What songs would you suggest a player to practice that are not 4/4 timing? I'm looking for something easy to intermediate level in the genre of jazz, blues, pop or rock. Reggae too. It's been a while since practicing and I want to get back in the groove with something to help me get better with my ability to play in different time signatures. Thanks.
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Instead of giving you songs let's speak to how time signatures are to be played.
3/4 is played with quarter notes and there are three of them in each measure. What gets left between the chairs is the way the drummer divides the 3 is how you play 3/4 rhythm. If the drummer decides to play the 3 as /-// or //-/ is what you do. Now ole 3/4 Waltz time is /-//. But he may go another way. The drummer dictates which way the rhythm goes.
5/8 - how is the 5 divided? //-/// or ///-// or //-/-// ...... Get a drum machine and practice rhythm from the drum machine. Now most drum machines will have the capacity to give you 100 different drum tracks, no one needs 100 different drum tracks, but 10 would be nice to have under your fingers.
3/4 is played with quarter notes and there are three of them in each measure. What gets left between the chairs is the way the drummer divides the 3 is how you play 3/4 rhythm. If the drummer decides to play the 3 as /-// or //-/ is what you do. Now ole 3/4 Waltz time is /-//. But he may go another way. The drummer dictates which way the rhythm goes.
5/8 - how is the 5 divided? //-/// or ///-// or //-/-// ...... Get a drum machine and practice rhythm from the drum machine. Now most drum machines will have the capacity to give you 100 different drum tracks, no one needs 100 different drum tracks, but 10 would be nice to have under your fingers.
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buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Bass player from Georgia? You're almost required to play Whipping Post, which starts in 11/8 and moves to 12/8.
At the risk of being argumentively pedantic (or pedantically argumentative?) there's no such thing as a 5/8 subdivision with a single-beat partial.
That //-/-// is almost certainly a mishearing of a 3-2 subdivision.
Not to mention that most of the time 5 is divided into 2 dotted quarter notes and two quarter notes.
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That would be 4/4
Hahaha good call, I meant to write 2 dotted quarters and 2 quarters.
I went through my itunes. Here's a few more. I'm just guessing at these time signatures. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Verses in 4 Chorus in 3.
3
3
3
3
6
3
3
Verses in 4 Chorus in 3.
3
3
3
3
6
3
3
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2 that came to mind right away(that haven't been mentioned yet)
Breaking the Girl by RHCP is in 6/8
Eleven by Primus is in...11/4 (the bass line starts around 44 seconds in)
Breaking the Girl by RHCP is in 6/8
Eleven by Primus is in...11/4 (the bass line starts around 44 seconds in)
DiabolusInMusic
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BurningSkies
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Reggae in 3...is a really tough one. Most reggae is predicated on being in 4 (or two for some academic debate and people who like to fuss
) and there's a bit of a discussion about how you want to count that four (two camps there too (do you consider the big beat to be two-four or 3)). So yeah, here's the thing though. You CAN play in 3/4 or 6/8 and give things a reggae feel. We do it on a couple songs that are more or less soul numbers that I retain the reggae feel with.
Back around the time the Exposure album was released Robert Fripp was writing a column for Musician Magazine, and in one column he described the middle part of "Breathless" as being "without meter". He claimed it consisted of an undifferentiated stream of 30-something 8th notes, repeated at three different pitch levels.
I find that description disingenuous.
To my ear the middle part very obviously alternates between two measures of 11/8 and one measure of 7/4. The bass & drums very clearly articulate this. I suspect the feeling of 3 you're hearing comes from the guitar part, which is playing repeating phrases of 18 eighth-notes; and yes 18 is divisible by 3, but the "undifferentiated stream" aspect of the phrase(s) makes me think that we shouldn't be inferring any barlines from the guitar part.
Anyway, if I were tasked with transcribing this tune I would bar the middle section as 11/8 (subdivided 2+2+2+2+3) x2 followed by 7/4, and then for the guitar part I'd beam all the 8th notes in groups of four (regardless of how the beams crossed barlines) and then put a large phrase marking (like a slur) over groups of 18.
Narada Michael Walden (Wiki link) is amazing on drums during Breathless. What an incredible career he has had. Not just drumming up a storm, he did fantastic soundtracks and rocked as a producer.Back around the time the Exposure album was released Robert Fripp was writing a column for Musician Magazine, and in one column he described the middle part of "Breathless" as being "without meter". He claimed it consisted of an undifferentiated stream of 30-something 8th notes, repeated at three different pitch levels.
I find that description disingenuous.
To my ear the middle part very obviously alternates between two measures of 11/8 and one measure of 7/4. The bass & drums very clearly articulate this. I suspect the feeling of 3 you're hearing comes from the guitar part, which is playing repeating phrases of 18 eighth-notes; and yes 18 is divisible by 3, but the "undifferentiated stream" aspect of the phrase(s) makes me think that we shouldn't be inferring any barlines from the guitar part.
Anyway, if I were tasked with transcribing this tune I would bar the middle section as 11/8 (subdivided 2+2+2+2+3) x2 followed by 7/4, and then for the guitar part I'd beam all the 8th notes in groups of four (regardless of how the beams crossed barlines) and then put a large phrase marking (like a slur) over groups of 18.
Thanks for the time input. Now I gotta listen to it again (I'll bring my calculator and pocket protector!)
PS: Jerry Marotta and Tony Levin are stupendous on that album, too.
