Time Signatures and Pop Music

quote:

George, I have no idea which two pieces you're thinking of.

Dear Fred,

The Pathetique, and with thought, Daphnis and Cloe! If the 5/4 division is 2-3, then the composer Dalapicolla's name serves nicely at rehearsals to fix the rhythm!

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by Phil Ward:
Fred, (et al),

This is all fascinating stuff. I couldn't agree more with your reply to George and his, "these strange time signatures are awkward to play and immediately incomprehensible to the listener". Meters considered odd in Western music are perfectly normal in numerous other musical cultures.

Indeed. And now, in the early 21st century, most professional musicians in the Western world are expected to be (and generally are!) proficient in so-called odd meters ... it's considered just another thread of the contemporary musical fabric.

quote:

Following Jamie's post (thanks Jamie) I'm just listening to Genesis' Turn It On Again (err, yes, not cool but I have it in my iTunes library) and I can't for the life of me work out what the meter is. I'd always thought it was "odd" but now I think it's actually 4/4 played with an off beat emphasis and with the occasional short measure thrown in at the changes. Have a listen and see what you think (somewhere private obviously or you'll be thrown out of the Jazz community*

Phil, I'm a man without a musical country ... the rockers think I'm jazz, the jazzers think I'm rock, classical players don't know what to make of me. I don't worry about any of it, nor about what others may or may not consider to be cool. Genre means almost nothing to me ... if it sounds good, it is good, as Duke Ellington famously said.

I love Turn It On Again, and much of Genesis' music, and I don't care what anyone else thinks of that. The primary meter scheme, after the 4/4 intro, is 6/4 alternating with 7/4.

The main chordal guitar riff is introduced before the vocal in a slightly altered version: two bars of 4/4 followed by a bar of 7/4, whose last beat is punctuated by the brassy two 16th-note figure ... "ba-dup!" When the vocal enters the chordal guitar riff begins proper, and the meter alternates between 6/4 and 7/4.

Later there's more 4/4, and then some funny business with the groupings-of-three figures ("I ... I ... I ... get so lonely when she's not there.") Some of that section is in 4/4 but there are also some extra beats ... I'm not in the mood to figure that out at the moment, but I can tell you definitively that the main meter scheme is 6/4 alternating with 7/4, which continues throughout the long repeating vamp at the end. Great song, and totally cool ... don't let anyone tell you differently!

All best,
Fred

'Time is Right' by Manfred Mann's Earth Band is allegedly the only song in 10/4 time to ever make the charts.

It's from the album 'Nightingales and Bombers'; side one of which is a wonderful blast from start to finish. Probably in my top ten albums.

John.

In what time signature is Radiohead's "How to Disappear Completely"?

quote:

Originally posted by winkyincanada:
In what time signature is Radiohead's "How to Disappear Completely"?

Winky, I just found this analysis by 'Steve Smith'. A bit technical for me to digest, so maybe Fred could give us his insight. He also conveys an honest opinion about the horns in 'My Old School'.

Denis

quote:

Originally posted by DenisA:

quote:

Originally posted by winkyincanada:
In what time signature is Radiohead's "How to Disappear Completely"?

Winky, I just found this analysis by 'Steve Smith'. A bit technical for me to digest, so maybe Fred could give us his insight. He also conveys an honest opinion about the horns in 'My Old School'.

Denis

Thanks Denis. Also a bit technical for me too. All I know is that I find it a really hard song to play, in spite of the fact that it is really just 4 chords being strummed. Even more challenging is trying to time the vocals right (not that I can sing at all, let alone like Thom does). Great track, though. I saw the them play it live a few years back. Amazing.

quote:

Originally posted by DenisA:

quote:

Originally posted by winkyincanada:
In what time signature is Radiohead's "How to Disappear Completely"?

Winky, I just found this analysis by 'Steve Smith'. A bit technical for me to digest, so maybe Fred could give us his insight.

I took a look and listen to Steve Smith's analysis, and I think he describes it more complicated than necessary. Bottom line, though, he says it's basically 12/8 ... I would say it's 6/8, which, of course, could be viewed as half a bar of 12/8, but in conventional practice it's a bit different.

12/8 is commonly used in classic doo-wop ballad type songs, Unchained Melody, for example, in which one will often hear the chordal progression marked out by an arpeggiating piano and/or guitar (instead of playing all the notes of a chord simultaneously, arpeggiation sounds each note of the chord individually, one after the other in time with the rhythmic pulse) playing each of the 12 eighth-notes in 4 groups of 3.

