read it in notes, but I just have a wide smile on my face, eyes closed and "feeling" it as a "regular 4/4".
I love when I spontaneously write something and work it out on an instrument, the whole time thinking I'm playing in 5/4 or 7/8 or something weird like that but its just that it has this bump and swing and is really in 4/4.
Depressing absence of Lateralus recognition (Lateralus by TOOL) If you haven’t heard it, and you want to figure it out for yourself, don’t press “show more”. The chorus of Lateralus is a sequence of 9/8-8/8-7/8, which corresponds to their theme of the Fibonacci Sequence (the next number is the sum of the previous two numbers: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, *987*…). This theme is also shown in the first half of each verse in syllable count: Black (1) Then (1) White are (2) All I see (3) In my infancy (5) Red and yellow then came to be (8)… Back to main topic, the sequence of time signatures 9/8-8/8-7/8 adds to 24/8, which can be simplified to 3 measures of 4/4.
Well, technically it IS just a subset of rhythm, with 4/4 just being the pieces bar lines. In Irish fiddling this is even more evident, with what I call the rhythmic equivalent to microtones/Xen-harmony. Don't really know the specifics, but I do know that not everything can fit into western notation.
Meshugga are awesome at making 4/4 time signatures that sound like weird alien math beats. I'm not even a fan of their music, I'm just too old for that djent metal stuff, but damn do you just have to appreciate the technical skill and math rock vibes.
I’ve been waiting decades for someone else to finally tell me I’m not crazy, yes this does exist. The is the dancer spinning one way or the other was the best description to this illusion
A lot of IDM songs has strange rhythm. But for me the strangest song was a track I found in stick music: kevin graham - together. You also can find it on RUclips, but I’m not sure that i can give link here
I watched Simon Phillips play live in a small club many years ago with a drummer friend of mine. That was the first time I discovered that no matter how hard I tried, I could still get lost counting to 4.
Coming from a classical singing background, composers have been messing with where the feel of One is for ages. Brahms in particular comes to mind. I suspect humans have been doing this forever. I think it can have hypnotic and trance properties in the right context and it definitely helps change your perspective.
Gavin Harrison explains such things pretty thouroughly in his "Rhythmic Illusions" book, also Dave Weckl, Benny Greb, Jojo Mayer and other drummers often mention that.
I've been experimenting a lot with polyrhythms. To me this seems similar to something a wrote a few years ago where the drums and guitar played 4/4, the base was playing a 3/4 and then there was piano alternating between 7/8 and 9/8. It was done in a way where I gradually introduced each instrument starting with the acoustic guitar, then drum, and when the base came in you got a bit thrown for a loop (but not too hard to get into), then came the piano playing this arpeggio alternating between 7/8 and 9/8. It actually worked quite well since it was this gradual buildup and because. I have also experimented with polyrhythmic drumbeats where the bass drum might do a 3/4 and the snare is doing 4/4. This seems to me like there's polyrhythms going on, I still think that you should think of this melody still as being in 7/8 especially since the base drum and also the pad in the background seems to follow the rhythm of the melody melody. it's more like the snare drum is doing it's own little thing the until the melody is over where some things start following the snare drum. I was experimenting a lot with tempo as well in the past and realised that if you have a song where the the hihat plays straight eight notes at 120bpm you can then slow the tempo down to a point where the eight note can play in triplets at the exact same speed as it did before the tempo change without the triplets (80bpm). This idea can be used in some quite interesting mind twisting ways as well. For example you could have a ritardando to a tempo that feels the same as it was before but with a tripplet feel. It's all math :D However I am too tired to sit down and analyse this son in depth.. hahaha But yeah I believe you might overcomplicate things by subdividing into 5s or whatever.
I remember listening to Lingus from Snarky Puppy for the first time. When it gets to that bit where everything drops out, then you get those quick kick drums, and the keyboard solos start ... I spent ages trying to work out what the time signature was for those kick drum beats. Then I finally realised it was 4/4. LOL. I felt so dumb. Haha
Played a percussion ensemble in high school called "Valley of Nepal, written in 7/4. It has strong cords on 1, 2, and 3, but then the and beats of 4,5 and 6. Funky little beat. And then it threw in quarter note triplets, just for fun.
I've got to add in Videotape by Radiohead. The entire track takes place half a beat before the one! (Confirmed in a 2007 interview with David Byrne where Thom Yorke says "The piano is ahead - it’s an eighth ahead of where the one is.") The Bonnaroo version gives the best effect (IMHO).
