Many have asked for a way to purchase the transcription. So here it is! Full drum transcription, drumless tracks, and more now available on my website. → www.shawncrowder.com
Im curious, is this how artists like Squarepusher write incredibly complex drumbeats and glitchy tunes? by dropping the tempo and then cramming more notes into each bar? Im genuinely fascinated by stuff like this! :)
Music theory involving rhythm is by far my favorite, which is funny coming from a guitar player. It's just awesome to deep-dive into all the weirdness.
Assuming Sungazer goes deeper into hypertuplets, I wonder at what point it will become more practical to have the time signature be based on the tuplets, as opposed to having the tuplets nested inside a time signature.
So glad for the breakdown of this song! I’ve listened to Threshold countless times over the last few days trying to understand it. Fast and slow at the same time, it broke my brain. My best guess at the time was 5 5 and 7, but now it makes so much more sense! Lol I was so close…
Same, I think he plays some 5s (at the speed of the 19) in the beginning and my brain got stuck on "5+5+something" for a while until someone else in the comments pointed out the actual subdivision. It's very groovy but also very slippery, pretty awesome song.
The "humanity" you mention about the odd time subdivisions brings in the concept of microtiming. Both Adam and you have touched the topic of music cognition, which is an endless journey of discovery to understand why and how humans are making the choices we make in order to make music make sense and be more appealing! Great job on the video
If you want to practice the hand speed for the 19 tuplet at 33 bpm, you can play triplets at 209 bpm. They are they same speed (627 notes per minute). It's also almost exactly the same speed as 16th notes at 157 bpm (628 notes per minute).
When I took lessons with Chris Coleman he had and exercise called “Trash”. Where he would put the DR. Beat on a pattern, and purposely try to get lost and come back and hit the one. What this exercise did was train the brain to feel the whole block of time as one big blob of space that you could do anything in. Instead of the academic approach which was to feel every micro subdivision. He was also a self taught free thinking player
I try to do that, key word is try. I’m bad about losing the one. I’m way better than I used to be but still lose it in occasion. On the plus side I’ve gotten good at playing/faking through that and finding the one again. Most of the time no one in the audience notices and people playing with me just look up for a second
Breakin it down as 5 5 5 4 is what i was thinkin. I love the vibe of taking a more comprehensive tuplet like 5 or 3 and then choppin a beat off for a angled rhythm. Like making 11 like 3 3 3 2 or i often do 18 like 5 5 5 3, with the quintuplet groove but its like the last accent is also the first downbeat
Tigran Hamasyan creates a similar effect in "Vardavar" where every two bars of 4/4 is split into 5 5 3 5 5 4 5, creating the illusion of a weird pseudo-5/8+15/16 groove with quintuplet swing. So glad I can now put a label on it (angled rhythm)!
@@oscargill423 yess tigran hamasyan is a great example. He really is awesome. I think the technique is very reminiscent of greek or arabic music, where rhythms often blur the line between what is an accent and a down beat. The Ocean by Led zeppelin i think is also doin something like this were they cutting off the 16th beat of a 4/4 pattern
fun fact, footwork music's 16ths come in at 93.75 milliseconds each, OR LESS - just past the threshold apparently. cool video, feel like I know a little bit more now why 160bpm sounds so good haha
The first time I listened to this I thought I was crazy for thinking that my perception of the pulse was changing over time, but it totally makes sense! There actually are a lot of different ways for your brain to lock into it.
This video is why I subscribed this channel. I don't often get to take time to put such technicalities of rhythmic inclination under a deep scope, yet I have a taste of rhythmic awareness that's assisted my feel to play with virtually every band that has needed me as a drummer. This is true rhythmic composition at its finest. Thanks for the content as well as giving insightful perspective to musicians that also aren't drummers.
The point Adam makes at the end of the video is very true, and I recommend Metal Music Theory's video on Car Bomb and perceptions of time from the point of view of the creator, performers, and audience.
At 9:28 you describe a way of feeling the pulse as 5/4 with last 16th note missing, which actually reminds me of one of the last sections in Dream Theater's "Home" at around 12:21 on studio recording. Mike Portnoy basically does the same thing, though it's not subdivided into 19-tuplets, but is like a 19/16 time signature, which is easier to count as a 5/4 with a missing beat. Great stuff!