6/8 often has more of a sea chantey feel, as the basic guitar part of How to Disappear Completely does, which can be most clearly heard when the drums/percussion enter with its pronounced backbeat (accentuated by tambourine) on the 4th eighth-note of the 6 ... Da-da-da-BOP-da-da, etc. It's pretty basic, but its nature is disguised and complicated by what the bass is playing in the intro: a string of 4 dotted eighth-notes per bar against the 6 eighth-notes of the 6/8 guitar part.

OK, this might seem technical, but really it's just grade school arithmetic ... 6/8, as we've said, is 6 eighth-notes per bar, grouped into 2 groups of 3. It's helpful to know at this point that each eighth-note can be divided into 2 sixteenth-notes. Makes sense. A dot appended to any note value increases the length of that note by half. So if an eighth-note consists of 2 sixteenth-notes, a dotted eighth-note consists of 3 sixteenth notes. If you were to expand each of the 6 eighth-notes into sixteenth-notes, you would, of course, have 12 sixteenth-notes. Divide those 12 sixteenth-notes into groups of 3 (the value of a dotted eighth-note) and you have 4 dotted eighth-notes against the 6 regular eighth-notes ... this is the most common polyrhythm: 2 against 3 (that being the lowest common denominator expression of 4 against 6). It can also be thought of as 2 in the space of 3. That's what the bass is doing in the intro of the song: playing 2 dotted eighth-notes for every 3 regular eighth-notes the guitar is playing.

It's simple, yes? (insert emoticon here)

quote:

[Steve Smith] also conveys an honest opinion about the horns in 'My Old School.'

Actually, he cites the horns on My Old School as being one of the few uses of horns in rock/pop that he likes ... he feels that, generally, horns don't belong in rock. While of course I respect his unalienable right to hold an opinion, I think his opinion is kind of nutty.

quote:

Originally posted by fred simon:
It's pretty basic, but its nature is disguised and complicated by what the bass is playing in the intro: a string of 4 dotted eighth-notes per bar against the 6 eighth-notes of the 6/8 guitar part.

Yes, I think it's largely the bass line that puts me "off". If I listen specifically to the bass line and try to pick the timing from that, the guitar and chord changes seem unusual. When the percussion comes in, the timing flicks back to match the guitars.

Thanks Fred. Very interesting.

quote:

It's simple, yes? (insert emoticon here)

Fred, thanks for your explanation. I will let my simple mind digest this slowly .

I agree with your opinon that 'Smith' has a somewhat limited view of horns used in rock/pop. He is nut's

quote:

Originally posted by fred simon:
I took a look and listen to Steve Smith's analysis, and I think he describes it more complicated than necessary. Bottom line, though, he says it's basically 12/8 ... I would say it's 6/8, which, of course, could be viewed as half a bar of 12/8, but in conventional practice it's a bit different.

I don't get it.

How to disappear completely sounds like a slow 4/4 to me (about 50-something beats per minute.)

The strumming rhythm, especially in the second half of each bar jazzes things up a little, but nothing too fancy--it's easy for a guitarist to exaggerate off-beats, overlay triplets, and the like, but the basic underlying beat seems pretty ordinary, and there are clear strong strums on the first and second notes of each bar to define the beat throughout the song.

Some nice phrasing in the vocal line smears the rhythm and provokes an uneasy sense of ambiguity in this gorgeous song, but I bet if you watch them playing (I've never been lucky enough), their heads will nod and feet will tap to the slow 4/4 beat?

Nathaniel, all I know of the song is the two excerpts "Steve Smith" cited in the "analysis" link above. In the second, with vocal and drums, you could conceivably count each group of 3 eighth-notes as one beat, and if you combined two bars of what to my ears is 6/8, you'd have one bar of 12/8. That 12/8 meter, then, could theoretically be thought of as 4/4 ... four beats, each divided into 3 eighth-notes.

And at a certain point, of course, it really doesn't matter whether it's called 4/4 with each beat divided into 3, or 12/8. On the other hand, when communicating the music to other musicians (on paper, for instance), it helps to have consensus on terminology ... I definitely hear the meter as 6/8 as I described in my previous post, as opposed to 12/8 and/or 4/4, for the reasons I gave. I feel fairly confident that my 40+ years as a professional musician and teacher are informing me correctly in this matter, although I have been known to be wrong. (insert emoticon here)

And, yes, if the musicians tap their feet while playing, they will more likely tap only on the first of every 3 eighth-notes ... two bars of this (given 6/8) will yield four foot taps. The thing is, it's all about the subdivisions.

Nathaniel, forgot to mention an essential difference between 4/4 and 12/8 ... each beat of 4/4 is always subdivided into two eighth-notes (as opposed to 12/8 with its three eighth-notes per beat). If you sing along with the vocal and drums (in the 2nd excerpt), you'll be singing Da-da-da Da-da-da Da-da-da Da-da-da instead of Da-da Da-da Da-da Da-da

That's how you'll know it's 12/8 at the least (or, as I contend, 6/8), not 4/4.

