I appreciate that you need to a make a living so no hate for accepting a sponsor: but …… I knew as soon as i heard that phrase “free to “””download”””” it was gonna be some hot garbage. Yes, free to “download” (what app isn’t?) but not to use, overly woke-y, topics, and your time signatures ciurse is nowhere to be found.
I tend to add the leftover quavers into a 'skip', usually in the middle. Would like to 'blame' Joe Morello, but am not altogether certain he's solely responsible. :) Thanks for alternative ways to read them!
As a prog musician, I absolutely love odd time signatures. One of my old band's songs had a main riff in 11/8. It was essentially 7/8 (as shown in this video) followed by 2/4. The piece at the end is in 13/8.
@@babylemonade2868listen to Nos Siguen Pegando Abajo. That's a good groove with some drums in regular 4/4 beneath, so it's polyrythmic too! The song was and is a massive hit in Argentine music
As a guitarist I love how much more freeing the piano can be to create songs on the fly, by thinking of melodies at the same time as you figure out chords, voicing, rhythms, etc. The guitar can also be used for that, of course, but not so effortlessly.
Yeah, I agree with everything you’ve said. I have played guitar exclusively for a long time, and it’s a bad instrument for writing music hahah. Things like modal interchange are much easier to make sound natural than guitar. You also learn scales and chords better on piano (notes) than is the standard on guitar (shapes).
There are many tracks that use this trick. Two I can think of are the 'Inspector Morse' theme which literally plays M-O-R-S-E although the timing isn't what you would use to send it in actuality. Another is 'Some Mother's Do 'Ave Em', a 70s UK comedy, which is played out with the piccolo. Perhaps David could make a video of tunes using Morse Code, that would be really fun.
The piece at the end is in 13/8! I think my favorite odd meters are 7/4 and 7/8, especially when the pattern is 4+3. Our brains love 4/4 so much that it can be unexpected and jarring when a measure of what we thought was 4/4 ends prematurely, and this can be used to great effect. I currently have a video game idea where the plot revolves around a group of middle schoolers mourning and processing the premature death of a classmate, and have the idea of said classmate's theme being in 7/4. The way our ears find the 4+3 version of 7/4 "cut short" reflects the untimely end to a young life.
For me, the key is to understanding and mentally "accepting" the odd time signatures is that every other measure is syncopated to the previous measure. So since the first measure starts on the downbeat of 1, the second measure is syncopated, and starts on the relative upbeat. The measures alternate in syncopation throughout. Measure 1 downbeat. Measure 2 upbeat. Measure 3 downbeat. Measure 4 upbeat, and so-on. Makes it feel more normal.
I think the point is: Feel the rhythm instead of analyzing it intellectually! As an example, although the song "Getting Better" by The Beatles is (as I think) in a simple 4/4 beat, Ringo has added a tricky cymbal beat in the verses: If you count "one | two | three, and | four", it comes on the "and". Quite easy thing doing it this way - but try and tell at which position the beat comes if you divide the bar into 16th! I think it is the 11th, but I am still not sure. - I just tried to reproduce the drum beat using MuseScore; at first I thought that is rather the 12th of 16/16th; but listening to thee original again, I am back at the 11th of 16 /16th ... or you could also say the 6th of 8/8th.
That's probably why "Feel" players mostly play in 4/4, play pentatonic scales and jam over cowboy chords. "Feel" is an excuse. If you know how to fret a chord or play in key you already have analyzed music and know some sort of theory. I don't understand this pushback against learning the language of music. It's like painting strictly in black and white and never learning about color.
Yes, I've only recently realized that rhythm is very similar to harmony in this way: the theory is method of analyzing and educating, but it is not necessarily the natural language when playing or creating. I've seen instances of world music described as 17/8 (or some such) but that is just a "code" of sorts, acting as a shorthand for a more natural scheme.
@@alexanderwilliamson7431So true. I was fortunate enough to know a member of the Wrecking Crew, and am still in touch with his widow due to my friendship with her nephew. The only musician I'm aware of in the Wrecking Crew who was not a trained musician, apart from having great feel, was Glen Campbell. He had to rely a lot on Carol Kaye, bass guitarist, to know what to do.
I really love hearing how my favorite prog bands treat odd meter (Rush, Crown Lands, Genesis, etc) but then I equally love hearing simplistic renditions like Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel, or Eleven by Primus. I think odd meters can scare off "normal songwriters" thinking that they're for prog nerds like me :P but you can very easily make them feel and sound very regular, and honestly they can groove SUPER hard! Starting off with anything over 4 is a great way to internalize the sense of odd meter, then you can run all the way down the rabbit hole of writing anything over 8 or 16. Thanks for making this video, it's really refreshing to see a simpler take on what can seem to be a mammoth subject.
Solsbury Hill is one of my very favorite "odd meter" songs because of how well the sense of urgency of the beat matches the moment of the song. It's a song that grooves, but doesn't have time to wait around for the formality of the eighth beat. Simple, but so effective.
There's a thing at the beginning of this video that you don't mention in words, but which shows how well you've practiced the skill you're trying to teach here: you speak in a normal voice while playing the 5-beat rhythm. This would be quite impossible to do if you weren't feeling the pulse of the rhythm rather than counting it in your head. Got my attention. This is exactly the kind of ease I always want in my own playing.
