You CAN do that. It's called Konnakol in Indian classical, I've found it fairly useful for playing in odd time signatures. There are five basic words: 1 beat = 'Ta/Da' 2 beats = 'Taka/Dhaka" 3 beats =' Ta-ki-ta' 4 beats = 'Ta-ka-di-me' 5 beats =' Ta-ti-ki-na-tun' So for larger than 5 say 7/4 you'd combine the phrase for 3 and 4 to get 7 total syllables:'ta-ki-ta-ta-ka-di-me'. I guess you say it faster to speed the pulse up to 7/8? Theres many great tutorials on yt, and I've only watched like 3 but check them out, see what you think
+Raghav Rao Great! Were you trained in tabla as a kid? Also, I took hindustani classical lessons for 10 months, and left while learning ektaal ...so are words like 'tirakata' used in these taals also used likewise for different time signatures?
I watched until 5:14 before I realized this wasn't actually about speaking in odd meters. I was hoping to be able to learn a new way to annoy my coworkers. Still interesting, but not what I expected.
I just guess for many people the information density and depth is a bit to high. I have to concentrate a lot myself and occasionally use the pause function, but I like it. Additionally there is much analytical discussion of the musical theory and instrument function. Highly interesting for me - maybe most people would like to know how to play the latest hit step by step?
eryximachos42, I think you're kinda right, like it's not so much that it's too dense or deep for people to understand so much as the algorithm has a hard time parsing what the videos are. I haven't come across many other channels like this, so RUclips probably has a hard time figuring out who to recommend these videos to. Also, when viewing the list of videos on the channel, I've found the sight of his titles and icons a little daunting. The names are all too long to fit in their spaces and every icon is his face next to capital block text with a black-white contrast sort of palette. It's more visual information than a person should be processing when they're looking for some video to interest them.
I've always tested my rhythmic perception by imagining a click against my actions (walking, speaking, etc) while transcribing it in my head, and found it really helped my polyrhythmic awareness generally :)
I've been a private music teacher at my home for over thirty years. So please consider my background when I share: your videos are brilliant, fun while serious and always inspiring to me and all my students. Thanks so much for what you bring to the art.
Coming from a classical music background it is almost natural to switch between different rhythms and keys even in the same piece. It is almost sad that with such a rich vocabulary we end up always using the same words. It seams that in the last 50 years western music has basically been limited to the keys and rhythm of Pachelbel's canon.
yoshyoka Yeah, I also have a background in Classical Music so most of this seems rather obvious and natural for me. I also agree with the limitations of 4/4 and major key registers. I guess thats why I've always been such a fan of Russian composers hahaha
I'd say Bach, in the Goldberg variationen and well tempered Klavier he experimented with 1824-/16. There are also east European pieces that come in 7/8. Yet the list goes on and on, check the Wiki page about it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_works_in_unusual_time_signatures There are some very interesting works there! Moreover I like that in most classical pieces you have variations inside the same piece, something that has almost been lost in contemporary music.
Listening to a lot of prog rock and prog metal has given me a better sense of rhythm when playing in odd metres, although many ridiculous time signatures still completely befuddle me. Any sig with a top number above 10 (other than 12) is just a dick move lol
But Oscar, Any time signature above 5 can be subdivided by any set of numbers. Even 7 can be distributed between measures of 3 and 4, just as 9 can be distributed between measures of 5 and 4. At that point it is just breaking down the best feel of subdivisions.
Ben DeUrso Yeah, I guess. I've recently been learning a song which's main melody is in 11/8. It's actually surprisingly easy once you know the song and the subdivisions.
I have only watched a couple of music instructional many years ago, mostly watch gaming stuff but yet this popped up into my recommendations and I was as perplexed as you about it. However RUclips as usual is pretty good at predicting videos I will like and this one I enjoyed. On video topic I never knew what polyrythms were until another guitarist began to tease me about using them extensively. To me the "off beat" pauses added a nice dynamic to an otherwise generic sounding riff. When he teased me I looked into it and didn't really understand what I was reading though I got the general idea that these were rythmic patterns which utilized odd rythms. After watching this however I now understand why he would tease me for picking them up almost intuitively, really is a weird thing to intuit when it goes against everything we hear in our ordinary lives.
I havn't a clue what he is talking about and i do know how to read and play sheet music for clarinet, including different time signatures other than 4/4....... i guess its because hes not really using many musical words.
What's also interesting about (especially) 5 and 7 is they can be easily "doubled" from 5/8 to 5/4, just by playing different rhythmic stresses over the bar line. Fun stuff. Great example is Pink Floyd's "Money" where the lyrics stress every 2 beats at the end of the verse, giving it a feel of 7/4 for one long measure.
I like that too. Two bars of 7/8 with a quarter note lead over it. It feels less angular than pure 7/8, and the second bar can have an interesting back beat feel.
You can also try walking in 5/2, nodding your head in 5/4 and speaking rhythms in 5/8. You don't need to throw away your bodies connection with pulse just because the meter is odd.
Pat Davey totally, I teach kids guitar and I've realized that 4/4 is learned not ingrained. Young kids don't seem to mind what time signature you throw at them and they can feel it through their bodies just fine. I find that odd time signatures feel best when the beat flows side to side through my body rather than up and down like 4/4.
One tip that helps especially when trying to solo phrase over odd times is to think the pulse slower or think about an "override" as we drummers say. If you count every bar of 5/8 in a bit faster tempos in your head you'll get really scared about losing the 1 and end up with really boring and stiff phrases always ending on one. But if you count it in 5/4 in a over-the bar fashion everything kinda comes way more relaxed and groovy. I sometimes in solo sections even if it's something weird like 17/16 just think about the quarter-notes(or sometimes even half-notes) and try to forget that it's even in 17.
+FrustratedTurtle This is definitely true! A popular tip for soloing at breakneck tempos (quarter note equals 300 and above) in jazz is to think about whole notes instead of quarter notes. When you're feeling pulses at 75 bpm versus 300, your playing feels a million times more relaxed and fluid. The thing is, when you're thinking of half note/whole note pulses, you're still subdividing those half notes into smaller increments, its just that your body isn't latching on to every subdivision. The way I think of fast 5/8 is basically like a slow quarter note which has been subdivided into quintuplets. That's what I'm doing here in this Sungazer video... ruclips.net/video/of_BPHHHY1w/видео.html There's no way I could count to 5 that fast. Instead, I've worked out how to feel a quintuplet subdivision (by working my way through all of the 5/8 vocab), and then I just feel the whole bar in 1.
Adam Neely That's also great advice, but rather than thinking quintuplets I meant in a way where the quarter-note would be the off-beat every other bar of say 5/8, like for example in Stings "Seven Days". A great way to make 5/8 groove.
+Frustratedturtle For clarification, 1 2 3 4 5 I 1 2 3 4 5 . . . . . The periods are where the pulse is. So you're saying that the pulse should alternate per measure?
I smell Gavin Harrison influence here ;) He is one of the few mucisians that got me to turn my back to 4/4s and explore the borderless world of odd time signatures. I totally agree with you."Overriding" makes everything more interesting and easier for non-musicians to follow, a little bit challenging in the beggining though. P.S I bet you've heard of "Porcupine Tree - What Happens Now" right?
That's exactly what you mean when you say you need to become fluent in the language of 5/8. It's not 5/8, it's a bar, just like boom-tchk-boom-tchk is in 4/4, which allows you to float around that structure but retain the same signature. So in the same way that someone fluent in a language no longer thinks "this is the prepossessive, so it needs to go before the noun," it just IS, so it is with playing in unusual time signatures. Once you have it, it just is.
Any notation software: "would you like to notate in 4/4, 3/4, or any odd meter?" Adam: "I'll go for the odd one" Software: "how odd do you want it to be?" Adam: "YES PLEASE!"
@@pablogriswold421 Oh not a specific song, I was just joking about Allan's songs having such bizarre chord / measure timing that you have to think beyond time signatures.
Thank you very much! I've BEEN struggling with odd time signatures for a week now and you managed to make it all click in 6 minutes and 24 seconds! Of course I still have a long way to go to consider myself a Justin Chancellor's padawan... Keep up the good work!