Yeah, I think that's a really common way to play 19/16 and is a pretty good argument for thinking of this song as also just being in 19/16 too (although thinking about it in tuplets has its own advantages for sure).
As a lifelong drummer who learned by playing along to rock / classic rock / pop / hip hop this is pretty brain-breaking and awesome! I salute your talent, ambition, and creativity!
I love how you present this idea. It's like being in a science fair ( or music fair?) that you and yours alone can manifest it in raw nature. I can see the happiness in you making these hypertuplets into an enjoyable context. Good job!
While the main groove may be 6+6+7 (or 6+6+6+1, depending which part you are listening to), notice that the intro focuses us on 5+5+6+3 when the hats first come in before the breakout.
4:45 a doted quarter note to is worth a quarter plus half of one. So when we have what I call faut de mieux a doublely doted it is a quarter plus half plus a quarter of one. Add it all we get a note worth seven sixteenth. We theoretically keep going with triplely doted and quadruplely doted notes.
I've always felt that playing tuplets was just a matter of how you're "feeling" the resolution, but playing them as time signatures is where the mastery comes in, you'd have to make them sound as "music". And that was always the challenge for me. Otherwise it's still just 4/4 in the end...
Interesting how different band members counting differently, observed this at a jazz night watching the toe tapping of the musicians, all using different subdivisions, but yet it came together cohesively.
Zappa’s guitar book is a wealth of musical rhythms. I am going through it and carving out phrases that I feel move me. Being a drummer too, we lay the foundation for the others to lean on. I’ve noticed when I have a comfortable tempo, (36 bpm usually)…I freely start subdividing like mad. I think because melodies seep into my conscious… Bulgarian folk music have people singing in 11with a counter melody in 9. When you start practicing these things it is funny how prevalent they are in your life… I enjoy your talk…cheers!
Have you spent any time checking out modern dci drumline books and the massive amount of substitution rhythms? Wild stuff. Especially when you are on the move and playing with a full line. I like your channel!
Awesome. I've been doing this with 19 for years because it's a lucky number and sounded fun. But I'm just mapping in logic and cannot really play any of the instruments live. I love playing with the count and feel. Though I often use other numbers too and also I am creating them as odd time signatures with varying feels. I'm a self taught songwriter who can count but not read lol
Do you have any music you could link? I love programmed music with odd rhythms, it's a good way to experiment without all that pesky practice and the mechanical precision can actually be kind of a nice quality.
@@TheSquareOnes Totally agree, I love experimenting and it's interesting too when a main lead melody wants to resolve but it has to wait a bit or the opposite...it can produce unique ideas and just feel different! I actually don't have anything out right now in that vein...BUT now that there's a bit of intrigue I will get back to you here with a place to check soon!
@@oscargill423 I was just letting Cyan know that since you both have perked me up a bit, I will figure out where to put a few oddball ideas and experiments and return back here soon!
I don't know if I'm more pumped about the new songs or the theory behind them! In the end, it's nice to fall in love with new music these days. Thankful and excited. Cheers from Brasil.
me at the beginning of the video: "Just play in a different time signature?" I'm glad I told myself to shut the f*** up and watch the video. Thank you for this, Shawn.
Great video, GREAT tune!!!! Dotted notes= Value+1/2 (so for a quarter note- four 16ths, dot adds 2..... 4+2=6). Double dots- Value+1/2+1/4, so 4+2+1=7. The symbol I'm very sad hasn't caught on, cause it would be SOOOO useful in modern music, is George Crumb's dotted note where the dot goes in FRONT of the note value, which meant Value+1/4 (4+1=5). Would be so useful to have a single symbol for five 16th's instead of always having to use a tie!
side topic: both you and Adam talked about how the lowest perceivable rhythm is 33bpm. Is that without doing any mental subdivision? In theory, couldn't you perceive 25bpm by hearing 100 in your head and just playing the 1 in a bar of 4/4, etc. I'm really interested in these tempo perception ideas- when does the perception of a feel change from single-time to half- or double-time, etc. There is a glockenspiel solo by composer James Romig that is written at 9bpm, but you can really think of it as 72 with the rhythms written 3 orders higher, that sort of thing.