Lovely as always, David. 11/8 is my favorite signature, and I’m the furthest possible thing from a skilled musician. Not only do I sometimes hear it as 3-3-3-2 as you demonstrated (which reminds me of “Right in Two” by Tool), but often I just cheat by alternating bars of 6/8 and 5/8 in rhythms I already know. Eventually, 11/8 began to feel “normal” to me. My next goal is to figure out how to treat time signatures with large “numerators” _without_ using my usual cheat of smashing together two smaller rhythms (something more akin to your “if 12/8 was an odd time signature” video!). Cheers for all the inspiration.
Thank you thank you thank you. I've been playing music for thirty years and this is the first time someone has explained these in a way I can understand. Turns out I've been using them already without realising, but now I can do so deliberately. Amazing video, well presented, simply explained, great examples. 10/10
One of my favorite things to do with odd time signatures is count the amount of ways you can divide it into a combination of simple and compound beats. For example, 11/8 has 9 ways it divides: 5 where there’s 1 compound beat 3 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 2 2 - 3 - 2 - 2 - 2 2 - 2 - 3 - 2 - 2 2 - 2 - 2 - 3 - 2 2 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 3 and 4 where there’s 1 simple beat 3 - 3 - 3 - 2 3 - 3 - 2 - 3 3 - 2 - 3 - 3 2 - 3 - 3 - 3 13/8 has 16 ways it divides, which I won’t write down here. It’s a really fascinating mathematical problem to calculate how many ways you can divide meters this way. There’s a sequence in the OEIS, A182097, that documents the number of these ways. It’s a fun exercise to write out all the ways you can divide these meters these ways.
A couple people have mentioned doing 9/8 as 3 triples. A classic example is "Beautiful Dreamer," which could have been done in 6/8, but the song would've felt hurried. It's like waltz within a waltz. Also, for an adventure in odd meters: "Tarkus" (ELP).
Thank you for the easily understandable lesson. You are a great teacher and you are helping me to develop my ear. These rhythms very much had a circle, or infinity sound to them, something to calm your mind.
You can also look at 15/8 as 5 groups of 3, like 12/8 with an extra 3 on the end. The best example of this is in the song Limo Wreck by Soundgarden. I also think of 7/8 as like a cut short 4/4 like in the intro to Deliverance by Opeth.
7/8 is really cool, because of how you can group it. You have, obviously, seven 8th notes in a bar. We can group it like: 1/4, 1/4, three 1/8s; 1/4, three 1/8s, 1/4; Three 1/8s, two 1/8s, two 1/8s; Etc. I have a song that I wrote where the main riff is in 7/8, grouped as three 1/8s, two 1/8s, 1/4. Regardless of how you group 7/8, it always feels like something is missing. This kind of grouping is true of most odd time signatures.
I really liked the way how You played/grouped that 9/8 time signature,it sounded very nicely progessive, something that firmly, steadily moves on and on😊😊
First, I want to say what a brilliant video! Thank you! However, I hear of these very odd time signatures such as 33/16, 7/6 etc. that bands like Dream Theater play. I remember Don Ellis playing 33/16 back in the 1960s and can't wrap around such meters, but know you have a simple explanation.
I highly recommend looking at the album "Tale of a Cruel World" by DM Dokuro; they have used a wide range of time signatures in it (5/4, 11/4, 13/4 and 7/8). There's some fascinating work in their structuring too. My top pick from it is "Blood Coagulant" (edit 1): "Octivarium" by Dream Theatre is another song that used many crazy time signatures, all compacted into a 24 minute progressive, orchestral rock piece! Also it used 7/16. (edit 2): There's just so much I know that I can't help but talk about: The soundtrack for act II in the game "ULTRAKILL" used some odd time signatures too. Not as odd, but occasions of 5/4 and 7/8 (Dancer of the Darkness, He is the Light in my Darkness, Death Odyssey). (edit 3): Last edit I swear: The piece "Ganondorf Battle" plays in the mind-warping 23/16 time; have fun with that!
Coldplay's Christmas song is in 6/8 (I think), but they make it sound like an odd time signature, by playing as if it were one bar of 4/4, and then one of 2/4.
It's actually way simpler than that. The intro and verse are in 4/4. The chorus switches to 3/4 with a bit of a swing groove. You can find the sheets online.
I love writing in odd meters and when it comes to the recording, that moment where I stop trying to count and settle into a rhythm is invariably the moment where everything clicks into place. Best feeling. But it's something I like to come up with on the fly 'cause especially with longer meters there's more than one way to write them, and one of the best parts about using these strange divisions is that you get to figure out your own "right way".
I like never pay attention to details like this. I just love to listen to music and point out if they sound like other songs. That said, thanks for showing me this.
This was really eye opening and really helpful for my own compositions thank you so much!! EDIT: For your own composition at the end my guess would be 13/8.
Currently writing a song in 15/8 meter and the way I decided to count it is to group the notes into one bar of 8/8 and one bar of 7/8. Then, in the bar of 8/8 I play a clave of 3+3+2, and in the bar of 7/8 a clave of 3+2+2. I feel that this way the music has that stumbling effect but is quite groovy as well.