I LOVE music that does this, what are your favorite examples of bizarre and clever rhythmic illusions in music???
Toto - Dave's Gone Skiing (main riff)
The song Andy by Frank Zappa
Charles Cornell, can you please analyze Bowling for Soup's theme song for Jimmy Neutron?
The beginning of Lasso by Phoenix broke my brain at first 😂
The Rite of Spring by Stravinski and almost everything by Haitus Kaiote 😅 This is definitely one of my favorite aspects of music to play as a violinist and electric bassist.
Self trained drummer here. 32 years experience. The only way I can explain this using words is that all time signatures can be infinitely divided in infinite combinations. As long as the measure resolves correctly according to the signature, you can do anything.
Well put.
The other rhing I'll say is that I love Charles in this video because be stresses FEELING the beat first instead of trying to understand the notation first. I always believe in letting the music define what the beat needs to be. Once you stop thinking in terms if notation and using it only to describe, an entire universe of rhythm opens up.
Maths
Those 32 years surely shows your mastery, great post and I fully agree.
@@zerksari you're too kind, thank you
Everything is 4/4 if you're brave enough
Everything is 3/4 if youre drunk enough
Amen brother. This is the way.
Sometimes I dream that every form of music imaginable is actually 1/4
everything is in 4/4 if you believe hard enough!
I tolerate up to 9/8 if it is not any of them then it is 4/4 by default.
Hi, I worked with II-L to compose/commission that first song for a rhythm game event. If anyone is into it, would strongly recommend looking at just about any of his other music which all features this same disorienting vibe, always in 4/4. They're pretty much all available on his youtube channel! Even more interestingly, II-L will often theme entire albums around the same baseline track, but modify it in increasingly crazy polyrhythmic ways. The stuff he makes is truly unique, really strongly recommend taking a look.
I hope it's the one that ended up in osu!Taiko because it's one of my absolute favourites because sure there are a few 7/8 (yoyuyuppe - 7/8) songs or even rubato songs (like Middleisland - Roze) but II-L is mind breaking in rhythm games because that fluidity together with it not *actually* being as confusing as it is it results in variable approach rates with different rhythmic speeds and I love it. It's the full package between polyrhythms and superimposing like what happens in Golden Brown by Stranglers where 4 repeats of 13 notes fits in a regular 4/4 again.
Really cool to see someone who has worked with II-L before. Been a big fan them since I heard sputnik-3. As a rhythm gamer especially their stuff is so incredibly satisfying. Not often that understanding a rhythm is a challenge in osu, but when it is it is so gratifying to overcome.
Omgomgomgomgomg thank you for this plug!!! I was hoping to find a link to it in the description
Nobody is into it.
@@andybaldmanspeak for yourself andyman
Fun fact: System - Brotherly was actually written by Jacob Collier’s bass player, Robin Mullarky. The album is insanely funky!
Oh wow! Robin is awesome, I first heard him with Zero 7 and then with Jacob Collier. And this Brotherly song really got me, haven't heard of them before. I really have to check out more of his work! And Brotherly for sure!
actually this song sounds like shit
It's a brilliant complex yet catchy song by a criminally underrated band
@VeitLehmann Zero 7 is fantastic! I've never seen a fellow Zero 7 fan in the wild, so this is exciting, lol.
@@rperov318what do you not like?
brain dissolves until the beat resolves
Nice
🔥🔥🔥
this is so correct
Love this!
Add a beat to this line🔥
You've covered Djent before, but Meshuggah built their whole career around this sort of thing, and inspired others to do the same. It's wonderful.
I was gonna suggest him to listen to meshuggah and dream theater
Yessss-I was like, “this sounds just like 4/4” but then remembered my favorite band is Meshuggah, so I have a bit of practice lmao
@@FrancoBits
Dream Theater uses a lot of odd signatures, though. A lot of Meshuggah is in 4/4.
@@FrancoBits believe it or not charles cornell was the person who introduced me to meshuggah and prog metal as a whole. he already listens to them dont worry lol. go find the "the songs that made me love metal" or whatever theyre called
Oh I think he might have heard about Meshuggah quite a few times already. Nowadays the tricky part is rather to talk about odd rythmic stuff _without_ talking about Meshuggah or Tool ^^
Leprous are masters of using 4/4 in a very syncopated way, making it sound like an odd-time signature
Yes! I was gonna bring up At the Bottom as a great example of that, and of their current sound as well.
Listening to bands like Leprous and Meshuggah definitely helps your mind lock in the feeling of these more odd, syncopated rhythms.