Side topic 2: I trust that you know that your click scheme of 4/4+3/16 is the exact verse groove from Zappa's "Keep it Greasey" on Joe's Garage... FZ and Vinnie knew what was up! ....and Mahavishnu's "Celestial Terrestrial Commuters."
I learned the division of complex rhythms by practicing "adi tala", singing with syllables.... lets say a 14 notes cycle: I can divide the measure into 4 4 4 2: TaKaDiMi TaKaDiMi TaKaDiMi TeKi .... I can divide the Rhythm is different syllables: 6 5 3 or 2 times 7....
Waiting for this one! I wondered if there was something to the tune's 33bpm-ness. What did Adam use as the click out of interest? How would sending another simultaneous click to another player work?
What does the graph say at 2:19? Something like at around 100 ICI (inter-click intervals) will the weber fraction (WF%) be at its minimum as a rhythm (least distinguishable)? And then at 50 ICI rhythm will feel like a pitch, then after around 15 ICI WF% will be near-zero, or not able to tell the difference of pitch if it's changed? (All the acronym was searched online, not a music student here, so correct me if I'm wrong :) )
Many have asked for a way to purchase the transcription. So here it is! Full drum transcription, drumless tracks, and more now available on my website. → www.shawncrowder.com
What metronome are you using in this video?
Tempo Advance & Polynome
Im curious, is this how artists like Squarepusher write incredibly complex drumbeats and glitchy tunes? by dropping the tempo and then cramming more notes into each bar? Im genuinely fascinated by stuff like this! :)
h y p e r t u p l e t s
h y p e r t u p l e t s
h y p e r t u p l e t s
h y p e r t u p l e t s
h y p e r t u p l e t s
t h a l l
Oh good my tuplet dealer has uploaded
When Shawn dies:
Death: Time to go
Shawn: was I a good drummer?
Death: I heard you could do enneadecatuplets
*Enneadecuplets
Seriously though, massive respect for finding the technical term for them.
Shawn: Yes
Death: Can you teach me?
Death: Time to go
Shawn: ...but I'm not feeling it that way
Death: Time to go.
Shawn: Well, you're not in sync with _my_ time, sooooo....
nah it'll be like the devil went down to georgia
Music theory involving rhythm is by far my favorite, which is funny coming from a guitar player. It's just awesome to deep-dive into all the weirdness.
Same. We're in good company: Zappa, Vai, Anastasio, Fripp, Petrucci, et. al.
Insert typical Meshuggah joke here
Threshold is one of those songs that sound completely new but also like it has always existed; I don't know how to describe it.
Assuming Sungazer goes deeper into hypertuplets, I wonder at what point it will become more practical to have the time signature be based on the tuplets, as opposed to having the tuplets nested inside a time signature.
He's already doing it. In his explanations in this video, he notates it using a 19/16 score.
It's easier to read as time sig's in a lot of cases for sure.
So glad for the breakdown of this song! I’ve listened to Threshold countless times over the last few days trying to understand it. Fast and slow at the same time, it broke my brain. My best guess at the time was 5 5 and 7, but now it makes so much more sense! Lol I was so close…
I went 5-5-6, but I think the on-the-beat tuplet messed me up there so I was always 1 off.
Same, I think he plays some 5s (at the speed of the 19) in the beginning and my brain got stuck on "5+5+something" for a while until someone else in the comments pointed out the actual subdivision. It's very groovy but also very slippery, pretty awesome song.
The "humanity" you mention about the odd time subdivisions brings in the concept of microtiming. Both Adam and you have touched the topic of music cognition, which is an endless journey of discovery to understand why and how humans are making the choices we make in order to make music make sense and be more appealing! Great job on the video
If you want to practice the hand speed for the 19 tuplet at 33 bpm, you can play triplets at 209 bpm. They are they same speed (627 notes per minute). It's also almost exactly the same speed as 16th notes at 157 bpm (628 notes per minute).
I just think it's so cool how Threshold is at the same time, very slow and very fast, just such a cool idea.