You're right; odd time can be very tough to break into, and immersion is the best way to learn. Find a type of music you love which utilizes odd time signatures and listen to it *constantly*. For me Afro-Cuban & Latin music genres really helped me get comfortable playing in odd time. Also, TOOL's music is a great example of odd time. Personally I had a lot of success by taking some of Danny Carey's advice. He said the way he learned--and the way that TOOL approaches odd time--is to throw "the book" and the fancy terminology away and just focus what you feel in the music. He claims that most all of what he's written with TOOL has been through feeling the music, not by learning theory. Obviously that's easier said than done. However, there is something to be said about this approach. I'm almost 30 and I've been a musician all my life, and I never learned more than the basics of music theory and notation. Despite not knowing music theory very well, I've managed to learn to play drums, guitar, bass, and accordion in odd time signatures. In my opinion (like Danny Carey's), it's more about feeling the music than it is about understanding the notes on the page. On the other hand, if you know your music theory really well then you'll have a good head start on learning the fundamentals, and you'll understand what you're playing better in the process. What I took away from Danny Carey's advice was to pick an odd time signature like 5 or 7 and just jam in it. It's a lot easier for drummers to do because they control the beat, but if you play bass or guitar you can definitely find a drum track in 5, 7, 11, etc. and play along with it. That's always been the way that I learn best; by imitation and not by reading books.
Dude that second paragraph you wrote was so true. So I tried invincible. I was just having a hard time. But I was reading notes I found online. And I couldn’t get it. But I just literally listened over and over and I just went for it. Sometimes seeing makes it more complicated than hearing and feeling it. It really is. The juman brain is fuckin complicated man.
I was very fortunate to have been brought up on Pink Floyd, ELP and Genesis, moving on to Jazz as I grew older, and then bands like Dream Theater in my teen years, so I've always found odd time signatures surprisingly easy to internalise. Great point about claves - most musicians I meet these days seem to be entirely constrained to basic claves within 5/4 7/4 5/8 etc. I like to compose in those time signatures but try to shake up the rhythm as often as possible while remaining smooth. Far more engaging than just jamming on the "Take 5" clave for days. Especially helps with improvisation. Jordan Rudess has a lot of great practices for understanding different time signatures (and poly rhythms)
I'm terrible at improvising in time signatures other than 3 or 4. But for some reason my body really agrees with 5, 7 and 11. They're for some reason a timing I end up humming or writing music in.
hahahahahahahahahaah!.. You got me. Sort of... actually it's an idiomatic expression (in Brazil at least). Yes, yes, it's a very unpolite one. But it's one of those expressions that people use all the time (in a very informal context) to say and emphacize how great is something. So... I could say that the channel is "nice" or "great", but "do caralho!" just feels right to me haha
I'm portuguese and I assure it means what he said. Do not translate word by word. If we translate from english to portuguese, spider man = a spider that is a man(??). And for expressions like "put on a show" = phsically putting on a spectacle as clothing (???). So he is not fooling you. Saying "do caralho" is close to saying "fucking nice/awesome/cool' but it's impossible to accurately translate.
I'm very impressed at how civil we are being here over one obscene expression. We are having all this civilized conversation, conecting three parts of the globe in such a fraternal way... could it be that we are revolutionizing the internet?!?!?!
I've never had any issues deciphering odd timing. What has always worked for me as a guitarist is thinking of everything I write or hear as repeating patterns. I've done that four as long as I can remember, and everything sounds natural to me when I follow it like that. Not sure that makes much sense to anyone but me, but its the way I simplify everything regardless of how complex it can be
If you were brought up on blues chances are your body beats in 12/8. My body works on thirty second notes :) . I enjoyed this and anyone who listens to prog or Dillinger Escape Plan will know unusual time signatures without even realising it.
I came up on prog, blues and psychedelic rock so when I finally picked up guitar a few years ago odd time signatures were natural. Even now if I come up with a song it will be in an odd time signature.
Ginsuma punk for me but played in a prog band in my teens. Also had lessons when younger so without even realising it I was often playing fills in more unusual time signatures like 6/8. Time is a strange thing with music as often I just play to the music without even realising we've from 4/4 to 7/8.
I dont know , Since I've been listening to too much Progressive Rock ( KingCrimson, Dream theater , Rush and stuff odd times don't really sound that strange .
Your's too? Haha! Man I grew up on records like "One Size Fits All", "Apostrophe", "The Grand Wazoo" and many more. It definitely gave me a much better sense of rhythm, at least in that a beat doesn't have to be in 4.
5:52 Immidiately thought of Animals As Leaders (and most bands in the genre). "Hey, we can totally nail playing the root notes in 15/16 and 6/4, right? Oops, a solo, time to get back to 4/4". The struggle is real and the music is mechanical. But that's likable too, I guess.
+Mezurashii5 Out of any progressive rock/metal band, I actually feel like Animals as Leaders is the most interesting and musical - or at least they're doing things in such a different way than anybody else that I find myself drawn to what they do more. But yes, I do know what you're talking about! I call it the "calculator" method of composition. Need a cool riff? Start adding numbers together! 2+3+1+4+5+2+3+1+7+whatever = Groove!
Adam Neely I've just started getting into them lately, so I might have too little understanding of their songs right now, but their melodic parts have always seemed really mechanical to me, mainly because the phrases they play are usually only one measure long. They are one of the prog bands I like the least, perhaps because they're the most focused on unusual rythms. Bands like Sithu Aye, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Gojira, Leprous and Scale the Summit all do that better in my opinion by using it with taste and only when it's needed. Well, Scale the Summit uses it quite a lot, but they just kind of pull it off ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Adam Neely going back to an analogy you made in another video, the "calculator" method is like a "Prescriptive" music theory method, while your analysis of bands using it is a "descriptive" music theory analysis. AMIRITE?! Seems like a little prescription here and there is helpful (especially in prog).
Excellent piece. This problem is exactly why contemporary composers often clarify the subdivision by expressing odd meters as addition problems, i.e. 2+3/8 instead of 5/8
As a percussionist this is basically what I do. I think you are pretty great at sharing this information, so thanks. If you try and listen to some music from africa (djembe) and india (tabla) you will find a never ending wealth of knowledge about 5/8 and 6/8 and 12/8 rhythms, oh and in hindustani classic they have a just about every number of rhythms, 4,5,6, 7 8 9 10. 12. 14. 16 and they have written out notation for many songs. Its thousands of years old, very cool if you like patterns within patterns.
I like it best when a musician creates his songs without a clue of what the academics are about it. I'm sure Jimmy Hendrix didn't study music theory before he picked up a guitar. Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson and even the freaking Beatles just played what sounded good to them. That's the best thing about music, is how you can be an awkward person with hardly social skills, low self-steam, be crazy in so many ways and then, when you play your instrument, it all comes together, it all fits, it's the perfect world you've been looking for. You've reached heaven on your own, you don't need someone to take you there.
This is an articulate description of most music, house, funk, hip-hop. This makes a lot of sense when I'm trying to figure out the concept. It's comprehensive and concise in uneven parts, long, short, long, short, long, long.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, mostly because I have not read the comments. Just to throw it out there, when you say clave as a way of marking off time signatures, it is also the name of a percussive instrument (a pair of sticks) that produce a click when struck together that are most often played on the beats you had mentioned in the video. Best wishes!
Do you have a copy of the 7/8 Vocabulary Building Sheet in a PDF version that you show in the video?? Thanks man! Super entertaining lessons man and informative too!! what a concept! :)
when I get odd time signatures, I learn them by doubling everything, then slowly, and confidently, I go back to the bigger beat. I'm working on a piece in 9/8 and going from 9 beats in a measure to 3 is terrifying but somehow so satisfying when done right.
Worst time signature I've ever encountered was a Serbian folk dancing song written in 9/8. You're off beat every other bar and it's incredibly difficult to count.
5/8 is my favourite odd signature to play in. One of the first metal songs I wrote started like (5/8 + 5/8 + 5/8 + 6/8) * 4 then moved to 4/4. another fluctuated back and forth from 5/8 to 6/8. Tool and Dream Theater are big influences. :)
I've been trying to understand time signatures for so long, and you're comparison to putting emphasis on diffrent words in a sentence totally makes so much sense. That also explains why they can sound the same but use different meters. i get it now!!