The Brotherly one was a bit more difficult but the Tigran one I locked in very quickly. Which is interesting in and of itself imo
Leprous is fascinating. Honestly I think the best examples of this I can think of is when they do this to different time signatures as well. The Sky is Red is a WILD piece of music and I'm still fascinated by the way it approaches rhythm. The song is in 11/4 the entire time as far as I'm aware but it just feels so bizarre even for 11/4. It's like if aliens came to earth and tried to imitate our music without knowing how it actually worked... Yet still managed to make an absolute monster of a track.
Leprous are so good at so many things but most of all at making music that hypes me up af 💜
They're also the masters of going "AaaaAAAAHHHHHHH" to great effect
This math teacher LOVES what you're doing here. It's a great example of how our minds can be challenged when rhythms deviate from culturally entrained patterns. Thank you!
What really helped me was to realize that musical notation is just that - a representation of the “true” thing. Often, there are multiple equivalent ways to notate the same piece of music. Sometimes there are conventions which restrict these, which also helps communication.
Progressive metal dude here. One of my favorite things to do when writing a thick djenty riff is to play around with snare placement. Everything else continues playing the exact same rhythm but the only thing that changes is the snare. Great for building tension and when you bring in the backbeat, you just can’t help but headbang and open the mosh pit in your living room. Periphery does this perfectly and it’s my biggest inspiration.
i got so excited when i saw The Grid in the thumbnail, and immediately lost my mind when i got jumpscared by II-L
Holy shit, i never thought i would see Charles react to II-L
Same. I jumped up when I heard The Earth
Is that loss?
@@goolgepl2112name of the artist dummy
@@goolgepl2112 No, that's just the artist name (pronounced "two L" by the way) but I can see why you said that.
One of the best composers ever frfr VOSTOK-3 my beloved ❤
I've been saying for a while that the future of pop music is in Japan. Unlike western pop musicians, they're not afraid of experimenting and being creative, and they pull it off while still managing to write catchy tunes.
As soon as I saw the title my brain immediately went to Pyramid Song by Radiohead. At first listen, you think it’s alternating bars of 3/4 and 4/4, but it’s just 4/4 swung in a funny way and you can’t tell until the percussion comes in.
This was my exact thought haha, how do you make a video with this title and not include pyramid song
bro I was about to comment the same thing lmao. there is a pretty cool vid out there with the rhythmic map of the song at definitely makes it feel even more similar to a pyramid
if it helps one to imagine the timing, you can definitely use different time signatures to align with the syncopation. For example using alternating bars of 3/4 and 4/4 until the percs start. Especially in 4/4 songs with complex syncopations splitting the song into imaginary parts and aligning time signatures for the proper feel of an instrument is super easy and helpful for people that count. I for one do not count, ever. And yes, I play drums.
4 measures of 3 (triangles) and 1 measure of 4 (square)
It’s a pyramid!
(||: 3-3-4-3-3 :||)
I remember hearing Pyramid Song by Radiohead for the first time as a teenager and being so confused and fascinated at the same time
: Pyramid Song is the sort of music that shakes you out of certain dogmatic thinking. Common time doesn't need to be held down by the kick drum - in this case, it's Phil Selway keeping time with the ride cymbal. Great example, I'm glad you brought it up!
Me too!
the fact that there’s a reasonable and understandable way to view that song in 4/4 too is WILD. love that song so much
Really surprised that song wasn't mentioned
Plus once you figure out the timing it all makes perfect sense... Especially once the drums come in.
“We can come up with a way to think of this thing, that is so easy to hear “ - plays the most incomprehensible piece of music I’ve ever heard
Call Adam Neely, we've got nested tuplets!
Too bad he's essentially retired from YT
Pass the G*d da?m butter. (How he counts 4 against 3)
Came to post the same thing.
Nah, call Phonon
@@kjdude8765He's definitely not. From what I gather, he's prioritized touring and his band for the last couple years over the music theory videos, but he still makes them occasionally
A song that totally fits this bill is TOOL’s The Pot. It starts out with a syncopated bass riff that’s hard to follow, lays a guitar riff over it that is easier but still syncopated, and the vocals are syncopated differently as well. But when the drums kick in you realize it’s in 4/4 and it suddenly becomes super easy to bop your head to. Very fun on a first listen
the best example
Pretty sure it’s in 5/4 but with easy to follow quarter note pulses
@@l.t.j.6302 The Pot is definitely in 4
@l.t.j.6302 no it's 4/4 the whole way thru, once the drums come in it solidifies the pulse
@@lukesteiner8934 well, technically there is one (repeated) section that switches to 3/4, it’s the build up before the bridge and the buildup before the scream at the end
what immediately comes to mind is a song called "Fall" by Chon. it sounds like insane things go on with the time signature, but one way I broke it down was 5/4 but every 5th 16th note is emphasized in one measure, and then every downbeat is emphasized in the next measure.