When I took lessons with Chris Coleman he had and exercise called “Trash”. Where he would put the DR. Beat on a pattern, and purposely try to get lost and come back and hit the one. What this exercise did was train the brain to feel the whole block of time as one big blob of space that you could do anything in. Instead of the academic approach which was to feel every micro subdivision. He was also a self taught free thinking player
I try to do that, key word is try. I’m bad about losing the one. I’m way better than I used to be but still lose it in occasion. On the plus side I’ve gotten good at playing/faking through that and finding the one again. Most of the time no one in the audience notices and people playing with me just look up for a second
Breakin it down as 5 5 5 4 is what i was thinkin. I love the vibe of taking a more comprehensive tuplet like 5 or 3 and then choppin a beat off for a angled rhythm. Like making 11 like 3 3 3 2 or i often do 18 like 5 5 5 3, with the quintuplet groove but its like the last accent is also the first downbeat
Tigran Hamasyan creates a similar effect in "Vardavar" where every two bars of 4/4 is split into 5 5 3 5 5 4 5, creating the illusion of a weird pseudo-5/8+15/16 groove with quintuplet swing. So glad I can now put a label on it (angled rhythm)!
@@oscargill423 yess tigran hamasyan is a great example. He really is awesome. I think the technique is very reminiscent of greek or arabic music, where rhythms often blur the line between what is an accent and a down beat.
The Ocean by Led zeppelin i think is also doin something like this were they cutting off the 16th beat of a 4/4 pattern
double upload just like that?
love you guys
geometry dash player??? yoooo
fun fact, footwork music's 16ths come in at 93.75 milliseconds each, OR LESS - just past the threshold apparently. cool video, feel like I know a little bit more now why 160bpm sounds so good haha
The first time I listened to this I thought I was crazy for thinking that my perception of the pulse was changing over time, but it totally makes sense! There actually are a lot of different ways for your brain to lock into it.
7:34
that was a ~crisp~ mini handclap
Thank you for not only giving this experimental music, but also the explanation of how you feel the pulse depending on the context
This video is why I subscribed this channel.
I don't often get to take time to put such technicalities of rhythmic inclination under a deep scope, yet I have a taste of rhythmic awareness that's assisted my feel to play with virtually every band that has needed me as a drummer.
This is true rhythmic composition at its finest.
Thanks for the content as well as giving insightful perspective to musicians that also aren't drummers.
So great seeing people pushing boundaries
The point Adam makes at the end of the video is very true, and I recommend Metal Music Theory's video on Car Bomb and perceptions of time from the point of view of the creator, performers, and audience.
thanks, great tip! feel like it goes a bit over my head but still super interesting :D
I’ve only recently started listening to you guys and I’m in love. Amazing stuff.
Shawn is the drummer's drummer of drummers who are drummers' drummers.
G o d your excitement is so contagious I loooove this
Also
Adam looks like such a grandma when he drives the tilted head with his glasses HA
6:19 one of my favourite adam quotes
I guess my love for adam neely brought me here! Not disappointed!
"It's all in 4/4," they said...
At 9:28 you describe a way of feeling the pulse as 5/4 with last 16th note missing, which actually reminds me of one of the last sections in Dream Theater's "Home" at around 12:21 on studio recording. Mike Portnoy basically does the same thing, though it's not subdivided into 19-tuplets, but is like a 19/16 time signature, which is easier to count as a 5/4 with a missing beat. Great stuff!
Yeah, I think that's a really common way to play 19/16 and is a pretty good argument for thinking of this song as also just being in 19/16 too (although thinking about it in tuplets has its own advantages for sure).
As a lifelong drummer who learned by playing along to rock / classic rock / pop / hip hop this is pretty brain-breaking and awesome! I salute your talent, ambition, and creativity!
ive been wondering why this song itches the scratch in my brain like it does thank you for this video!
As a musician who cooks to make money, I truly appreciate the spider racks you have in your studio. Now I need a couple...
"so stay tuned, and talk to you soon"
Yesss! More Shawn Crowder soon! Thank you for sharing all of this with us ❤️
I love how you present this idea. It's like being in a science fair ( or music fair?) that you and yours alone can manifest it in raw nature. I can see the happiness in you making these hypertuplets into an enjoyable context.
Good job!
