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Weirdest Time Signatures

#22
seven eleven by chris potter has a section with alternating measures of 7/4 and 11/4, and another section in 3/4 i think

the first song on branford marsalis's contemporary jazz also has weird stuff going on in there, i can't really say what it is

Frank Zappa's 'music for electric violin and low budget orchestra' has lots of variations, i think it starts in 6, goes to 5, then 4, then some other crap. (and i don't mean the song is crappy, it's really sweet, especially with the duke of prunes at the end)
 
#24
i've written one awhile back where the drums keep a solid 3/4 and the bass goes 13/16 and the guitars alternate from 11/16 and 15/16. it was craaazzzzy, what was funny is that if one of us would mess up, they'll never be able to jump back cuz it gets so confusing. so when my guitarist would mess up, which was often, i just told him to hold a Gm chord and sustain it until the next part came in, then the song actually started.
 
#25
bryan bailey said:
The Mudvayne song Trapped in the Wake of a Dream has a rotating numerical time signature pattern.

I used to know it, but I don't feel like listening to the song seven times to figure out the times again.
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This song always messes with me, I love it. I am still learning quite abit about time signatures and the like and I will be damned if I can count this one.

There is a song on the new Slipknot album where the bridge sounds kinda tricky. I pointed it out to my drummer and he said it really was not that bad, the beats were in straight time, but they were playing over the bar. Which he explained to me and it made sense, thankfully. When you start becoming aware of time signatures and such you start appreciating more music, i.e.;Zappa.
 
#26
urb_munki said:
Hi Bruce that wasn't Matt Pollard was it?

I played his quasi cabaret/opera at the Joogleberry Theatre last year in Brighton and it was pretty intense - just becasue there were hardly ever more than two bars in a row of the same time signature - there wasn't any 15/9 but it was pretty insane from a counting point of view. But there were bars of 5, 6, 7, 2 and 9 all next to each other - it was nutty stuff.

The only thing that pissed me off was that becasue the rest of the band were classically trained they all thought that being able to sight read perfectly meant we only need about three full rehearsals - when we needed about 10 in treality to nail it - hence the first and only performance was something of a disapointment as we managed to play it all pretty well, but with more rehearsal it could have been amazing - I was actually surprised I didn't make many, or any, mistakes and the brilliant piano player did - but then again I learnt my parts so I didn't have to rely solely on the music. As a side note I;m crap with obscure time sigantures and should know more about them - 3/4, 5/4 and 7/4 are about all I'm any good at.

Mike
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No - it was Julian Nicholas - sax player, leads his own quintet...

I found it really hard - I practiced this tune for whole week - the only way I could get it was to programme it into my microcomposer - I remember it as it's still there - I put in the 15/4 parts as groups of 5 bars of 3/4 with ties...;)
 
#28
sargebaker said:
21/16 Planet X
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Dude you rule for knowing Planet X stuff! They have extreme time changes.

Also, since no one else has mentioned it, Dream Theater (of course) also has a 23/16 bar mixed in with lots of 9/8. I love how they make their changes pretty seemless - to me that's what makes good prog and not just wanker stuff.

Right now we're waiting for our drummer (who's from Ireland) to come back and play with us - Virgil Donati is his idol. He has some incredible chops.
 
#29
The entire series of "Time" albums by The Dave Brubeck Quartet-- Time Out, Time Further Out, et al. Alternating 9/8 (grouped 2-2-2-3) and 4/4, a ten-measure phrase, and 5/4 time, and that's just side one, which btw is one of the more famous albums in the jazz oeuvre.

For something a little closer to rock, try any of the "Canterbury" prog rock groups, esp. Egg, Hatfield and the North, National Health, or Bruford.
 
#30
The Flecktones have quite a few odd meter songs.
Chipas, which is a Hank Levy tune that was done by Stan Kenton is in 5/4 and it swings like crazy.
A bunch of Tool's stuff (the Majority) is in odd times. I know that Schism is alternating 5/8 and 7/8. They have some 5/4 stuff. The break in 46 and 2 is 6/4 with a 7/4 every fourth bar. Laterulus is 9/4, 8/4, and 7/4 alternating (I think).
I know Rush has alot. YYZ is one of my favs. (when Primus does it too)
 
#31
I'm working on the Flecktone's "Nemo's Dream" right now -- so far I've got the first theme, which has two bars of 15/8 then a bar of 14/8.

Or a better grouping might be 7/8 + 8/8 + 7/8 + 8/8 + 7/8 + 7/8.

Edit: yeah, 15/8 is really 5*3 / 8, which doesn't fit the melody.
 
#32
zcwilkes said:
The Flecktones have quite a few odd meter songs.
Chipas, which is a Hank Levy tune that was done by Stan Kenton is in 5/4 and it swings like crazy.
A bunch of Tool's stuff (the Majority) is in odd times. I know that Schism is alternating 5/8 and 7/8. They have some 5/4 stuff. The break in 46 and 2 is 6/4 with a 7/4 every fourth bar. Laterulus is 9/4, 8/4, and 7/4 alternating (I think).
I know Rush has alot. YYZ is one of my favs. (when Primus does it too)
Click to expand...

Actaully the break in 46 & 2 is mostly 7/8 with 8/8 every fourth bar (though there are some points where they skip the 8/8 until the 8th bar).

That's correct about the chorus for Lateralus.
 
#33
Some of polyrythymic passages on the later Morbid Angel albums are just insane. I worked one out that was in 33/8 spilt between two guitars.

I'm a big fan of "odd" time sigs personally. They make appearances in almost all my compositions. 9/8, 11/8 and 15/16 are favorites (I don't cound 7/4 and 5/4 as "odd").
 
#35
MY old band did one tune in 11/8, we also use to mess arround with a Mahivishnu tune that was in 9/4 or something like that I always cheated and just learned the melodys real good and hit the accents , seemed to work, I have enough trouble counting in 4! There is Sting tune on Mecury Falling called "I hung my head" sounds like a deceptively easy almost folk feel. There is some wicked time in that tune, I believe it's Vinnie Calliuto.
 
#38
geshel said:
Actaully the break in 46 & 2 is mostly 7/8 with 8/8 every fourth bar (though there are some points where they skip the 8/8 until the 8th bar).

That's correct about the chorus for Lateralus.
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"This has been the most requested segment ever since the cyber clinics began. It is simply a solo break over 7/4 time with a bar of 8/4 every fourth bar."

Actually I got this off of Danny Carey's web site. He plays it so I'm going with him on this one.
 
#40
zcwilkes said:
"This has been the most requested segment ever since the cyber clinics began. It is simply a solo break over 7/4 time with a bar of 8/4 every fourth bar."

Actually I got this off of Danny Carey's web site. He plays it so I'm going with him on this one.
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Riiiiight. . . .but you wrote:

The break in 46 and 2 is 6/4 with a 7/4 every fourth bar
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;)

Though I was wrong about it being 7/8 then 8/8, it is 7/4 then 8/4 like Danny said.
 

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