Surprised I had to scroll for so long to find a CHON mention! No Signal by them also does this well & the 4/4 reveal is so gratifying
Chon is sick! Glad someone mentioned them here haha
There is one song that completely broke my brain:
Crime of the Century by Supertramp.
The solo piano build up to the end is so misleading, and I love it for that. It makes you think the strong beats are so obviously placed, and then the rest of the band kicks in and suddenly you realize you had it wrong the whole time. I don’t know how else to describe it, but it absolutely tickles my brain when I heat that part. I’ve listened to it hundreds of times trying to force my brain to naturally count the time right, and I still have trouble!
We NEED a full breakdown of the Grid by Tigran, that stuff just hits different, the metric mods there, polyrhythms, harmony...they're just out of this world
It's not complete if you only include The Grid alone w/out its follow-up track "Out of the Grid", basically the "second movement" of the same piece of song. He went into some unironic heavy Meshuggah shit on that part, also even more of that syncopated and interlocking polyrhythmic madness. The live in Yerevan 2014 version of both songs' performance is the best one.
Also, his other songs such as Ara Resurrected, Nairian Oddysey and his rendition of the jazz standard "Softly As in the Morning Sunrise" are far crazier than The Grid on virtually every aspect, except maybe in terms of accessibility and memorability.
@@GuyWhoLikesTheSnarkies1435 yeah, that's why I didn't exactly specified which one :D
"Out of the Grid" is hands down my favorite and the live versions just blow my mind
Imo The Grid is actually surprisingly "simple" rhythmically. It starts with a 5+5+7+5+5+5/32 which I feel like a quintuplet swing 6/4 where one of the beats is extended a bit. It then switches to an 8/4 where the exact same 557555 patter is a syncopated over a 4/4 feel (as explained in the video). It then switches back and forth between those versions a few times.
So you "only" need to know two grooves, which are "just" the same pattern viewed from two perspectives. As a the main beat and snycopated over 4/4.
@@antarctic214 oh I know, I just want to see his reaction and breakdown of how he feels that, especially the Out of the Grid part where 5+5+5+5+5 is layered with 4+4+5(2+3)+4+4+4
@@tigran2210 Is that the part 1:43 to 2:09 of the version of spotify? Back when I tried to play it on the drums (not following hnatek, just figuring out what works by ear) it was the only section I never quite figured out. But what you wrote works I think.
As a progrock fan, I love odd time signatures, but I didn't realize how weird rhythms can be in plain, old 4/4! Such interesting music.
And yeah, a time signature like 6/4 can really fool you because it *seems* like 4/4 when it's not. I unintentionally wrote a verse in 6/4 just because it felt right, but I assumed I was still in 4/4 when I wrote and played it. But that wasn't so much a difficult rhythm as it was simply giving the chords the proper length to play out.
Polyrhythmic grooves are the new Jazz baby!!!
All of a sudden red became blue and my mind melted a bit around the edges. When you explained it then I heard it as clear as a bright sunny day. And now I can't unhear it.
I always love hearing Polyrhythms/Polymeters in regular music, and I think these songs encapsulate that vibe. ❤
It is very nice when you know a bit about music but it doesn't sell ... that is why prog rock failed, it is too advanced for the masses.
Tigran Hamasyan’s “The Grid” is one of my favorite pieces ever, I love the 15-minute version with all its crazy metric modulations and the coolest breakdown ever
No Signal by Chon is a great example of this. The main riff can be heard as 3 bars of 9/16 followed by one bar of 5/16 or just entirely in 4/4. They also cited Tigray Hamasyan as a big influence so
One of my favourite examples of a brain-bending 4/4 is Bonnie The Cat by Porcupine Tree. It's ostensibly a straight-feel 4/4 but the way Gavin Harrison phrases the drum pattern against what the bass is doing makes it sound very 'odd-timey'. It's great.
I love guessing time signatures while driving, it's a fun game to pass the time!
As a percussionist the first song is just 6/8 into 4/4 over and over. Then each measure has its own rhythms going on. You could also call it 10/8 which I would subdivide as 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2 (2 dotted quarter notes into 4 quarter note pulse) so it’s a cool feel. Kind of like 7/8 with an extra dotted quarter note pulse.