I break up odd time signatures in a different way, and get a different number of phrases. If we use what is called the "composition" in number theory we get that any positive number has 2^n-1 partitions. For 5, it becomes 16 numbers, starting with 1+1+1+1+1, and then moving to 2+1+1+1 and so on. I found that working through these with a metronome clicking on the one was a great way to get into odd-meter. Additionally, if someone isn't familiar with odd-time signatures, using konnakol can be a great way to get familiar. Just some food for thought for people who aren't fluent in odd-times. Oh, and here's a picture showing the 16 divisions of 5/8 with the accompanying konnakol syllables. imgur.com/ippvn2a
+Ian Banghart Hey Ian, thanks for that! I know so little about Konnakol, but I do know that it can be incredibly useful. You're missing some rhythms, though, in your calculation - all the rhythms that do not start on the downbeat of the measure! That's how I got the 31 number (which you can see in my 5/8 worksheet) - if we take 2^4 + 2^3 + 2^2 + 2^1 we get, you guessed it, 31!
+Ian Banghart No, please, it's awesome, I learned some stuff today! It's just that the math necessary to describe it wasn't 100% there - I'll try reading up on number theory to see what sort of equation might more elegantly describe it than my method. I know very little about math beyond what I barely remember from high school, so I just glean what I can from looking at patterns. Thanks for giving some context!
+Adam Neely Thanks. Lately I've been trying to use a mixture of number theory and Konnakol to mess around with odd-meter as well as polyrhythms and some other things. If you want someone to bounce ideas off, feel free to send me a message.
Sorry for intruding in this conversation but I took great interest in this counting, since my work involves combinatorics. Adam, your computation is a very famous number: it's the number of different binary strings of length n, which is 2^n - 1. So for n = 5 it gives 31, and for n = 7 it gives 127. Neat! However, let's consider n = 5 for a moment and look at what that means. That would be simply counting how many ways you can populate 5 eigth note slots. So 10000 would be an eighth note followed by a rest until the end of the measure, 01000 would be an eighth rest, followed by an eighth note and a rest... etc. But for this to account to our number of 31 possibilities, it would have to (i). be counting the 00000 combination which is kind of meaningless and you didn't account for in your sheet, and (ii). ignore the number of attacks (e.g., 11000 doesn't tell us if it's two attacks or one), which of course is not what you have done. From (i) we should have one less word, but more notably, from (ii) we should have a lot more words. So, for instance, looking at your words with 1 attack, why don't we have a measure that consists of an eigth note in the beginning and then 4 pulses of rest? Sorry if this is a silly question, for I have yet a lot to learn in music. But it appears that the vocabulary sheet could have a lot more words depending on how you obtain it. Could you explain your process a bit more?
I was having a hell of a time trying to write out a melody - a sort of skip-along shuffle beat - until I figured out that it was in 12/8 time, triplets over four. Not an odd meter, but that clave is in there all over the place! Great video, thanks!
Same with any prog. Band. Listen to "Driven" by Rush, or "Honor Thy Father" by Dream Theater, both those songs alternate between 4/4, 6/8, 7/8 and 5/8 after almost every bar
I'm a drummer but a lot of these concepts lend themselves very nicely since both instruments are primarily rhythm based. It's really exciting learning of new ways to tackle concepts and I will definitely be showing these videos to my students. Sub
Excellent presentation! The long step, short step concept was developed by the Ancient Greeks to enable Hoplite phalanx formations to coordinate unit movements in combat. Directions were transmitted by musical instruments as to be heard over the noise of battle; as my Greek friend with the Masters in Byzantine Music tells me. As he puts in: Rome came in, and the world went to 4/4.
The first music I really got into was Rush's Hemispheres album, and lots of prog rock from there. So I've never had a problem with odd time sigs. I love them. The first jazz I listened to was Brubeck's Time Out album. I'm a math dork, too, so I guess it figures.
Yeah, the key is to find these 'subgrupping' patterns and 'hits'. The same with any signature. It becomes natural and necessary with large odd signatures. Like PumpumpumPumpumPumpumpumPumpum (5/8), and not pumpumpumpumpum. That being said, if you train your ear constantly with odd, large times, you will recognize even long chains of pumpumpumpumpumpumpum without obvious Pums inside. I sometimes play a game that I invented that is adding one beat until I get tired. So, I make pum pumpum pumpumpum pumpumpumpum, +1 everytime so I reach signatures of 33, for example, playing the same note. It's a relaxing, tribal experience
I love odd signatures...That's why I like Jethro Tull and Rush. I enjoy the complexity. Speaking of complex time signatures, here's a fun fact. The Led Zeppelin song "Black Dog" (you know...hey hey momma said the way you move...) was not supposed to be in 4/4 time. Unfortunately, the drummer, John Bonham, didn't know how to keep the intended rhythm, so he just more or less forced the song into 4/4 time. At various times during the song you can hear a few off-beat cymbal hits during the instrumental breaks between the a capella lyrics that he uses to get back to 4/4 time. There are even a few times where the guitar lags a brief moment behind the drums which means either Bonham was trying to match the guitar or Jimmy Page was trying to match the drums...either way, once you hear it, you can't unhear it. Kind of makes me sad that one of the most famous rock bands in history can't play anything more complex than 4/4 time.
A couple tips... #1) When counting, use "sev" and "lev" instead of "seven" and eleven. 123456sev,123456sev, etc. #2) Create looping 5, 7, and/or 11 meter drum, bass and chord patterns, and solo on top of them
Omegachai "meshuggah are 4/4?" maybe a lot of their new albums have songs that are 4/4 yes, but most of their old album songs were not. Meshuggah is also a band, not a song...so "they are 4/4" makes no sense
A Johansen Let me rephrase because you're simple. Meshuggah make their music in a 4/4 time signature. The vast majority of their discography is done in 4/4 with small variances in intros. Strictly speaking, Meshuggah have zero polyrhythms. If you want to try be condescending, at least be 1. Correct 2. Not tell someone who owns all their work and knows their time signatures, that their earlier work wasn't 4/4. Because it was. TL;DR Meshuggah aren't polyrhythmic, were never polyrhythmic and base ALL their songs on a 4/4 core signature.
Aaron Leviathan I said Meshuggah are 4/4 because that's their time signature. Period. I wasn't condescending, I was saying it confused because anyone who knows Meshuggah, should know something as basic as their time signature, which 90+% of their music, is in 4/4, and polyrhythms? Too few and far in between to be called a polyrhythmic sound. Insulting my name, calling an argument "retarded" without an intelligent rebuttal. You killed your argument right then and there. If you can't disagree without acting like an angry child who throws ad hominems, don't say anything at all. So by all means, next time you want to "just drop in", don't be an idiot. Meshuggah = 4/4. End of discussion.
Rhyan Eddy the reason why you come off as condescending (to me at least) is because you don't really elaborate on your points. I know it can be a bit exhausting but it seems like you're actively holding back information in order to make yourself seem smarter. ya well have a nice whatever
He said "in graduate school." While it may be that he has an MFA (which is also a terminal degree), he certainly talks like someone with a PhD. (I can say that in part because I have a PhD do, in computer engineering.) We bow do your awesomeness, Doctor Neely. Truly amazing content.
I don't think it is possible to overstate the value of becoming fluent in odd time signatures. Great video, it really gets the point across well I think.
GERntleMAN If you're looking for music with odd meters and polyrythms, I'd check out progressive rock and math rock. Some of my favorite artists who make use of odd timing are Elephant Gym, Rooftops, 37500 Yens, American Football, Fall of Troy, Delta Sleep, A Lot Like Birds, TTNG, and Invalids (who my band, Strelitzia has had the pleasure of opening for :D). A couple good locals from my area I'd recommend checking out are Gold Season and Not Nearly. Of course, my recommendations tend toward math rock moreso than progressive, and perhaps "odd meter" wasn't quite what you were looking for, but they're all bands worth checking out nonetheless. For good jazz with odd meter, of which I have a bit less experience, I'd check out Tony Grey.
Some songs I'd recommend for odd time signatures: Dream Theater - The Dance of Eternity Genesis - Dance on a Volcano Will add more when I think of them. Also, Hunter, I must check out some of those bands. I honestly haven't heard any of them before.
Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" introduced me (and probably a lot folks) to the non-four pulse measure. I have loved that off balance beat ever since. I noticed you played some Steve Reich music in the background too. One of my musical heroes!