@@luke5100 I'm planning on recording a demo in a few days, super nervous about it. The counting on this is insane since the grouping of the notes is changing almost every other bar.
Always brilliant videos. Thanks. Something that interests me at the moment is rhythmic palindromes. So you mirror the ostinato. It gives very interesting results.
I like to think of any complex rhythm as just what it is: a bunch of 3s and 2s like David explains. Often, the meter doesn’t even matter to me after that, as long as I know how to subdivide it. Because I often play music in mixed meter, I don’t even have time to latch onto a groove.
For 13/8, I stumbled upon a 3rd way by thinking on long long long short short, like a 3-2 clave. For an application, I wrote a piece titled "Solar Plexus" to this clave. Instead of using the 13/8 time signature, i switched between 9/8 and 2/4 to emphasise the 3 long beats vs 2 short beats grouping
Essentially develop the repetition and get it into muscle/brain memory. For me though, it always comes down to counting the divisions into 3's and 2's. 123 123 12 12 for 5/4. It rarely fails to work.
I think the optimal usage of odd meter is when you can't tell that the song is in an odd meter, so that there are no weird extra beats in the bar, more like that long long short approach you took on the 5/8 beat
Once you get to large enough numerators in your time signature, it can be helpful to think of other possible combinations beyond 2, 3, and 4. For example, phrasing 17/8 as 5 + 5 + 7.
13/8- and at a rather fine pace too… Most of the time I’m composing on a modular set up, and where it’s any time signature at all I like to try to mix it up. It’s very difficult to build dotted notes into the gate sequencer (not sure it’s possible at all) so these little 3-3-3-4 tricks- each beginning with a kick- are very useful. Still haven’t nailed the ‘Blue Rondo’ 9/8 yet, but to do that properly involves 36 steps…
Very wonderful intro to odd meters; being a progressive rock fan, I hear these all the time. One song that's really interesting is Gavin Harrison's (Porcupine Tree & King Crimson) "19 Days", which is in 19/8, but broken down interestingly as 7-7-5, rather than any patterns of 2s and 3s or 3s and 4s. It has a very interesting feel as a result, but is amazing to listen to.
As a classically-trained musician, I don't have any issues playing in odd meters. In fact, I've always kind of gravitated toward more complex pieces because they're typically more interesting to play (though of course, there's definitely a place for slower, more melodic music, too). The piece at the end is in 13/8.
King Crimson used to do a piece called "Thrak" where part of the group plays in five (hitting on one and three) and another part plays in seven (hitting on one, three and five). When it all comes around they end on thirty-five (the common denominator). They do this twice, so seventy. They would later bring this to "Level Five". Then, of vourse, ther's "Discipline", where the guitars play two configurations of five, followed by the rhythm in 17/8. I could go on.
Idk if anyone here plays Doom, but there’s a ton of music that has been released by its modding community that’s full of fantastic use of odd time signatures like this. Definitely worth checking out
For 9/8, I have made up with something like 2+2+3+2, instead of 2+2+2+3. For 13/8, I have tried 4+3+3+3. For 15/8, I have tried 8+7 in a group like (3+3+2)+(3+2+2). For 17/8, I choose to go with 9+8 in a group like (2+2+3+2)+(3+3+2). But well, there are more variations of these pattern that I have used. But sometimes, we can make the simple time sound odd. So, I like to do it this way more. Like in 4/4, I will go with 1.25+1.25+1.5 (or 2.5+2.5+3, if you choose to go with 8/8 instead of 4/4), which makes the music sounds really odd.
Stravinsky likes to make it trickier by changing time signature every bar, using 4, 8 and 16 on the bottom. Thankfully the 16s are all rests in my part, and I can listen to the piano soloist (its a piano and wind orchestra concerto) and just worry about 2/4, 3/8, 3/4 and 5/8 when I come back in.
@@LeoDurman11 Well, here’s what I thought ONE two three, one two three, one two three, one two three, one. There’s these triplets on a slower time, and 4 and a third triplets in total in one whole bar. Would be 13/8 in that sense, counting 13 beats in all of that.
Apart from 9/8 often appearing as compound triple time, 7 comes naturally from taking a double dotted pulse and 15/8 is one step more compound than 9/8.
When he said 3 long + 3 short pulses feel more organic compared to 4 long + 1 short pulse, the balkaner in me cried a lot. I cannot comprehend how that does not feel organic to someone!
I've just come up with a really good one for 9/4. Basically just stick a measure of 5/4 after a measure if 4/4, but to keep the same type of syncopation that you get with 5/4, make the 4/4 measure a tresillo rhythm (which David has made a video on). So like this: *••*••*•*••*••*•*• Which is 123 123 12 (the tresillo) followed by 123 123 12 12 (the Mission Impossible Rhythm)
Out of all the compound time signatures the ones I’m most accustomed to playing are 5/4 (Gorillaz - 5/4), 7/4 (Pink Floyd - Money, Soundgarden - Outshined), 6/4 (Soundgarden - The Day I Tried to Live) and some pieces I did in high school were in signatures like 7/8, 5/8 and one was in 15/8 but I still know a bunch of prog bands like Rush, Dream Theater, Tool, Porcupine Tree, King Crimson, ELP and Opeth all use these signatures in their song in one form or another
All the music in the mode Salmon Run in Splatoon 2 and Splatoon 3 is in written in odd meters and I'm a huge fan of that. "Fishing Frenzy" for example is mostly written in 31/16, "Frothy Waters" starts in 10/8 and adds an 8th note every bar all the way up to 25/8. Video game music in general is a great source for music written in odd meters!