I would love a whole series on odd time signatures and polyrhythms - but I'm really terrible at maths 😬
yogev gabay is your man. He’s so good. He actually covered the brotherly song.
2 mild examples - (a) The Bad Plus (featuring Joshua Redman) on As this moment slips away and (b) Sara Tavares on D'Alma (from the album Xinti)
II-L has some of the most insane rhythmically challenging songs in rhythm games
My drumming teacher once gave me the music sheet (for drumkit) of 'Cissy strut' by The Meters.
If you played the notes in the length they were written in - you would never hit the groove correctly. Once I released myself from what's written and started to feel - that's when I was able to play the groove right.
And it was awesome!
You have to love when music becomes math
I learnt piano as a child and hat to learn about all the different time signatures.
Then in my teens I learned dancing where I learned doing 8-count and everything just ends up as 4/4 no matter what. On rare occasions 3/4.
Here are some songs with rhythmical illusions that I found interesting:
1. Knockin’ Em Down by Phat Phunktion: the intro into verse really throws your brain for a loop.
2. Top Secret by Yellowjackets: also the intro you kinda get a feel, but when the drums begin the groove, it’s also confusing the first time listening.
3. Du du - Kristian Kristensen: this one opens up with a pattern of 5’s and 7’s (5/16+5/16+5/16+7/16+5/16+5/16 which equals 2 measures of 4/4 haha) so you can either feel the subdivisions of 16ths or the slow 4/4 beat
4. Molasses - Hiatus Kaiyote: I think it’s only me perhaps, but in my head the part of «Bet-ter, bet-ter» from 3 mins 33 secs my feel is always one 16th note off (only in studio ver., not live ver.), so every 2nd kick drum gets to be a downbeat in my head even though I know from the live ver. that they intended the 1st 16th note of the kickdrum pattern to be downbeat. But I guess that’s just how my brain works🤷🏽♂️
ok.. i think i'm in love.
A common technique in rudimental drumming is to use “the grid”. We take the thing we are working on, be it an accent, flam, or diddle, and then move it onto every part of a given subdivision. Example would be if we are working on our diddles we would play a measure of 16ths, next measure diddle all of the down beats, next measure all of the “e”s, and so on.
Isorhythmssss. That's what my old composition teacher at uni called this: isorhythm. Also, for interesting subdivision stuff, check into how J. Dilla got his swing sound by subdividing on 5's.
great video on RUclips about Dilla - ruclips.net/video/0dsjuPZsNwQ/видео.htmlsi=4qchEdK47mALEkJ8
With the sort of "automatic" quantization in a lot of music making that involves a digital interface it becomes a lot "easier" to play around with rhythms like this. You can lay down a clear 4/4 groove, and layer tracks over it, manipulating them in various ways. Using these digital interfaces makes approaching the music from the instrument AND from the perspective of how it functions in the end much easier. For example: I noticed when I first started using a notation software (finale and sibelius) to write music instead of pen and paper, having the ability to copy and paste, transpose, layer, stretch or shorten, at the click of a button (sometimes by accident) lead to ways of thinking about the music that didn't come as easily just sitting at a piano with pen and paper. An example of a similar effect in music history was Steve Reich's comping up with "phasing". He discovered this, and the resulting intricate rhythms, by playing around with tape recording and noticing them going out of phase with each other. Also, if you're making music directly on paper/computer in an abstract sense, and not "hearing" it, you can write the meter as 4/4, but have it notated in a way that no matter who plays it, it will never sound like "4/4". For example, write all your measures in 4/4 but write every measure with tuplets of 5 or 7 in the space of 4 with accents alternating every 3 and 6 notes. it's in "4/4" but no one will ever hear it that way...although it will effect how a good performer plays it and possibly create certain effects you wouldn't get otherwise (see any of Morton Feldman's later compositions as an example).
sorry for the effort post
Man, I am obsessed with this kind of music, so cool to see it broken down like this! One artist I'd love to see you react to sometime is Anna Meredith, she's the absolute master of overlapping polyrhythms & mid-song downbeat changes
yogev gabay you should check him out. He’s seriously so good. He actually played with Tigray before!
Meshuggah's "Do Not Look Down" or the bridge in "Electric Red". Also, II-L is great, thanks for the share!