When me and our school district honor band were practicing this one song in 5/4, red planet (my concert band instrument is trombone btw), our band was terrible for the first two or three times through, but then we started to actually get where to place the accents and dynamics. There was a point at which we just felt the music flow though us in all it's intensity, especially in the fugato part. About a year later I pulled it out (at that time I learned acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and starting piano, so let's say I had some experience in odd time signatures), so I picked it up again and started playing it and I just felt how amazing it was to find out for the first time how to play in 5/4 and here I am now, watching a video on the very kind of rhythm that I feared no less than 1 and a half years ago, and writing a piano sonata in 6/8. I like looking back.
this is the first video I've watched of yours and this is good content! Also, I'm glad you had the nuance to mention that 4/4 is the predominant time signature in the occident and not so much the rest of the world.
A clinician I've worked with used the phrase "I though you were driving to San Francisco", as putting emphasis on any of the words in that sentence changes its meaning, to express how putting emphasis on certain notes can entirely change the 'meaning' of the passage of music. Very cool concept.
Just listen to Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk" and everything will magically become clear. And if you still don't get it...time to switch to another hobby... ;)
I agree. I can play it (fairly badly) on the piano. The most difficult thing is to maintain the tempo when it goes into 4/4 then back again into 9/8. It would be helpful to have more fingers though I only have the normal number.
Serenade by Derek Bourgeois is an excellent example of odd time, with the piece being in 13/8 and 11/8. Legend has it that his wife walked with a limp so he wrote the piece in that she wouldn't feel self-conscious when the dancers get tripped up after the ceremony.
I watched the video keeping this comment in mind to see what I thought you would've likely mistaken for arrogance, but even with that assumption I'm not sure what made you say this
And without being a knucklehead and insulting you, Darren I want to say that Adam is REALLY not trying to be arrogant or egocentric. I teach at a college and play in a bunch of bands and I sometimes wonder if I come across arrogant or as a know it all when I talk. Adam is really just explaining this as easy as he can without trying to go over people's heads. And THAT sometimes DOES come across as "talking down" to people but it is really trying to be simple and get the point across. The odd thing is that in African and Asian countries it is as hard and unnatural for them to play in 4/4 as it is for western pop cultures to count in anything BUT 4/4.
Most of the music I compose is in odd meters. I have really come to like 13/8. For some reason, 3 3s and 2 2s just has a natural feeling for me. I also suggest listening to Balkan music extensively to get a good feel for the "short" and "long" rhythmic combinations (claves). I use the "Mission Impossible Theme" to help people understand it as well. It is probably the most ingrained "odd meter" song most people have heard. I also liken it to an "extension" of the tresillo (first half of the "son" clave 3-3-2) that was heard a lot in rock music since the 50s, especially a lot of Elvis Presley tunes. Just add another 2 to this and you get the feel of the MI theme: 3-3-2-2. =_)
I was wondering how you had such an extensive grasp on music, and then you said graduate school. Makes sense now. So glad to learn from your hard work.
![Understanding and Using Odd Time Signatures - 6 Examples [MUSIC THEORY / RHYTHM]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/T8AaalPfxYk/mqdefault.jpg)
I thought you were referring to vocally speaking words in a 5/8 signature.
in hindsight i guess thats what the " " were for. . .
Darren Graham true. I didn't notice them at first
davincent98 Likewise.
You CAN do that. It's called Konnakol in Indian classical, I've found it fairly useful for playing in odd time signatures. There are five basic words:
1 beat = 'Ta/Da'
2 beats = 'Taka/Dhaka"
3 beats =' Ta-ki-ta'
4 beats = 'Ta-ka-di-me'
5 beats =' Ta-ti-ki-na-tun'
So for larger than 5 say 7/4 you'd combine the phrase for 3 and 4 to get 7 total syllables:'ta-ki-ta-ta-ka-di-me'.
I guess you say it faster to speed the pulse up to 7/8?
Theres many great tutorials on yt, and I've only watched like 3 but check them out, see what you think
+Raghav Rao Great! Were you trained in tabla as a kid? Also, I took hindustani classical lessons for 10 months, and left while learning ektaal ...so are words like 'tirakata' used in these taals also used likewise for different time signatures?
When you finally start to get these "by feel" it's amazing. 7 is glorious.
Opens up SO MUCH creativity for patterns and rhythms.
I watched until 5:14 before I realized this wasn't actually about speaking in odd meters. I was hoping to be able to learn a new way to annoy my coworkers. Still interesting, but not what I expected.
you seem like one of those high school band kids who turned out to be cool once he left
djjazzyjeff123 quite litarelly
So... None of them??
Damn lmaooooo
Gabe Rishworth just because you can press the keyboard, doesn’t mean that you should.
Gabe Rishworth I think he means that he’s so cool that he can still hold it together even though he accidentally got way too stoned.
I dont know how this channel gets so little traffic. What you do is tremendous!
+TheRocketGrandma Thanks Rocket Grandma! Spread the word!
+TheRocketGrandma Agreed, what a great teacher he is!!
I just guess for many people the information density and depth is a bit to high. I have to concentrate a lot myself and occasionally use the pause function, but I like it. Additionally there is much analytical discussion of the musical theory and instrument function. Highly interesting for me - maybe most people would like to know how to play the latest hit step by step?
For real. This is one of the best music channels on RUclips. Bar none.
eryximachos42, I think you're kinda right, like it's not so much that it's too dense or deep for people to understand so much as the algorithm has a hard time parsing what the videos are. I haven't come across many other channels like this, so RUclips probably has a hard time figuring out who to recommend these videos to.
Also, when viewing the list of videos on the channel, I've found the sight of his titles and icons a little daunting. The names are all too long to fit in their spaces and every icon is his face next to capital block text with a black-white contrast sort of palette. It's more visual information than a person should be processing when they're looking for some video to interest them.
I've always tested my rhythmic perception by imagining a click against my actions (walking, speaking, etc) while transcribing it in my head, and found it really helped my polyrhythmic awareness generally :)
yeah same here, it develops naturally
Do this as well thought I was weird!
I've been a private music teacher at my home for over thirty years. So please consider my background when I share: your videos are brilliant, fun while serious and always inspiring to me and all my students. Thanks so much for what you bring to the art.
Thanks to Nile, 7/8 feels natural to me. Didn't realise it until someone jammed me.
😂
Monolith Preacher..Yup play some Nile... Return unto Sebek...has a few weird changes..that and Dying Fetus...One Shot One Kill...
Monolith Preacher yeah, 7/8 and 7/4 are some of my favorites. I write so much using 7s.
Thanks to Rush, 7/8 or 7/4 feels natural.
Until they write it to specifically feel unnatural.
a few years ago i made a dumb song in 7/4. it felt so natural to me then, and now it feels confusing
That second groove was so sick
Coming from a classical music background it is almost natural to switch between different rhythms and keys even in the same piece. It is almost sad that with such a rich vocabulary we end up always using the same words. It seams that in the last 50 years western music has basically been limited to the keys and rhythm of Pachelbel's canon.
yoshyoka Yeah, I also have a background in Classical Music so most of this seems rather obvious and natural for me. I also agree with the limitations of 4/4 and major key registers. I guess thats why I've always been such a fan of Russian composers hahaha
+yoshyoka, that is interesting. What would you recommend as a good example of odd time signatures in classics?
I'd say Bach, in the Goldberg variationen and well tempered Klavier he experimented with 1824-/16. There are also east European pieces that come in 7/8. Yet the list goes on and on, check the Wiki page about it:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_works_in_unusual_time_signatures
There are some very interesting works there! Moreover I like that in most classical pieces you have variations inside the same piece, something that has almost been lost in contemporary music.
MA My personal favourite is the 3rd part of Prokofiev's 7th sonata
You´re totally right!
11/16 is a fun one.
dude, don't fuck up the normies
Try 21/16. I've done it. It's ridiculous to keep up with.
Try listening to "pain of salvation - new year's eve". It's the only 21/16 song I've found so far.
And it has a great groove that is not really that hard to follow!
Try also Water by Pain of Salvation, and get penetrated by their madness
whenever he says foray, I hear "fouray"... oh, odd time signatures.
why does this comment have so little likes
anyways i like your music, nice seeing you here
'Fouray' is a Canadian Time sig.,
Listening to a lot of prog rock and prog metal has given me a better sense of rhythm when playing in odd metres, although many ridiculous time signatures still completely befuddle me.