I can NOT wait for Shawn's SUPER HYPER MULTI ULTRA META NINTEEN TUPLETS
This is in sane bro, i love everything inside THRESHOLD, also the name of the song is so cool…! Greatings from Mexico, love your vids man
While the main groove may be 6+6+7 (or 6+6+6+1, depending which part you are listening to), notice that the intro focuses us on 5+5+6+3 when the hats first come in before the breakout.
New album is amazing. Goodness 🔥🔥🔥
Will there be a physical release of the album? I'd buy the record or cd in a heartbeat!
Same here!
Same, would love a CD release so I can leave it in my car
4:45 a doted quarter note to is worth a quarter plus half of one. So when we have what I call faut de mieux a doublely doted it is a quarter plus half plus a quarter of one. Add it all we get a note worth seven sixteenth. We theoretically keep going with triplely doted and quadruplely doted notes.
Adam needs new driving glasses. They give me anxiety
6:21
Here to say the same thing. Hanging on for dear life lol
Criminally underwatched channel
I'm really embarassed I was oblivious to the fact you have an awesome channel like Adam's. Subscribed!
I’m feeling this in 5, 5, 9
The best kind of tuplets, you’re a master at this my dude!!!
I've always felt that playing tuplets was just a matter of how you're "feeling" the resolution, but playing them as time signatures is where the mastery comes in, you'd have to make them sound as "music". And that was always the challenge for me. Otherwise it's still just 4/4 in the end...
I'll sure be playing around with these rhythms, Thank to You !
Interesting how different band members counting differently, observed this at a jazz night watching the toe tapping of the musicians, all using different subdivisions, but yet it came together cohesively.
Zappa’s guitar book is a wealth of musical rhythms. I am going through it and carving out phrases that I feel move me. Being a drummer too, we lay the foundation for the others to lean on. I’ve noticed when I have a comfortable tempo, (36 bpm usually)…I freely start subdividing like mad. I think because melodies seep into my conscious…
Bulgarian folk music have people singing in 11with a counter melody in 9. When you start practicing these things it is funny how prevalent they are in your life…
I enjoy your talk…cheers!
Good video. Love that concept
Let's buy a new pair of glasses to Adam
Have you spent any time checking out modern dci drumline books and the massive amount of substitution rhythms? Wild stuff. Especially when you are on the move and playing with a full line. I like your channel!
Awesome. I've been doing this with 19 for years because it's a lucky number and sounded fun. But I'm just mapping in logic and cannot really play any of the instruments live. I love playing with the count and feel. Though I often use other numbers too and also I am creating them as odd time signatures with varying feels. I'm a self taught songwriter who can count but not read lol
Do you have any music you could link? I love programmed music with odd rhythms, it's a good way to experiment without all that pesky practice and the mechanical precision can actually be kind of a nice quality.
I find 19 has a nice aesthetic to it, both aurally and visually. Would love to hear some of your stuff!
@@TheSquareOnes Totally agree, I love experimenting and it's interesting too when a main lead melody wants to resolve but it has to wait a bit or the opposite...it can produce unique ideas and just feel different! I actually don't have anything out right now in that vein...BUT now that there's a bit of intrigue I will get back to you here with a place to check soon!
@@oscargill423 I was just letting Cyan know that since you both have perked me up a bit, I will figure out where to put a few oddball ideas and experiments and return back here soon!
That's a cool looking metronome
hypertuplets, hyper pop. 2021 damn
New tuplet just dropped
Really interesting, I wanna try this! 🤩
10:35 I like the cymbal his as a the censored sound lol
Awesome!
I don't know if I'm more pumped about the new songs or the theory behind them! In the end, it's nice to fall in love with new music these days. Thankful and excited. Cheers from Brasil.
This feels like a silly question, but what is that metronome used in the video? It looks really useful
I mean, right? I am actually curious about both apps
shawn replied to a different comment with "Tempo Advance and also Polynome for the 17 chill-hop gag. Both are great."
This absolutely rules. Love this experiment. Wow. Thanks for this. You rock, dude
love the resolution analogy, never really thought about it like that
Amazing theoretical concept brilliantly applied to real music! I'm stunned!