Not a multi-layered groove, but I'm reminded of Gentle Giant's 'So Sincere'. The first verse gives you just the violin and voice (IIRC) and it all sounds just rhythmically unhinged, really. Enter the drums on the second verse with a very simple 4-4 rhythm and it locks down in a very surprising and satisfying way.
Yoooo I love that song. You have fine taste.
One of my favorite “sounds odd but isn’t” is two bars of 12/8 time done in 7 + 7 + 7 + 3 groups. It feels like the weirdest odd time signature shift but keeps that even time total, and makes for a stark contrast going between that feel and a standard 12/8 swung feel.
The last track on Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain, “Solea” is a great example of this. I tried to count it every which a way until realizing its in 4. Which filled me with awe. It may very well be my favorite (secular) song in the world.
The amount of times I here things in 8/8 or 10/8 is higher than it should be. Hooked on compound meters works for me.
This takes me back to high school Big Band (Jazz Orchestra). Our group loved highly syncopated pieces across the wind and percussive sections with wacky time signatures because the interpretations were truly endless. Every run was different and it challenged us to get into the composer’s head to try and understand the message and create it over and over again. It’s like a musical puzzle and that’s awesome.
I've nothing against challenging time sigs, but if it's that difficult to listen to I'm not interested, music for me is for enjoying.
sometimes it’s not about following the rhythm properly, but letting the disorienting nature become part of the listening experience
I had this with the Eurovision song for Russia a few years ago. It was a song by Sergey Lazarev, “You’re the only one” if I’m not mistaken is what it was called. With the intro and the verse it sounded like a classic 6/8 song, but then the prechorus came in and all of a sudden it had this four on the floor in the background, and it just threw me for a loop especially the first time and because of the fact that it’s a regular pop song. It’s not weird now anymore but I still would’ve preferred it if the song was in 6/8.
This video got on my feed; i'm a self taught bassist and have been playing bass since 2008 and just recently got into real music theory and this quote about "The Grid" composer saying that you can hear it anyway you want really goes to show how music and rythm are built into our brains; also Victor Wooten adressed this on his tedxtalk saying music it's is own language.
interesting rhythms. thanks charles!
they don't sound like 4/4, even if they are!
i don’t know what’s happening but it’s fun to see someone so excited about it
Anybody know a Spotify playlist for this kind of brainmelting rythms in music?
We are raised, musically, on fours. Popular music is four-beat centric, with notable exceptions. Our brains don't have the pathways for fives, and it takes time to get accustomed.
It's like when you first encounter Money by Floyd, or Outshined by Soundgarden, they are songs that make perfect sense once you are used to the bar ending a beat earlier that your brain has been trained to expect.
My man needs to listen to some Dream Theater and love the rhythms there!
That's what a lot of his examples immediately reminded me of!
0:28 It feels like 7/4 because four groups of five subdivisions is ALMOST the same as seven groups of three subdivisions (and it's much more common to encounter triplets than quintuplets). So when the initial melody has a repeated rhythm of two long and four shorter notes, it tricks you into feeling two dotted quarter notes followed by four quarters. But those first two notes are actually slightly shorter than true dotted quarters would be, by half a subdivision each (11%). You'd be more correct to call them fifth notes, followed by dotted tenth notes.
I remember first time hearing Animals as Leaders in 2009 i was stunned. Couldn't guess where the first beat is so i felt lost and i loved it. Thanks to Metal, now I'm so familiar with irregular rhythms patterns.
Great video, Charles! Been a subscriber for a while, but I clicked on this video specifically because Tigran was in the thumbnail. I've been fascinated by his rhythms for years, and his scatting is a far more polished example that I can show others of how/why I geek out about complex rhythms and drum patterns in my head.
I've been testing how healed my hearing is by (re)listening to a bunch of your videos. This video reminded me I can still access some parts of music, even with my busted, muffled, robo-pitchy ears 😊 Keep up the good work!
That way to aproach polyrithms and odd signatures with vocal phrases and common speech remind me how Marco Minemann explain it, and once became musical to you is a joy!
They say everything is 4/4 if you’re brave enough, but true courage is counting everything in 1/1
the way the video-tracked finger-tap at 0:51 makes me giggle every time... I am so easily amused
So the phrasing is 332222
4/4 is usually felt as either 2222 or 332, so you brain here does 332 222, or 4/4+3/4. In isolation this is the most natural feel. The thing about any odd rhythm is that you can quadrouple it and then play on 4/4...like obviously. This song just does that, essentially turning a 7/4 rhythm at 120bpm or so into a 4/2 rhythm at 60pm. It does this really gradually with heavy subdivisions, but its no different really than fading in a syncopated slower tempo (by 4/7ths) pulse while fading out the original.