Any sig with a top number above 10 (other than 12) is just a dick move lol
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_works_in_unusual_time_signatures
Thank you, Tim!
But Oscar,
Any time signature above 5 can be subdivided by any set of numbers. Even 7 can be distributed between measures of 3 and 4, just as 9 can be distributed between measures of 5 and 4.
At that point it is just breaking down the best feel of subdivisions.
I'm a big fan of 13/8 (think America from West Side Story with an note at the end) and 15/16 (4/4 with a shortened final beat)
Ben DeUrso Yeah, I guess.
I've recently been learning a song which's main melody is in 11/8.
It's actually surprisingly easy once you know the song and the subdivisions.
I don't play any instruments and I have no idea what half of this meant (and why it appeared in my suggested), but I liked the video regardless xD
That's very nice of you to support such a very well put together video. Other youtubers could learn from this
turbo pascal Thats the power an articulated person has over an audiance.
I have only watched a couple of music instructional many years ago, mostly watch gaming stuff but yet this popped up into my recommendations and I was as perplexed as you about it. However RUclips as usual is pretty good at predicting videos I will like and this one I enjoyed.
On video topic I never knew what polyrythms were until another guitarist began to tease me about using them extensively. To me the "off beat" pauses added a nice dynamic to an otherwise generic sounding riff. When he teased me I looked into it and didn't really understand what I was reading though I got the general idea that these were rythmic patterns which utilized odd rythms. After watching this however I now understand why he would tease me for picking them up almost intuitively, really is a weird thing to intuit when it goes against everything we hear in our ordinary lives.
I havn't a clue what he is talking about and i do know how to read and play sheet music for clarinet, including different time signatures other than 4/4....... i guess its because hes not really using many musical words.
Chances are, he manipulates who sees his videos through tags.
Technical Death Metal has given me a natural 7/16 meter
which isn't too wild obviously
Eastern European music has given my a natural 7/8 meter
Makes me walk like R L R L R L R / R L R L R L R
I walk like LRLRR LRLRR sometimes, hopping on the last R. People cross the road when they see me.
I listened Technical Death many times but didn’t hear this time signature. Can you give some examples?
What's also interesting about (especially) 5 and 7 is they can be easily "doubled" from 5/8 to 5/4, just by playing different rhythmic stresses over the bar line. Fun stuff. Great example is Pink Floyd's "Money" where the lyrics stress every 2 beats at the end of the verse, giving it a feel of 7/4 for one long measure.
I like that too.
Two bars of 7/8 with a quarter note lead over it.
It feels less angular than pure 7/8, and the second bar can have an interesting back beat feel.
You can also try walking in 5/2, nodding your head in 5/4 and speaking rhythms in 5/8. You don't need to throw away your bodies connection with pulse just because the meter is odd.
Pat Davey totally, I teach kids guitar and I've realized that 4/4 is learned not ingrained. Young kids don't seem to mind what time signature you throw at them and they can feel it through their bodies just fine. I find that odd time signatures feel best when the beat flows side to side through my body rather than up and down like 4/4.
One tip that helps especially when trying to solo phrase over odd times is to think the pulse slower or think about an "override" as we drummers say. If you count every bar of 5/8 in a bit faster tempos in your head you'll get really scared about losing the 1 and end up with really boring and stiff phrases always ending on one. But if you count it in 5/4 in a over-the bar fashion everything kinda comes way more relaxed and groovy. I sometimes in solo sections even if it's something weird like 17/16 just think about the quarter-notes(or sometimes even half-notes) and try to forget that it's even in 17.
+FrustratedTurtle This is definitely true! A popular tip for soloing at breakneck tempos (quarter note equals 300 and above) in jazz is to think about whole notes instead of quarter notes. When you're feeling pulses at 75 bpm versus 300, your playing feels a million times more relaxed and fluid.
The thing is, when you're thinking of half note/whole note pulses, you're still subdividing those half notes into smaller increments, its just that your body isn't latching on to every subdivision. The way I think of fast 5/8 is basically like a slow quarter note which has been subdivided into quintuplets. That's what I'm doing here in this Sungazer video...
ruclips.net/video/of_BPHHHY1w/видео.html
There's no way I could count to 5 that fast. Instead, I've worked out how to feel a quintuplet subdivision (by working my way through all of the 5/8 vocab), and then I just feel the whole bar in 1.
Adam Neely That's also great advice, but rather than thinking quintuplets I meant in a way where the quarter-note would be the off-beat every other bar of say 5/8, like for example in Stings "Seven Days". A great way to make 5/8 groove.
+Frustratedturtle
For clarification,
1 2 3 4 5 I 1 2 3 4 5
. . . . .
The periods are where the pulse is. So you're saying that the pulse should alternate per measure?
I smell Gavin Harrison influence here ;) He is one of the few mucisians that got me to turn my back to 4/4s and explore the borderless world of odd time signatures. I totally agree with you."Overriding" makes everything more interesting and easier for non-musicians to follow, a little bit challenging in the beggining though.
P.S I bet you've heard of "Porcupine Tree - What Happens Now" right?
That's exactly what you mean when you say you need to become fluent in the language of 5/8. It's not 5/8, it's a bar, just like boom-tchk-boom-tchk is in 4/4, which allows you to float around that structure but retain the same signature.
So in the same way that someone fluent in a language no longer thinks "this is the prepossessive, so it needs to go before the noun," it just IS, so it is with playing in unusual time signatures. Once you have it, it just is.
Any notation software: "would you like to notate in 4/4, 3/4, or any odd meter?"
Adam: "I'll go for the odd one"
Software: "how odd do you want it to be?"
Adam: "YES PLEASE!"
I've listened to 0:07 - 0:12 about 100 times now. It's really quite beautiful in sound and just how its written. PLZZZZ make an extended version.
You're the perfect teacher. Challenging what I think I know and making me grow. Astonishing always
Adam: you ate, breathe-
Me: *MANUAL BREATHING INTENSIFIES*
Frank Zappa to Chad Wackerman: "There's nothing more unnatural than 4/4" "What?" "Think about it. Do you talk in 4/4?"
And then Chad went on to play with Allan Holdsworth in 1/1.
4/4 is imperfect time, hence the broken circle (C). Perfect time (O) is 3/4.
Also if our heart beats were metronomic we would be robots!
@@crystalc1ear When was that? Now I'm curious to hear it lol
@@pablogriswold421 Oh not a specific song, I was just joking about Allan's songs having such bizarre chord / measure timing that you have to think beyond time signatures.
@@crystalc1ear Ah, indeed. Have a good day!
Bulgarian musician here. I can't understand your struggle with odd measures 😅
xDDDD
Lol exactly. Indian & Balkan cultures prove that we aren't "hard wired" with 4/4. Americans maybe.
I honestly can’t count in anything that’s non 3/4 or 4/4. Trying to get out of that.
Hey Adam, I really appreciate the intellectual and comedic approach to these subjects! You're the man!
The moment when you've heard so many 7/8 songs that any 4/4 songs sounds weird and it feels like adding an extra 8th note to it unnecessairly.
Thank you very much! I've BEEN struggling with odd time signatures for a week now and you managed to make it all click in 6 minutes and 24 seconds! Of course I still have a long way to go to consider myself a Justin Chancellor's padawan... Keep up the good work!
You pretty much just became my favourite person on this medium.
You're right; odd time can be very tough to break into, and immersion is the best way to learn. Find a type of music you love which utilizes odd time signatures and listen to it *constantly*. For me Afro-Cuban & Latin music genres really helped me get comfortable playing in odd time. Also, TOOL's music is a great example of odd time.
Personally I had a lot of success by taking some of Danny Carey's advice. He said the way he learned--and the way that TOOL approaches odd time--is to throw "the book" and the fancy terminology away and just focus what you feel in the music. He claims that most all of what he's written with TOOL has been through feeling the music, not by learning theory. Obviously that's easier said than done.