You speak so well. Your voice and your inflection work greatly together, very delightful video. Also, great content.
me at the beginning of the video: "Just play in a different time signature?"
I'm glad I told myself to shut the f*** up and watch the video. Thank you for this, Shawn.
that's so fucking insane.
A song that is written in 4/4, felt in 3/4 and played in 19/16.
larger tuplet rhythms and weird polyrhythms are decently common in modern marching percussion literature
When two of my favourite UA-camrs upload at the same time on the same topic ;)
I wish I could subscribe twice.
Holy crap, I've been writing music like this for the last year without realizing it has a name xD
Paul Desmond would call this 4 and 4/5ths time haha
Great video, GREAT tune!!!!
Dotted notes= Value+1/2 (so for a quarter note- four 16ths, dot adds 2..... 4+2=6). Double dots- Value+1/2+1/4, so 4+2+1=7. The symbol I'm very sad hasn't caught on, cause it would be SOOOO useful in modern music, is George Crumb's dotted note where the dot goes in FRONT of the note value, which meant Value+1/4 (4+1=5). Would be so useful to have a single symbol for five 16th's instead of always having to use a tie!
side topic: both you and Adam talked about how the lowest perceivable rhythm is 33bpm. Is that without doing any mental subdivision? In theory, couldn't you perceive 25bpm by hearing 100 in your head and just playing the 1 in a bar of 4/4, etc. I'm really interested in these tempo perception ideas- when does the perception of a feel change from single-time to half- or double-time, etc. There is a glockenspiel solo by composer James Romig that is written at 9bpm, but you can really think of it as 72 with the rhythms written 3 orders higher, that sort of thing.
Side topic 2: I trust that you know that your click scheme of 4/4+3/16 is the exact verse groove from Zappa's "Keep it Greasey" on Joe's Garage... FZ and Vinnie knew what was up! ....and Mahavishnu's "Celestial Terrestrial Commuters."
I learned the division of complex rhythms by practicing "adi tala", singing with syllables.... lets say a 14 notes cycle: I can divide the measure into 4 4 4 2: TaKaDiMi TaKaDiMi TaKaDiMi TeKi .... I can divide the Rhythm is different syllables: 6 5 3 or 2 times 7....
Shawn slowly transforming into Mike Mangini
ok im music lover but muzik theory not so educated...but i understand what you explain feel it and visualised the sound ...subscriber for sure
OMG!
You are the super master of rhythmic
Instant subbed
You can definitely tell he put a lot of time into this =D
Drone metal and black metal:
You called?
100 ms is the interval between frames of most animated gifs
We need the music video of this to be with FPS synchronized to the beat
Waiting for this one! I wondered if there was something to the tune's 33bpm-ness. What did Adam use as the click out of interest? How would sending another simultaneous click to another player work?
You just add it as another channel in Ableton and then setup the outputs how you want so that they don't overlap in anybody's headphones.
@@tissuepaper9962 Thanks so much!
Just listened to the album... it's friggin buh-dass.
What app is displaying the beats in the first 20 seconds of the video?
Oh heck yeah
What does the graph say at 2:19? Something like at around 100 ICI (inter-click intervals) will the weber fraction (WF%) be at its minimum as a rhythm (least distinguishable)? And then at 50 ICI rhythm will feel like a pitch, then after around 15 ICI WF% will be near-zero, or not able to tell the difference of pitch if it's changed? (All the acronym was searched online, not a music student here, so correct me if I'm wrong :) )
shawn is literally music vsauce
Hear & play that 19th note like it’s a pickup note into the next bar.
i kinda wanna hear hypertuplets used in an acoustic, stripped-down type of track
Amazing video
6:20 why does he wear his glasses like that lmao
9:33 was how i heard the song the first time
F R A C T A L - B E A T S
If a number exists, a there is a tuplet for it
What metronome app is he using?? I want it
Cursedtuplets
3:23 you can tell how much being in Germany has affected your pronunciation of certain words: Neely, topic, rhythm, etc
I counted this song in 10 but the last beat was half the length of the rest in order to figure out the 19s the first time around.
Threshold Bluecoats W
EVERYTHING IS 4/4
I'm getting into the twilight zone of music theory and it's a very scary place