I love this stuff! I’m a trained opera singer who has worked as a non-singing opera musician for the past 25 years, and I’m constantly analyzing and picking apart the structure and rhythm of interesting pop songs I hear. I remember hearing Ne-Yo’s "Let Me Love You" years ago and trying to figure out the time signature; the vocal part is all dotted eighth notes and tied sixteenth and eighth notes across bar lines, so finding the 4/4 structure underneath took me a few minutes. Maybe not as difficult as Britten writing polymetric and polyrhythmic music, but still very rhythmically interesting.
Try Nightwish, they're switching their rhythms and keys through a lot of their songs to change the pace😊
While the entire song isn't complicated like these are, I'm reminded of the first time I heard Anima by Alex Smoke. It starts off with all these seemingly random percussive sounds that are in an 8-measure pattern, so the sounds don't repeat enough for you to get a sense of the beat. Then the kick drum comes in with 4 on the floor and it all clicks. Such a cool moment and I never get tired of the look on people's face when I introduce them to the song.
Some unconscious version of this is probably why I find the Ruins album Tzomborgha so danceable, while my friends ask if it's even music.
Joe Jackson's "Will Power" (from the album of the same name) starts by layering disconnected rhythms on top of each other, one at a time, until suddenly 4/4 time condenses out the ether. Once you've listened to it enough you can count it from the start, but until you get your brain wrapped around it, it's more than a bit confounding.
As for polyrhythms, I would suggest going all the way back to the 50s and Dave Brubeck. Just give a listen to "Kathy's Waltz" from _Time Out_. It's in 4. No, it's in 3. No, 4. And by the time he leads you through it, you can hear and feel 4/4 and 3/4 all at the same time.
My last band was a technical death metal band. The main song writer wrote all the music in odd time signatures. 3/8, 5/8, 7/8 and then just to mess with you, he'd add one MORE 8th note on the repeat. So the ONE time you play an 8/8, it actually messes you up because you finally liked into that odd groove only to trip on that 8th note. Then it goes back to being odd again. It was nuts. Sometimes the drummer would actually play a 4/4 groove underneath the odd beats creating a NEW feel.
The intro to that first song uses a pattern often used in 5/4. I think that thinking of it as 5/4 that metrically modulates later to 4/4 using quintuplets is more user friendly than thinking of it in terms of quintuplets from the start. The first two beats serve as a grounding point in every measure, before the mayhem of 4 dotted eight hits in a row.
I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU COVERED II_L, THEY'RE FAMOUS FOR CREATING THESE CRAZY RHYTHMIC FEELS!!
Consider checking out the rest of their songs because it has that same feeling of intrigue.
I know what this is. Some rookie was making a beat in Protools and had no idea what he was doing. Then someone more learned came along and said "that sounds dope, let's build on it"!!!
My brain: any complex rhythm just feels like 4/4 when you dissociate enough.
Sometimes it's a broken 4/4 but I simply can't think in any other rhythm terms and time signatures
Zappa did these sort of "Nested quintuplets"/"Septuplets" all the time. Steve Vai talks about transcribing them as a young 19 yo kid, mailing them to Frank to see it they were correct. It ultimately landed him the job of Zappa's guitar player and official transcriptionist for several years. There are lots of interviews here on YT. The @ChananHanspal(el?) channel has some of the best.
I never count. I just feel. The last 9:18 was not a "what?!" for me. It is a lovely example of a nice feeling 4/4. It is simple. I cannot write nor read it in notes, but I just have a wide smile on my face, eyes closed and "feeling" it as a "regular 4/4".
Strong One (Masked Man) is 4/4, looping as three beats at 126 bpm, two at 180, one at 236, one at 126, one at 102
Sometimes, jazz feels like you do something wrong on purpose and get applauded for it. I love jazz.
I love when I spontaneously write something and work it out on an instrument, the whole time thinking I'm playing in 5/4 or 7/8 or something weird like that but its just that it has this bump and swing and is really in 4/4.
Depressing absence of Lateralus recognition (Lateralus by TOOL)
If you haven’t heard it, and you want to figure it out for yourself, don’t press “show more”.
The chorus of Lateralus is a sequence of 9/8-8/8-7/8, which corresponds to their theme of the Fibonacci Sequence (the next number is the sum of the previous two numbers: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, *987*…). This theme is also shown in the first half of each verse in syllable count:
Black (1)
Then (1)
White are (2)
All I see (3)
In my infancy (5)
Red and yellow then came to be (8)…
Back to main topic, the sequence of time signatures 9/8-8/8-7/8 adds to 24/8, which can be simplified to 3 measures of 4/4.