However, there is something to be said about this approach. I'm almost 30 and I've been a musician all my life, and I never learned more than the basics of music theory and notation. Despite not knowing music theory very well, I've managed to learn to play drums, guitar, bass, and accordion in odd time signatures. In my opinion (like Danny Carey's), it's more about feeling the music than it is about understanding the notes on the page. On the other hand, if you know your music theory really well then you'll have a good head start on learning the fundamentals, and you'll understand what you're playing better in the process.
What I took away from Danny Carey's advice was to pick an odd time signature like 5 or 7 and just jam in it. It's a lot easier for drummers to do because they control the beat, but if you play bass or guitar you can definitely find a drum track in 5, 7, 11, etc. and play along with it. That's always been the way that I learn best; by imitation and not by reading books.
Brandon Veracka just pick a number and count it. 7..
Maathiu Ra Yin In my own experience that simply does not work. At least not for me.
I guess I've been listening to so much math rock and jazz that this stuff seems like second nature. It's honestly hard to play in 4/4.
Ultimately "feeling" is the machine language our thinking rests on.
Dude that second paragraph you wrote was so true. So I tried invincible. I was just having a hard time. But I was reading notes I found online. And I couldn’t get it. But I just literally listened over and over and I just went for it. Sometimes seeing makes it more complicated than hearing and feeling it. It really is. The juman brain is fuckin complicated man.
Dude, you're channel is like the music version of "PsychedSubstance" ... Really awesome content..
Ilustrado I was thinking that too!
NebZ .U I knew it.. I knew I wasn't the only one.. hehe.. Both of them are really awesome dudes..
Ilustrado I was thinking this. The way he looks and talks makes them have the same feel of videos
Ilustrado They're both balding white guys with round faces and soothing voices. It all adds up!
Isaac Plumbo EXATLY! hahaha.
I was very fortunate to have been brought up on Pink Floyd, ELP and Genesis, moving on to Jazz as I grew older, and then bands like Dream Theater in my teen years, so I've always found odd time signatures surprisingly easy to internalise. Great point about claves - most musicians I meet these days seem to be entirely constrained to basic claves within 5/4 7/4 5/8 etc. I like to compose in those time signatures but try to shake up the rhythm as often as possible while remaining smooth. Far more engaging than just jamming on the "Take 5" clave for days. Especially helps with improvisation. Jordan Rudess has a lot of great practices for understanding different time signatures (and poly rhythms)
#5 on to-do list: Practice writing the letter "f" so that it looks different from my letter "t". ;-)
Love the channel!
I'm terrible at improvising in time signatures other than 3 or 4. But for some reason my body really agrees with 5, 7 and 11. They're for some reason a timing I end up humming or writing music in.
Do caralho!... wich means "your channel is awesome!" in portuguese.
No it doesn't! It means: "the dick's!!"... Cannot fool us, young lad...
hahahahahahahahahaah!.. You got me. Sort of... actually it's an idiomatic expression (in Brazil at least). Yes, yes, it's a very unpolite one. But it's one of those expressions that people use all the time (in a very informal context) to say and emphacize how great is something. So... I could say that the channel is "nice" or "great", but "do caralho!" just feels right to me haha
I'm portuguese and I assure it means what he said. Do not translate word by word. If we translate from english to portuguese, spider man = a spider that is a man(??). And for expressions like "put on a show" = phsically putting on a spectacle as clothing (???). So he is not fooling you. Saying "do caralho" is close to saying "fucking nice/awesome/cool' but it's impossible to accurately translate.
^ Precisely
I'm very impressed at how civil we are being here over one obscene expression. We are having all this civilized conversation, conecting three parts of the globe in such a fraternal way... could it be that we are revolutionizing the internet?!?!?!
I've never had any issues deciphering odd timing. What has always worked for me as a guitarist is thinking of everything I write or hear as repeating patterns. I've done that four as long as I can remember, and everything sounds natural to me when I follow it like that. Not sure that makes much sense to anyone but me, but its the way I simplify everything regardless of how complex it can be
If you were brought up on blues chances are your body beats in 12/8. My body works on thirty second notes :) . I enjoyed this and anyone who listens to prog or Dillinger Escape Plan will know unusual time signatures without even realising it.
I came up on prog, blues and psychedelic rock so when I finally picked up guitar a few years ago odd time signatures were natural. Even now if I come up with a song it will be in an odd time signature.
Ginsuma punk for me but played in a prog band in my teens. Also had lessons when younger so without even realising it I was often playing fills in more unusual time signatures like 6/8. Time is a strange thing with music as often I just play to the music without even realising we've from 4/4 to 7/8.
grown up on prog and blues, my go to tempo and time signature when i play bass is 135bpm 12/8 :P
I dont know , Since I've been listening to too much Progressive Rock ( KingCrimson, Dream theater , Rush and stuff odd times don't really sound that strange .
My dad used to play Frank Zappa around me when I was a little kid. That fucked with my sense of rhythm. I'm still traumatized.
Your's too? Haha! Man I grew up on records like "One Size Fits All", "Apostrophe", "The Grand Wazoo" and many more. It definitely gave me a much better sense of rhythm, at least in that a beat doesn't have to be in 4.
It doesn't sound odd. It can be very natural sounding if done right. It PLAYS odd. Especially with a band with 3-5 other people also trying to follow.
Dream Theater is disorienting at first but after you get the hang of a particular song is when the odd time signatures really shine imo
Spooky Skeleton
You have to memorize EVERY. SINGLE. TIME CHANGE. Or else, you'll get lost.
5:52 Immidiately thought of Animals As Leaders (and most bands in the genre).
"Hey, we can totally nail playing the root notes in 15/16 and 6/4, right? Oops, a solo, time to get back to 4/4".
The struggle is real and the music is mechanical. But that's likable too, I guess.
+Mezurashii5 Out of any progressive rock/metal band, I actually feel like Animals as Leaders is the most interesting and musical - or at least they're doing things in such a different way than anybody else that I find myself drawn to what they do more.
But yes, I do know what you're talking about! I call it the "calculator" method of composition. Need a cool riff? Start adding numbers together!
2+3+1+4+5+2+3+1+7+whatever = Groove!
Adam Neely I've just started getting into them lately, so I might have too little understanding of their songs right now, but their melodic parts have always seemed really mechanical to me, mainly because the phrases they play are usually only one measure long. They are one of the prog bands I like the least, perhaps because they're the most focused on unusual rythms. Bands like Sithu Aye, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Gojira, Leprous and Scale the Summit all do that better in my opinion by using it with taste and only when it's needed. Well, Scale the Summit uses it quite a lot, but they just kind of pull it off
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Adam Neely going back to an analogy you made in another video, the "calculator" method is like a "Prescriptive" music theory method, while your analysis of bands using it is a "descriptive" music theory analysis. AMIRITE?!
Seems like a little prescription here and there is helpful (especially in prog).
Pink Floyd handled the 4/4 solo switch really well in Money
Excellent piece. This problem is exactly why contemporary composers often clarify the subdivision by expressing odd meters as addition problems, i.e. 2+3/8 instead of 5/8
I don't understand a word. But I show it to my 9 year old violinist every morning before school. Thank you, Adam.
Growing up in the Balkans and listening to prog makes you live in odd time signatures
I've played in 7/4, 5/4, and 9/8 but my favorites is 7/4
As a percussionist this is basically what I do. I think you are pretty great at sharing this information, so thanks. If you try and listen to some music from africa (djembe) and india (tabla) you will find a never ending wealth of knowledge about 5/8 and 6/8 and 12/8 rhythms, oh and in hindustani classic they have a just about every number of rhythms, 4,5,6, 7 8 9 10. 12. 14. 16 and they have written out notation for many songs. Its thousands of years old, very cool if you like patterns within patterns.
Wait hold up, that 5/8 groove in E minor is super chill and sick. Nice Adam!
Bugaria FTW! We have stuff like mixed signatures of 11/8 + 13/8 or three bars of 5/8 + one in 9 etc. really fun.
Eien Alo дъа😀😀. И аз се изкефих мн кат' видях българско хоро
I like it best when a musician creates his songs without a clue of what the academics are about it. I'm sure Jimmy Hendrix didn't study music theory before he picked up a guitar. Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson and even the freaking Beatles just played what sounded good to them. That's the best thing about music, is how you can be an awkward person with hardly social skills, low self-steam, be crazy in so many ways and then, when you play your instrument, it all comes together, it all fits, it's the perfect world you've been looking for. You've reached heaven on your own, you don't need someone to take you there.