Behind all the piano trickery, the simplest way I can describe it is like this. First bar is a Dadd2. Then, it's a Dm/Bb or a Bbadd#4 (is that notation correct?). Then a Gm. So: Iadd2 / VIbadd#4 / iv That's my best try, at least.
In my experience, the problem with 'JUST' feeling the ostinato/clave is that you are resetting the rhythmic grid every bar, so time can sometimes get inaccurate as you keep adjusting where the strong beat is against the grid, especially if you are improvising in that meter. This is hard to explain just in words without demonstrating it to music. But the key that I find to getting truly comfortable in odd meters is to double the duration of the time signature so you can have a static rhythmic grid. For instance, instead of feeling a song as in 7/8, where every 7 eighth notes, you reset - instead feel 2 bars of 7/8 as one bar of 7/4. So that way, if the 7/8 clave is (quarter, quarter, dotted quarter), when feeling it in 7/4, the same clave will be played twice, with the first time on down beats and the second time on up beats. That way when you're playing, you can have a static basic beat in your head that isn't constantly rhythmically resetting every second, and you can kind of feel the asymmetry of the meter as an ebb and flow of strong beats and weak beats. Sorry if this seems super confusing. It is extremely difficult to word in just text, but super easy to demonstrate and to feel in practice. So in summary, double up the bottom number of the time signature. Feel 2 bars of 7/8 as 1 bar of 7/4. Or 2 bars of 5/4 as one bar of 5/2. This will make improvising and messing around with rhythm WAAAY easier in the meter.
@@DavidBennettPianoThanks!! Been watching for an age. Very much appreciate your methodology and the way you approach pedagogical topics with such an easy-to-follow practicality. Your demonstrations are also highly interesting to hear. Keep it up, man. Fabulous!
End piece is 13/8. Easy to count because your rhythm is easy to follow. I use mostly 7/8 as it seems to be the easiest odd meter to follow. Still working on 11/8 and 13/8 and I've used 5/4 but not exclusively in a full song. I'll get there. I've used 9/8 by accident. Being a prog musician is fun.
Check out my time signatures topic on Haby Academy: haby-academy.onelink.me/9KMC/DavidBennett
Also, I've heard people count 15/8 as if it were like 5/4 time, but for these examples, it's probably better to show it the way you brought it up
I appreciate that you need to a make a living so no hate for accepting a sponsor: but …… I knew as soon as i heard that phrase “free to “””download”””” it was gonna be some hot garbage. Yes, free to “download” (what app isn’t?) but not to use, overly woke-y, topics, and your time signatures ciurse is nowhere to be found.
What time is "Schisim" by Tool? I always assumed it was a 5/8 and 7/8 alternating back and forth.... what do you think?
I tend to add the leftover quavers into a 'skip', usually in the middle. Would like to 'blame' Joe Morello, but am not altogether certain he's solely responsible. :) Thanks for alternative ways to read them!
As a prog musician, I absolutely love odd time signatures. One of my old band's songs had a main riff in 11/8. It was essentially 7/8 (as shown in this video) followed by 2/4.
The piece at the end is in 13/8.
7/8 is one of my favourites and it can groove too
@@babylemonade2868listen to Nos Siguen Pegando Abajo. That's a good groove with some drums in regular 4/4 beneath, so it's polyrythmic too! The song was and is a massive hit in Argentine music
As a guitarist I love how much more freeing the piano can be to create songs on the fly, by thinking of melodies at the same time as you figure out chords, voicing, rhythms, etc. The guitar can also be used for that, of course, but not so effortlessly.
This is the reason I bought a piano.
Yeah, I agree with everything you’ve said. I have played guitar exclusively for a long time, and it’s a bad instrument for writing music hahah. Things like modal interchange are much easier to make sound natural than guitar. You also learn scales and chords better on piano (notes) than is the standard on guitar (shapes).
I didn't know about the Morse code bit in Mission Impossible. What a clever little device that also makes the piece so recognizable.
There are many tracks that use this trick. Two I can think of are the 'Inspector Morse' theme which literally plays M-O-R-S-E although the timing isn't what you would use to send it in actuality. Another is 'Some Mother's Do 'Ave Em', a 70s UK comedy, which is played out with the piccolo. Perhaps David could make a video of tunes using Morse Code, that would be really fun.
Thanks for a brilliant explanation! Actually 5/4, 7/8 and 9/8 are very common in Greek music, so they are easy to grasp here even for non-musicians.
The piece at the end is in 13/8!
I think my favorite odd meters are 7/4 and 7/8, especially when the pattern is 4+3. Our brains love 4/4 so much that it can be unexpected and jarring when a measure of what we thought was 4/4 ends prematurely, and this can be used to great effect. I currently have a video game idea where the plot revolves around a group of middle schoolers mourning and processing the premature death of a classmate, and have the idea of said classmate's theme being in 7/4. The way our ears find the 4+3 version of 7/4 "cut short" reflects the untimely end to a young life.