If it helps the discussion/analysis here is...

How to Disappear Completely (Live @ Saitama Super Arena - Oct 5, 08 - Tokyo, Japan) in HD.

A different music video here with a prominent bassline.

I appreciate that resorting to the internet is 'cheating', but I was curious, so came upon this Wikipedia entry.

Quite a few of those songs from this thread are listed therein. Some entries that I'm familiar with but never registered as sounding odd, especially the classical works. That's either an indication of my lack-of-attentiveness, the composer's ability to craft fluid songs in unusual time signatures, or probably both.

Some entries that I've found interesting:

• Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield -- The first riff in 15/8 is made of two bars. The first bar is in 7/8, the second bar is in 8/8. This is a good candidate for Phil W's original posting criteria?
  
• A Good Man Is Hard to Find from Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens (on my ipod now, so I've been listening to it as I type)
  
• A surprising number of Andrew Lloyd Webber entries
  
• Lots of stuff by Bo Nilsson, of whom I've never heard!
  
• and not least Le Marteau sans maître, by Pierre Boulez -- a work I know well, and of which have a signed score, but I've never had the courage to open it!
  

quote:

Originally posted by fred simon:


Another example, albeit much less well known, is Right Hand Man by Joan Osborne on her album Relish. It's a delightfully nasty, rocking, Stones-y number in 7/4.

Fred

Great track Fred really rocks.

Blondie's "Heart of Glass" has a sneaky little change in the "na, na, nas" later in the track that kind of lifts the pace without changing the tempo.

Nothing too technical here...

I adjusted my discussion of "How To Disappear Completely" after listening to the youtube (plus I had to correct a shocking quantitative error on the 8 bass notes in relation to the 12 beats, or 4 against 6 if you prefer, that no one had pointed out, and which I hope is now lost to history) and, if this is okay, I added a link to your thread on my earlier "Odd Meter" post.

Hang on - did no one mention "The Ocean" by Led Zeppelin? Or "The Crunge" on the very same Houses of the Holy Album. The Crunge is one of my favorite songs to make guitarists cry, while the drummer snickers in the back. Has a rainbow of signatures, including 9/8; 5/8 and 4/4. Not exactly top 20 but was the b-side to D'yer Mak'er. The Ocean is cool in that it alternates between 4/4 and 7/8, that great number went to #8 in the German charts!

Synchronicity by the Police has a cool time signature based in 6/4, I think...

quote:

Originally posted by anotherstevesmith:
I adjusted my discussion of "How To Disappear Completely" after listening to the youtube (plus I had to correct a shocking quantitative error on the 8 bass notes in relation to the 12 beats, or 4 against 6 if you prefer, that no one had pointed out, and which I hope is now lost to history) and, if this is okay, I added a link to your thread on my earlier "Odd Meter" post.

Steve,

Thanks for widening our musical interests to an unsuspecting public.

If Carlsberg sponsered the Naim Audio Music Room, the strapline could be...

"probably the best music discussion forum in the world"

For Music Theory novices like myself here are explanations for some of the 7/4 composistions mentioned earlier. Please correct any mistakes converyed in the article.

I have also found a more comprehensive reference - music theory online by Dr Brian Blood.

If you are a drummer and interested in discovering Rhythmic Illusions, then Gavin Harrison can open your mind here.

Extract...

So what is a Rhythmic Illusion?

Have you ever been listening to the radio, changed stations and tuned into a song that sounded as if it had a fantastically unusual rhythm, only to discover moments later, in reality, you had simply misinterpreted something quite straightforward? Or, perhaps, heard a guitarist play an unaccompanied syncopated intro and, believing you'd identified the beat, tapped your foot along to it until the band came in at a completely unexpected place? Chances are, you were rhythmically illuded.

'Rhythmic Illusions' are about making small changes to a conventional pattern in order to persuade the listener that the tempo, and or time signature has momentarily changed. The secret of a good illusion is to make sure that the pattern you are presenting, is a simple recognisable rhythm that the listeners' ear will naturally pick up on. A rhythmic illusion will have it's best effect when it 'appears' that the drummer has temporarily left the downbeat and tempo behind,whilst the music carries on unchanged underneath it.

Pretty straightforward stuff

Denis

I love rhythmic illusions ... the intro to Wake Up by XTC, for instance.

quote:

Originally posted by fred simon:


I love rhythmic illusions ... the intro to Wake Up by XTC, for instance.

Wow... thanks for that Fred, from a fantastic band. When I can, my XTC purchases will get back on track with The Big Express.

As an aside here are some 1989 MTV Studio performances of Scarecrow People, Blue Beret & a wonderful King for a day

Thanks for your informative insights.

Denis