This is an articulate description of most music, house, funk, hip-hop. This makes a lot of sense when I'm trying to figure out the concept. It's comprehensive and concise in uneven parts, long, short, long, short, long, long.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, mostly because I have not read the comments. Just to throw it out there, when you say clave as a way of marking off time signatures, it is also the name of a percussive instrument (a pair of sticks) that produce a click when struck together that are most often played on the beats you had mentioned in the video. Best wishes!
Do you have a copy of the 7/8 Vocabulary Building Sheet in a PDF version that you show in the video?? Thanks man! Super entertaining lessons man and informative too!! what a concept! :)
I am interested too!
Just found this channel and I Love your work
when I get odd time signatures, I learn them by doubling everything, then slowly, and confidently, I go back to the bigger beat. I'm working on a piece in 9/8 and going from 9 beats in a measure to 3 is terrifying but somehow so satisfying when done right.
I have spent so many of your videos being interested but confused, AND THIS ONE I UNDERSTAND!! I'M SO HAPPY!!! Also 5/8 is so cool, wow
Hey! that 5:22 sounds so cool! I feel like I want to hear the entire song now!
No wonder this sounds so familiar - check Nova Nova - Prisoner's Song. It's in 5/8.
Worst time signature I've ever encountered was a Serbian folk dancing song written in 9/8. You're off beat every other bar and it's incredibly difficult to count.
9/8 is the easy stuff in Balkan music...
Niska Banja. Lovely song, terrible time signature
Try counting along to The Dance of Eternity or Transient Exuberance
AbbeyB77 9/8 is simple enough. just three groups of three quaver beats. A lot of traditional music utilises this.
Lol, 9/8 is amazing, listen to Supper's Ready solo...
I feel so comfortable watching your vids and listening to explanations
5/8 is my favourite odd signature to play in. One of the first metal songs I wrote started like (5/8 + 5/8 + 5/8 + 6/8) * 4 then moved to 4/4. another fluctuated back and forth from 5/8 to 6/8.
Tool and Dream Theater are big influences. :)
Oh dear god please let there be a full version of the opening track. Anyone?
Just listen to some CHON and you'll be fluid with odd time signatures in no time
thanx ...nice.
I get the sense that this video is less about teaching than it is about making Adam feel smart.
I've been trying to understand time signatures for so long, and you're comparison to putting emphasis on diffrent words in a sentence totally makes so much sense. That also explains why they can sound the same but use different meters. i get it now!!
"Polyrythmic Synth jazz no one can dance to that" i don't know what that is but I'm sure he's right
I break up odd time signatures in a different way, and get a different number of phrases. If we use what is called the "composition" in number theory we get that any positive number has 2^n-1 partitions. For 5, it becomes 16 numbers, starting with 1+1+1+1+1, and then moving to 2+1+1+1 and so on. I found that working through these with a metronome clicking on the one was a great way to get into odd-meter.
Additionally, if someone isn't familiar with odd-time signatures, using konnakol can be a great way to get familiar. Just some food for thought for people who aren't fluent in odd-times. Oh, and here's a picture showing the 16 divisions of 5/8 with the accompanying konnakol syllables. imgur.com/ippvn2a
+Ian Banghart Hey Ian, thanks for that! I know so little about Konnakol, but I do know that it can be incredibly useful.
You're missing some rhythms, though, in your calculation - all the rhythms that do not start on the downbeat of the measure! That's how I got the 31 number (which you can see in my 5/8 worksheet) - if we take 2^4 + 2^3 + 2^2 + 2^1 we get, you guessed it, 31!
+Adam Neely Good eye, I guess that's what happens when I try to mix math and music!
+Ian Banghart No, please, it's awesome, I learned some stuff today! It's just that the math necessary to describe it wasn't 100% there - I'll try reading up on number theory to see what sort of equation might more elegantly describe it than my method. I know very little about math beyond what I barely remember from high school, so I just glean what I can from looking at patterns. Thanks for giving some context!
+Adam Neely Thanks. Lately I've been trying to use a mixture of number theory and Konnakol to mess around with odd-meter as well as polyrhythms and some other things. If you want someone to bounce ideas off, feel free to send me a message.
Sorry for intruding in this conversation but I took great interest in this counting, since my work involves combinatorics. Adam, your computation is a very famous number: it's the number of different binary strings of length n, which is 2^n - 1. So for n = 5 it gives 31, and for n = 7 it gives 127. Neat! However, let's consider n = 5 for a moment and look at what that means. That would be simply counting how many ways you can populate 5 eigth note slots. So 10000 would be an eighth note followed by a rest until the end of the measure, 01000 would be an eighth rest, followed by an eighth note and a rest... etc. But for this to account to our number of 31 possibilities, it would have to (i). be counting the 00000 combination which is kind of meaningless and you didn't account for in your sheet, and (ii). ignore the number of attacks (e.g., 11000 doesn't tell us if it's two attacks or one), which of course is not what you have done. From (i) we should have one less word, but more notably, from (ii) we should have a lot more words. So, for instance, looking at your words with 1 attack, why don't we have a measure that consists of an eigth note in the beginning and then 4 pulses of rest? Sorry if this is a silly question, for I have yet a lot to learn in music. But it appears that the vocabulary sheet could have a lot more words depending on how you obtain it. Could you explain your process a bit more?
I was having a hell of a time trying to write out a melody - a sort of skip-along shuffle beat - until I figured out that it was in 12/8 time, triplets over four. Not an odd meter, but that clave is in there all over the place! Great video, thanks!
Incredibly well made video. I was just clicking through stuff and ended up watching the whole thing.
Chh, back when Adam's hairstyle had a serious essence to it
Sting is a master of odd time signatures. Give "I Was Brought to my Senses" a listen
thanks, that was a great listen. 5/8 makes pretty good film music
Same with any prog. Band. Listen to "Driven" by Rush, or "Honor Thy Father" by Dream Theater, both those songs alternate between 4/4, 6/8, 7/8 and 5/8 after almost every bar
dis night gonna be interesting *powers up Sennheiser's and amp*
Soundgarden is also no stranger to unusual time-signatures.
i'll have to check that one out.... usually i like songs that are in 4/4 with an odd measure thrown in here and there 'outshined'
I'm a drummer but a lot of these concepts lend themselves very nicely since both instruments are primarily rhythm based. It's really exciting learning of new ways to tackle concepts and I will definitely be showing these videos to my students. Sub
Excellent presentation!
The long step, short step concept was developed by the Ancient Greeks to enable Hoplite phalanx formations to coordinate unit movements in combat. Directions were transmitted by musical instruments as to be heard over the noise of battle; as my Greek friend with the Masters in Byzantine Music tells me.
As he puts in: Rome came in, and the world went to 4/4.
The first music I really got into was Rush's Hemispheres album, and lots of prog rock from there. So I've never had a problem with odd time sigs. I love them. The first jazz I listened to was Brubeck's Time Out album. I'm a math dork, too, so I guess it figures.
Helium Road are you my doppelgänger
I can't play in 6/8. I'm a failure.
Trey Roque
Cello!
Listen to Nothing Else Matters
Prestyn Chapman do 1 2 3 4 5&6 it's easier. actually I do 1 2&3 4 5&6
Yeah, the key is to find these 'subgrupping' patterns and 'hits'. The same with any signature. It becomes natural and necessary with large odd signatures. Like PumpumpumPumpumPumpumpumPumpum (5/8), and not pumpumpumpumpum. That being said, if you train your ear constantly with odd, large times, you will recognize even long chains of pumpumpumpumpumpumpum without obvious Pums inside. I sometimes play a game that I invented that is adding one beat until I get tired. So, I make pum pumpum pumpumpum pumpumpumpum, +1 everytime so I reach signatures of 33, for example, playing the same note. It's a relaxing, tribal experience
Can you sing Humpty Dumpty? If you can, you can play in 6/8. It's transferring the skills from your language to your music that's tough.