For me, the key is to understanding and mentally "accepting" the odd time signatures is that every other measure is syncopated to the previous measure. So since the first measure starts on the downbeat of 1, the second measure is syncopated, and starts on the relative upbeat. The measures alternate in syncopation throughout. Measure 1 downbeat. Measure 2 upbeat. Measure 3 downbeat. Measure 4 upbeat, and so-on. Makes it feel more normal.
I think the point is: Feel the rhythm instead of analyzing it intellectually!
As an example, although the song "Getting Better" by The Beatles is (as I think) in a simple 4/4 beat, Ringo has added a tricky cymbal beat in the verses:
If you count "one | two | three, and | four", it comes on the "and". Quite easy thing doing it this way - but try and tell at which position the beat comes if you divide the bar into 16th!
I think it is the 11th, but I am still not sure. - I just tried to reproduce the drum beat using MuseScore; at first I thought that is rather the 12th of 16/16th; but listening to thee original again, I am back at the 11th of 16 /16th ... or you could also say the 6th of 8/8th.
That's probably why "Feel" players mostly play in 4/4, play pentatonic scales and jam over cowboy chords. "Feel" is an excuse. If you know how to fret a chord or play in key you already have analyzed music and know some sort of theory. I don't understand this pushback against learning the language of music. It's like painting strictly in black and white and never learning about color.
Yes, I've only recently realized that rhythm is very similar to harmony in this way: the theory is method of analyzing and educating, but it is not necessarily the natural language when playing or creating. I've seen instances of world music described as 17/8 (or some such) but that is just a "code" of sorts, acting as a shorthand for a more natural scheme.
@@alexanderwilliamson7431So true. I was fortunate enough to know a member of the Wrecking Crew, and am still in touch with his widow due to my friendship with her nephew. The only musician I'm aware of in the Wrecking Crew who was not a trained musician, apart from having great feel, was Glen Campbell. He had to rely a lot on Carol Kaye, bass guitarist, to know what to do.
"All music is in 4/4 unless you are a nerd"
-A wise man
@@avijatsinharoy8944 “Life would be dull with only 4/4 to listen to”- a nerd
I really love hearing how my favorite prog bands treat odd meter (Rush, Crown Lands, Genesis, etc) but then I equally love hearing simplistic renditions like Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel, or Eleven by Primus. I think odd meters can scare off "normal songwriters" thinking that they're for prog nerds like me :P but you can very easily make them feel and sound very regular, and honestly they can groove SUPER hard! Starting off with anything over 4 is a great way to internalize the sense of odd meter, then you can run all the way down the rabbit hole of writing anything over 8 or 16. Thanks for making this video, it's really refreshing to see a simpler take on what can seem to be a mammoth subject.
Solsbury Hill is one of my very favorite "odd meter" songs because of how well the sense of urgency of the beat matches the moment of the song. It's a song that grooves, but doesn't have time to wait around for the formality of the eighth beat.
Simple, but so effective.
There's a thing at the beginning of this video that you don't mention in words, but which shows how well you've practiced the skill you're trying to teach here: you speak in a normal voice while playing the 5-beat rhythm. This would be quite impossible to do if you weren't feeling the pulse of the rhythm rather than counting it in your head.
Got my attention. This is exactly the kind of ease I always want in my own playing.
How about a video about finding upbeats and downbeats in such time signatures?
11/8 sounds so beautiful
Lovely as always, David.
11/8 is my favorite signature, and I’m the furthest possible thing from a skilled musician. Not only do I sometimes hear it as 3-3-3-2 as you demonstrated (which reminds me of “Right in Two” by Tool), but often I just cheat by alternating bars of 6/8 and 5/8 in rhythms I already know. Eventually, 11/8 began to feel “normal” to me.
My next goal is to figure out how to treat time signatures with large “numerators” _without_ using my usual cheat of smashing together two smaller rhythms (something more akin to your “if 12/8 was an odd time signature” video!).
Cheers for all the inspiration.
Thank you thank you thank you. I've been playing music for thirty years and this is the first time someone has explained these in a way I can understand. Turns out I've been using them already without realising, but now I can do so deliberately. Amazing video, well presented, simply explained, great examples. 10/10
Playing with note value groupings in top heavy time signatures is very creative and quite fun. Love the video! Much gratitude to you.
One of my favorite things to do with odd time signatures is count the amount of ways you can divide it into a combination of simple and compound beats. For example, 11/8 has 9 ways it divides:
5 where there’s 1 compound beat
3 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 2
2 - 3 - 2 - 2 - 2
2 - 2 - 3 - 2 - 2
2 - 2 - 2 - 3 - 2
2 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 3
and 4 where there’s 1 simple beat
3 - 3 - 3 - 2
3 - 3 - 2 - 3
3 - 2 - 3 - 3
2 - 3 - 3 - 3
13/8 has 16 ways it divides, which I won’t write down here. It’s a really fascinating mathematical problem to calculate how many ways you can divide meters this way. There’s a sequence in the OEIS, A182097, that documents the number of these ways. It’s a fun exercise to write out all the ways you can divide these meters these ways.
Good heavens, I love your original compositions.