Well, technically it IS just a subset of rhythm, with 4/4 just being the pieces bar lines. In Irish fiddling this is even more evident, with what I call the rhythmic equivalent to microtones/Xen-harmony.
Don't really know the specifics, but I do know that not everything can fit into western notation.
Meshugga are awesome at making 4/4 time signatures that sound like weird alien math beats. I'm not even a fan of their music, I'm just too old for that djent metal stuff, but damn do you just have to appreciate the technical skill and math rock vibes.
No way, a rhythm video including, let alone OPENING with a II-L song? Based af
I’ve been waiting decades for someone else to finally tell me I’m not crazy, yes this does exist. The is the dancer spinning one way or the other was the best description to this illusion
A lot of IDM songs has strange rhythm. But for me the strangest song was a track I found in stick music: kevin graham - together. You also can find it on RUclips, but I’m not sure that i can give link here
I watched Simon Phillips play live in a small club many years ago with a drummer friend of mine. That was the first time I discovered that no matter how hard I tried, I could still get lost counting to 4.
Coming from a classical singing background, composers have been messing with where the feel of One is for ages. Brahms in particular comes to mind. I suspect humans have been doing this forever. I think it can have hypnotic and trance properties in the right context and it definitely helps change your perspective.
Some Chords by Deadmau5 comes to mind. I love the way it builds up the beat in the beginning.
Gavin Harrison explains such things pretty thouroughly in his "Rhythmic Illusions" book, also Dave Weckl, Benny Greb, Jojo Mayer and other drummers often mention that.
I call them music riddles, and I love to find them. Dawn of Midi hits hard like this.
I've been experimenting a lot with polyrhythms. To me this seems similar to something a wrote a few years ago where the drums and guitar played 4/4, the base was playing a 3/4 and then there was piano alternating between 7/8 and 9/8. It was done in a way where I gradually introduced each instrument starting with the acoustic guitar, then drum, and when the base came in you got a bit thrown for a loop (but not too hard to get into), then came the piano playing this arpeggio alternating between 7/8 and 9/8.
It actually worked quite well since it was this gradual buildup and because.
I have also experimented with polyrhythmic drumbeats where the bass drum might do a 3/4 and the snare is doing 4/4.
This seems to me like there's polyrhythms going on, I still think that you should think of this melody still as being in 7/8 especially since the base drum and also the pad in the background seems to follow the rhythm of the melody melody. it's more like the snare drum is doing it's own little thing the until the melody is over where some things start following the snare drum.
I was experimenting a lot with tempo as well in the past and realised that if you have a song where the the hihat plays straight eight notes at 120bpm you can then slow the tempo down to a point where the eight note can play in triplets at the exact same speed as it did before the tempo change without the triplets (80bpm). This idea can be used in some quite interesting mind twisting ways as well. For example you could have a ritardando to a tempo that feels the same as it was before but with a tripplet feel. It's all math :D
However I am too tired to sit down and analyse this son in depth.. hahaha
But yeah I believe you might overcomplicate things by subdividing into 5s or whatever.
I remember listening to Lingus from Snarky Puppy for the first time. When it gets to that bit where everything drops out, then you get those quick kick drums, and the keyboard solos start ... I spent ages trying to work out what the time signature was for those kick drum beats. Then I finally realised it was 4/4. LOL. I felt so dumb. Haha
That's exactly why I like glitchhop. It has some songs that break my brain.
Played a percussion ensemble in high school called "Valley of Nepal, written in 7/4. It has strong cords on 1, 2, and 3, but then the and beats of 4,5 and 6. Funky little beat.
And then it threw in quarter note triplets, just for fun.
The Brotherly one sounds a bit like an extended hemiola, but it's just amazing!
I would love to hear a video game boss fight being composed like this.
Honestly, this is a lot like how bagpipe music works. You can cut and dot anything as long as it's resolved at the end of the bar.
I wonder how much thought the artist and producers actually put into it, and how much is just "yeah that's cool"
Another thing: for sheer rhythmic invention, I always come back to Goldie. He is the master.
I've got to add in Videotape by Radiohead. The entire track takes place half a beat before the one! (Confirmed in a 2007 interview with David Byrne where Thom Yorke says "The piano is ahead - it’s an eighth ahead of where the one is.") The Bonnaroo version gives the best effect (IMHO).