I love odd signatures...That's why I like Jethro Tull and Rush. I enjoy the complexity. Speaking of complex time signatures, here's a fun fact. The Led Zeppelin song "Black Dog" (you know...hey hey momma said the way you move...) was not supposed to be in 4/4 time. Unfortunately, the drummer, John Bonham, didn't know how to keep the intended rhythm, so he just more or less forced the song into 4/4 time. At various times during the song you can hear a few off-beat cymbal hits during the instrumental breaks between the a capella lyrics that he uses to get back to 4/4 time. There are even a few times where the guitar lags a brief moment behind the drums which means either Bonham was trying to match the guitar or Jimmy Page was trying to match the drums...either way, once you hear it, you can't unhear it. Kind of makes me sad that one of the most famous rock bands in history can't play anything more complex than 4/4 time.
I love delving into the archive of your posts. They are always entertaining and engaging to me!
@0:28 Counting to four is as easy and natural as one, two, three!
^ How swing was born.
Here's how to speak in odd time signatures:
"Hello..... how are.. you doing?....it.......sure..is....a..beaut..I..ful day......day.. isn't.......it?
This is what I thought the video would teach me
I read this in 7/8
Helpful to any musician who has not explored odd times. Good job.
A couple tips...
#1) When counting, use "sev" and "lev" instead of "seven" and eleven. 123456sev,123456sev, etc.
#2) Create looping 5, 7, and/or 11 meter drum, bass and chord patterns, and solo on top of them
I just listen to TOOL everyday
meshuggah FTW
You realise Meshuggah are 4/4...Right?
Omegachai "meshuggah are 4/4?" maybe a lot of their new albums have songs that are 4/4 yes, but most of their old album songs were not. Meshuggah is also a band, not a song...so "they are 4/4" makes no sense
A Johansen Let me rephrase because you're simple.
Meshuggah make their music in a 4/4 time signature. The vast majority of their discography is done in 4/4 with small variances in intros. Strictly speaking, Meshuggah have zero polyrhythms. If you want to try be condescending, at least be
1. Correct
2. Not tell someone who owns all their work and knows their time signatures, that their earlier work wasn't 4/4. Because it was.
TL;DR Meshuggah aren't polyrhythmic, were never polyrhythmic and base ALL their songs on a 4/4 core signature.
Aaron Leviathan I said Meshuggah are 4/4 because that's their time signature. Period. I wasn't condescending, I was saying it confused because anyone who knows Meshuggah, should know something as basic as their time signature, which 90+% of their music, is in 4/4, and polyrhythms? Too few and far in between to be called a polyrhythmic sound.
Insulting my name, calling an argument "retarded" without an intelligent rebuttal. You killed your argument right then and there. If you can't disagree without acting like an angry child who throws ad hominems, don't say anything at all. So by all means, next time you want to "just drop in", don't be an idiot.
Meshuggah = 4/4. End of discussion.
Rhyan Eddy the reason why you come off as condescending (to me at least) is because you don't really elaborate on your points. I know it can be a bit exhausting but it seems like you're actively holding back information in order to make yourself seem smarter.
ya well have a nice whatever
The 5/8 sheet is a brilliant pedagogical technique - bravo sir!
He said "in graduate school." While it may be that he has an MFA (which is also a terminal degree), he certainly talks like someone with a PhD. (I can say that in part because I have a PhD do, in computer engineering.) We bow do your awesomeness, Doctor Neely. Truly amazing content.
is no one going to mention the golden Bob's burgers clip?
*gasp* Polyrhythmic synth jazz?! No one can dance to that!
14/9 is pretty kewl...
I don't think it is possible to overstate the value of becoming fluent in odd time signatures. Great video, it really gets the point across well I think.
I play violin and guitar, but this channel has been immensely helpful.
The music is pretty cool! What's the genre and how to search for it? You just don't hear something like this around here.
GERntleMAN If you're looking for music with odd meters and polyrythms, I'd check out progressive rock and math rock. Some of my favorite artists who make use of odd timing are Elephant Gym, Rooftops, 37500 Yens, American Football, Fall of Troy, Delta Sleep, A Lot Like Birds, TTNG, and Invalids (who my band, Strelitzia has had the pleasure of opening for :D). A couple good locals from my area I'd recommend checking out are Gold Season and Not Nearly. Of course, my recommendations tend toward math rock moreso than progressive, and perhaps "odd meter" wasn't quite what you were looking for, but they're all bands worth checking out nonetheless. For good jazz with odd meter, of which I have a bit less experience, I'd check out Tony Grey.
Some songs I'd recommend for odd time signatures:
Dream Theater - The Dance of Eternity
Genesis - Dance on a Volcano
Will add more when I think of them. Also, Hunter, I must check out some of those bands. I honestly haven't heard any of them before.
1 2 3 4 5 - orcs marching in lord of the rings xĐ
Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" introduced me (and probably a lot folks) to the non-four pulse measure. I have loved that off balance beat ever since. I noticed you played some Steve Reich music in the background too. One of my musical heroes!
When me and our school district honor band were practicing this one song in 5/4, red planet (my concert band instrument is trombone btw), our band was terrible for the first two or three times through, but then we started to actually get where to place the accents and dynamics. There was a point at which we just felt the music flow though us in all it's intensity, especially in the fugato part. About a year later I pulled it out (at that time I learned acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and starting piano, so let's say I had some experience in odd time signatures), so I picked it up again and started playing it and I just felt how amazing it was to find out for the first time how to play in 5/4 and here I am now, watching a video on the very kind of rhythm that I feared no less than 1 and a half years ago, and writing a piano sonata in 6/8. I like looking back.
came here thinking that people speak in time signatures lmao
4:4 it's no occident
this is the first video I've watched of yours and this is good content! Also, I'm glad you had the nuance to mention that 4/4 is the predominant time signature in the occident and not so much the rest of the world.
A clinician I've worked with used the phrase "I though you were driving to San Francisco", as putting emphasis on any of the words in that sentence changes its meaning, to express how putting emphasis on certain notes can entirely change the 'meaning' of the passage of music. Very cool concept.
I used the phrase _I did not say you were stupid_.
My name is Dr. Sbaitso and I am here to help you.
The fuck did you just do to my brain?! You've time warped me 25 years back!!!
googled that shit; really interesting, thank you man
Just listen to Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk" and everything will magically become clear. And if you still don't get it...time to switch to another hobby... ;)
haha, great advice! Brubeck is a genius,
I agree. I can play it (fairly badly) on the piano. The most difficult thing is to maintain the tempo when it goes into 4/4 then back again into 9/8. It would be helpful to have more fingers though I only have the normal number.
Serenade by Derek Bourgeois is an excellent example of odd time, with the piece being in 13/8 and 11/8. Legend has it that his wife walked with a limp so he wrote the piece in that she wouldn't feel self-conscious when the dancers get tripped up after the ceremony.
Adam,
This was super neat. I didn't know that people were thinking about this kind of thing. Thanks.
this guy is so into himself my god.
I watched the video keeping this comment in mind to see what I thought you would've likely mistaken for arrogance, but even with that assumption I'm not sure what made you say this
You know what you're talking about and you explained it clearly. Some people can't handle that. Excellent video and thanks for the practice sheet!
he didn't come off that way to me, but whatever brah
Darren, I think you are just too simple to distinguish knowledge and articulation from arrogance.
And without being a knucklehead and insulting you, Darren I want to say that Adam is REALLY not trying to be arrogant or egocentric. I teach at a college and play in a bunch of bands and I sometimes wonder if I come across arrogant or as a know it all when I talk. Adam is really just explaining this as easy as he can without trying to go over people's heads. And THAT sometimes DOES come across as "talking down" to people but it is really trying to be simple and get the point across. The odd thing is that in African and Asian countries it is as hard and unnatural for them to play in 4/4 as it is for western pop cultures to count in anything BUT 4/4.
what is the intro song?
Most of the music I compose is in odd meters. I have really come to like 13/8. For some reason, 3 3s and 2 2s just has a natural feeling for me. I also suggest listening to Balkan music extensively to get a good feel for the "short" and "long" rhythmic combinations (claves). I use the "Mission Impossible Theme" to help people understand it as well. It is probably the most ingrained "odd meter" song most people have heard. I also liken it to an "extension" of the tresillo (first half of the "son" clave 3-3-2) that was heard a lot in rock music since the 50s, especially a lot of Elvis Presley tunes. Just add another 2 to this and you get the feel of the MI theme: 3-3-2-2. =_)
I was wondering how you had such an extensive grasp on music, and then you said graduate school. Makes sense now. So glad to learn from your hard work.