A couple people have mentioned doing 9/8 as 3 triples. A classic example is "Beautiful Dreamer," which could have been done in 6/8, but the song would've felt hurried. It's like waltz within a waltz.
Also, for an adventure in odd meters: "Tarkus" (ELP).
I think of it as, 2/4 is to 6/8 like 3/4 is to 9/8
As a church musician, when I think of 9/8 the first song I think of is Blessed Assurance, which also plays it as three sets of triples.
just thank you i love odd time signatures for a living and i rly rly rly am looking forward to this video, love from austria
This video actually inspired me to finish off a song the other day - thanks so much for this David!!
Thank you for the easily understandable lesson. You are a great teacher and you are helping me to develop my ear. These rhythms very much had a circle, or infinity sound to them, something to calm your mind.
This video virtually single handedly taught me time signatures.
Love your videos mate! Short, to the point, and easy to follow. Please keep on going with this sensational lessons. You're awesome 👍😎
It would interesting to take a drummer’s view on this, i.e. where he would be placing the snare backbeats - this helps to break down the subdivisions.
You can also look at 15/8 as 5 groups of 3, like 12/8 with an extra 3 on the end.
The best example of this is in the song Limo Wreck by Soundgarden.
I also think of 7/8 as like a cut short 4/4 like in the intro to Deliverance by Opeth.
7/8 is really cool, because of how you can group it. You have, obviously, seven 8th notes in a bar.
We can group it like:
1/4, 1/4, three 1/8s;
1/4, three 1/8s, 1/4;
Three 1/8s, two 1/8s, two 1/8s;
Etc.
I have a song that I wrote where the main riff is in 7/8, grouped as three 1/8s, two 1/8s, 1/4.
Regardless of how you group 7/8, it always feels like something is missing.
This kind of grouping is true of most odd time signatures.
Thanks for breaking these down into a digestible form. I was playing along with most of these.
I'm all in odd meters. Out of 4/4. Out of equal temperament. Cheers Maestro!
I really liked the way how You played/grouped that 9/8 time signature,it sounded very nicely progessive, something that firmly, steadily moves on and on😊😊
I love your piece "Study in 5/4 Time!" Thank you for reminding me to use it for an Instagram Reel today!
The 7/8 break towards the end of Zappa’s “Inca Roads” is some of the best shit ever. But is VERY hard to bob your head to.
Make a video about tritone substitutions
It’s been on my list for a while! It will definitely happen eventually!
❤love from the UK. Really helpful
Thank you!
I found it helps a lot if you start to shuffle the fast "3" around a bit; like 1 - 2 - 3 -123 4 - for 11/8
11/8 with slow tempo is just absolute mood
15/8 as 5 groups of 3's.
In Beyond this life by Dream Theater there's a riff in 15/8 played alternatively 4 + 4 + 4 + 3 and then 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3
I think the piece at the end is in 13/8
That’s my guess too, I’m counting 3 groups of 3 and a final group of 4.
I agree.
When I first saw that chart, I misread the last time signature as 17/18 😂 luckily I'm going to bed.
13/4.
Absolutely brilliant video . Thank you David, for being so helpful 👍👍
First, I want to say what a brilliant video! Thank you! However, I hear of these very odd time signatures such as 33/16, 7/6 etc. that bands like Dream Theater play. I remember Don Ellis playing 33/16 back in the 1960s and can't wrap around such meters, but know you have a simple explanation.
I highly recommend looking at the album "Tale of a Cruel World" by DM Dokuro; they have used a wide range of time signatures in it (5/4, 11/4, 13/4 and 7/8). There's some fascinating work in their structuring too. My top pick from it is "Blood Coagulant"
(edit 1): "Octivarium" by Dream Theatre is another song that used many crazy time signatures, all compacted into a 24 minute progressive, orchestral rock piece! Also it used 7/16.
(edit 2): There's just so much I know that I can't help but talk about: The soundtrack for act II in the game "ULTRAKILL" used some odd time signatures too. Not as odd, but occasions of 5/4 and 7/8 (Dancer of the Darkness, He is the Light in my Darkness, Death Odyssey).
(edit 3): Last edit I swear: The piece "Ganondorf Battle" plays in the mind-warping 23/16 time; have fun with that!
DM Dokuro's music is tight. I think him (generally) as a cross between Jazz Fusion and Prog Metal.
Blood Coagulant's 11/4 kick beat is my beloved
Coldplay's Christmas song is in 6/8 (I think), but they make it sound like an odd time signature, by playing as if it were one bar of 4/4, and then one of 2/4.
It's actually way simpler than that. The intro and verse are in 4/4.
The chorus switches to 3/4 with a bit of a swing groove. You can find the sheets online.
I love the 123 123 123 12 12 from skimbleshanks the railway cat, very catchy
David, you are a master of common practice!!
Great job on the visuals. Helps a lot. I also noticed that most rhythms that are one short feel better than one extra. Well at least to me.
I love writing in odd meters and when it comes to the recording, that moment where I stop trying to count and settle into a rhythm is invariably the moment where everything clicks into place. Best feeling.
But it's something I like to come up with on the fly 'cause especially with longer meters there's more than one way to write them, and one of the best parts about using these strange divisions is that you get to figure out your own "right way".
Very good David.
Another nice video
Really nice video! It would be cool to see a similar video, but with ideas for opposite patterns in the left hand, what would work, what wouldn´t.
I like never pay attention to details like this. I just love to listen to music and point out if they sound like other songs.
That said, thanks for showing me this.
This was really eye opening and really helpful for my own compositions thank you so much!! EDIT: For your own composition at the end my guess would be 13/8.
I thought 13/8 too.
Currently writing a song in 15/8 meter and the way I decided to count it is to group the notes into one bar of 8/8 and one bar of 7/8. Then, in the bar of 8/8 I play a clave of 3+3+2, and in the bar of 7/8 a clave of 3+2+2. I feel that this way the music has that stumbling effect but is quite groovy as well.
@@luke5100 I'm planning on recording a demo in a few days, super nervous about it. The counting on this is insane since the grouping of the notes is changing almost every other bar.
@@luke5100 If you are still interested, I have a video on my channel with this track now
Always brilliant videos. Thanks. Something that interests me at the moment is rhythmic palindromes. So you mirror the ostinato. It gives very interesting results.
You are a great teacher, my friend.
I like to think of any complex rhythm as just what it is: a bunch of 3s and 2s like David explains. Often, the meter doesn’t even matter to me after that, as long as I know how to subdivide it. Because I often play music in mixed meter, I don’t even have time to latch onto a groove.
Thanks so much, this video is ssssooo much useful!🙏🏻💥
13/8
And nice video! Keeping the grouping in 2's and 3's tends to help me personally. I hear the 4 in your 13/8 piece as two 2's.
I heard it at 3x3 and 1x4, but the conclusion is the same :)
For 13/8, I stumbled upon a 3rd way by thinking on long long long short short, like a 3-2 clave. For an application, I wrote a piece titled "Solar Plexus" to this clave. Instead of using the 13/8 time signature, i switched between 9/8 and 2/4 to emphasise the 3 long beats vs 2 short beats grouping
excellent video, thank you
A very usefull video. Thank you
Thanks 😊
Thanks for the video this is how i think about time signatures as well :)
The last composition you did was in 13/8 🎉
Essentially develop the repetition and get it into muscle/brain memory. For me though, it always comes down to counting the divisions into 3's and 2's. 123 123 12 12 for 5/4. It rarely fails to work.
I think the optimal usage of odd meter is when you can't tell that the song is in an odd meter, so that there are no weird extra beats in the bar, more like that long long short approach you took on the 5/8 beat
Exactly! I love Pink Floyd's Money for this reason. You really need to count it to realize that it's in 7:4.
or river man by nick drake
Before this video started i got an piano course ad made by this guy. That confused the hell out of me
Once you get to large enough numerators in your time signature, it can be helpful to think of other possible combinations beyond 2, 3, and 4. For example, phrasing 17/8 as 5 + 5 + 7.
absolutely brilliant!
so well described, easy to share this video!
Finally. Thank you
Great Lesson! Thank You!
13/8- and at a rather fine pace too…
Most of the time I’m composing on a modular set up, and where it’s any time signature at all I like to try to mix it up. It’s very difficult to build dotted notes into the gate sequencer (not sure it’s possible at all) so these little 3-3-3-4 tricks- each beginning with a kick- are very useful. Still haven’t nailed the ‘Blue Rondo’ 9/8 yet, but to do that properly involves 36 steps…
thank you very much for this video! Respect!
Very wonderful intro to odd meters; being a progressive rock fan, I hear these all the time. One song that's really interesting is Gavin Harrison's (Porcupine Tree & King Crimson) "19 Days", which is in 19/8, but broken down interestingly as 7-7-5, rather than any patterns of 2s and 3s or 3s and 4s. It has a very interesting feel as a result, but is amazing to listen to.
I listen to Tool, it’s basically these except with palm mutes.
As a classically-trained musician, I don't have any issues playing in odd meters. In fact, I've always kind of gravitated toward more complex pieces because they're typically more interesting to play (though of course, there's definitely a place for slower, more melodic music, too). The piece at the end is in 13/8.
King Crimson used to do a piece called "Thrak" where part of the group plays in five (hitting on one and three) and another part plays in seven (hitting on one, three and five). When it all comes around they end on thirty-five (the common denominator). They do this twice, so seventy. They would later bring this to "Level Five". Then, of vourse, ther's "Discipline", where the guitars play two configurations of five, followed by the rhythm in 17/8. I could go on.
Idk if anyone here plays Doom, but there’s a ton of music that has been released by its modding community that’s full of fantastic use of odd time signatures like this. Definitely worth checking out
9/8 sounds hipnotizing
This was a great idea. 🍻
13/8 is sweet love your piano :)
For 9/8, I have made up with something like 2+2+3+2, instead of 2+2+2+3.
For 13/8, I have tried 4+3+3+3.
For 15/8, I have tried 8+7 in a group like (3+3+2)+(3+2+2).
For 17/8, I choose to go with 9+8 in a group like (2+2+3+2)+(3+3+2).
But well, there are more variations of these pattern that I have used. But sometimes, we can make the simple time sound odd. So, I like to do it this way more. Like in 4/4, I will go with 1.25+1.25+1.5 (or 2.5+2.5+3, if you choose to go with 8/8 instead of 4/4), which makes the music sounds really odd.
I love 3/16 with 1 bar of 4/16 after 12 beats. Great for metal and jazz!
Thank you ! This made sense
13/8
Stravinsky likes to make it trickier by changing time signature every bar, using 4, 8 and 16 on the bottom. Thankfully the 16s are all rests in my part, and I can listen to the piano soloist (its a piano and wind orchestra concerto) and just worry about 2/4, 3/8, 3/4 and 5/8 when I come back in.
One interesting way to get used to it is playing in 7/8 as 322 or (Greek) 223.
This IMO gives a good ground for other odd time signatures.
11:40 Would it be 13/8 maybe?
13/4??
@@LeoDurman11 Well, here’s what I thought
ONE two three, one two three, one two three, one two three, one.
There’s these triplets on a slower time, and 4 and a third triplets in total in one whole bar.
Would be 13/8 in that sense, counting 13 beats in all of that.
@@acarminelotus noice 👍
Apart from 9/8 often appearing as compound triple time, 7 comes naturally from taking a double dotted pulse and 15/8 is one step more compound than 9/8.
When he said 3 long + 3 short pulses feel more organic compared to 4 long + 1 short pulse, the balkaner in me cried a lot. I cannot comprehend how that does not feel organic to someone!
I've just come up with a really good one for 9/4. Basically just stick a measure of 5/4 after a measure if 4/4, but to keep the same type of syncopation that you get with 5/4, make the 4/4 measure a tresillo rhythm (which David has made a video on). So like this:
*••*••*•*••*••*•*•
Which is 123 123 12 (the tresillo) followed by
123 123 12 12 (the Mission Impossible Rhythm)
Out of all the compound time signatures the ones I’m most accustomed to playing are 5/4 (Gorillaz - 5/4), 7/4 (Pink Floyd - Money, Soundgarden - Outshined), 6/4 (Soundgarden - The Day I Tried to Live) and some pieces I did in high school were in signatures like 7/8, 5/8 and one was in 15/8 but I still know a bunch of prog bands like Rush, Dream Theater, Tool, Porcupine Tree, King Crimson, ELP and Opeth all use these signatures in their song in one form or another
13/8 at the end
All the music in the mode Salmon Run in Splatoon 2 and Splatoon 3 is in written in odd meters and I'm a huge fan of that. "Fishing Frenzy" for example is mostly written in 31/16, "Frothy Waters" starts in 10/8 and adds an 8th note every bar all the way up to 25/8.
Video game music in general is a great source for music written in odd meters!
That 7/8 prog was GORGEOUS! Can anyone tell the how those chords break down?
Behind all the piano trickery, the simplest way I can describe it is like this.
First bar is a Dadd2. Then, it's a Dm/Bb or a Bbadd#4 (is that notation correct?). Then a Gm.
So: Iadd2 / VIbadd#4 / iv
That's my best try, at least.
I highly recommend Take 5. It’s in 5/4.
I like the "Early Distant Warning" clave for 7/8. Ba ba baa ba ba baa ba ba baa ba ba baa
This is basically Adam Neely's "short short long" interpretation of odd time signatures
In my experience, the problem with 'JUST' feeling the ostinato/clave is that you are resetting the rhythmic grid every bar, so time can sometimes get inaccurate as you keep adjusting where the strong beat is against the grid, especially if you are improvising in that meter. This is hard to explain just in words without demonstrating it to music. But the key that I find to getting truly comfortable in odd meters is to double the duration of the time signature so you can have a static rhythmic grid. For instance, instead of feeling a song as in 7/8, where every 7 eighth notes, you reset - instead feel 2 bars of 7/8 as one bar of 7/4. So that way, if the 7/8 clave is (quarter, quarter, dotted quarter), when feeling it in 7/4, the same clave will be played twice, with the first time on down beats and the second time on up beats. That way when you're playing, you can have a static basic beat in your head that isn't constantly rhythmically resetting every second, and you can kind of feel the asymmetry of the meter as an ebb and flow of strong beats and weak beats.
Sorry if this seems super confusing. It is extremely difficult to word in just text, but super easy to demonstrate and to feel in practice. So in summary, double up the bottom number of the time signature. Feel 2 bars of 7/8 as 1 bar of 7/4. Or 2 bars of 5/4 as one bar of 5/2. This will make improvising and messing around with rhythm WAAAY easier in the meter.
My method is actually similar to this, except that, as a guitar player primarily, I use strumming patterns rather than ostinatos.
Wow I've never been the FIRST like on a video. Thanks for being so awesome! Ill actually listen now lol
*Edit: typo :/
Welcome!!
@@DavidBennettPianoThanks!! Been watching for an age. Very much appreciate your methodology and the way you approach pedagogical topics with such an easy-to-follow practicality. Your demonstrations are also highly interesting to hear. Keep it up, man. Fabulous!
very useful tanks
As a prog nerd, I LOVE "exotic" time signatures. The ending piece is in 13/8..
End piece is 13/8. Easy to count because your rhythm is easy to follow. I use mostly 7/8 as it seems to be the easiest odd meter to follow. Still working on 11/8 and 13/8 and I've used 5/4 but not exclusively in a full song. I'll get there. I've used 9/8 by accident. Being a prog musician is fun.
the Morse code thing will be my next bar curiosity talk