Entertainment For Lively Minds
Time at the bar....
...Well, after playing guitar for about 20 years, and still being crap at it, I've decided to take a slightly more structured approach to learning it - and, much to the irritation of my family, I've started to try and count out rhythms for songs as I have no sense of beat at all. This leads to me going ONE..eh..ah..Two..ea..ah etc at inappropriate moments, usually when driving ("This song is in 3/4!!" etc). So far, I have great success with 4/4 and 3/4, can usually manage 2/4 and 6/8, but anything else leaves me baffled.
Thanks to part of Genesis's "Supper's Ready" being labelled "Apocalypse in 9/8" (sic?), I think I can manage to tap that one out (4 beats, then 3, then 2), but anything else leaves me baffled. My studies so far have indicated that Marillion w/ Fish seem to be the most untappable, and the piano intro to "Firth of Forth" is unfathomable, and, incidentally, appears to have little to do with the rest of the track, to be honest.
So, two questions. Any tips for improvement and what's the most unusual time signature? Actually, three questions, what signature is "Kashmir" in?
Apologies if I should be reading "What Drummer"
EDIT Just realised I was "left baffled" twice in the original post - my apologies for the ghastly repetition.
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Time
Counting is the best way to get used to playing in any unusual time signature. Once you get used to feeling that 4/4 isn't the 'default' it suddenly gets much easier as your counting stops sliding back to that default 4/4.
Check out the 1980's incarnation of King Crimson. They frequently played in two simultaneous - but different - time signatures so the music was continually shifting as the two times converged and diverged
The album Discipline is a good place to start :-)
Kashmir
Is in 4/4, it just sounds like it isn't because of the way the riff weaves in and out of the beat.
For more 4/4 based weirdness, try '9-9' from the first REM album.
Well then...
...Whats Four Sticks in? 5/4?
And...
...Let Down by Radiohead, or Say a Little Prayer by Aretha.
My head hurts.
More like 10/8
Yup. Two crotchets then two dotted crotchets in each bar.
The obvious one
Money by Pink Floyd - 7/8 I believe.
It has the effect of almost sounding clipped or truncated, like there's a bit missing. Think it goes into 4/4 for the bridge and solo bit though I'm happy to be corrected on this!
Rich
It does indeed.
Not that it was done because Mr Gilmour couldn't play a solo in 7/8 or anything
Hmm...
...have just Wikipedia'd it and apparently it's in 7/4 rather than 7/8.
And of course
"Take Five" is in 5/4. And "Golden Brown" is either in 13/4, or alternates between 3 bars of 3/4 and 1 of 4/4.
I'm a cackhanded player of anything but I find it's much more important to learn the sense of the overall melody and groove before you think about counting and the specific notes - i.e. listening is the most important part of playing... when you know a song well enough just from listening to it loads, you find you naturally nod along to even the most seemingly awkward time signature, and if you can nod along and hum the riff to yourself you can play it much more easily than if you try and "work it out" logically...
Who, Do, You, Think, You
Do, You, Think, You, etc
Caravan have fun with all sorts of signatures too.
Get a
metronome.
metronome counts beats
not bars.
Metronome tells you what the tempo is, but the groove is in the bars...
Firth of Fifth
The piano intro tune comes back on synth and full-band in the first part of the middle instrumental section. Though then eclipsed by Mr.Hackett's sublime guitar solo.
Frank Zappa
Was fond of the odd, odd time-signature, too. I don't think I've ever quite twigged the time-signature of RDNZL.
Gig danger
As a fellow aspiring but failing guitar player I often find myself at gigs ignoring the actual music and concentrating on counting the beats, especially if it's something not in 4/4.
Don't let this happen to you!
'ello 'ello..what's all this then then?
Turn It On Again
The opening riff of the afore-mentioned Genesis song is in 13/8.
Seriously, count it.
I must agree with Mr Muggs. A feeling of the groove is a far better way to learn/play a complex piece than trying to count out the beats.
And I seem to remember Bill Bruford saying of King Crimson: "It was the only band in which you could play in 17/16 timing and still stay in good hotels."
.
Apropos of nothing
I can't let so much as a single bar's rest in a recording go by without audibly counting out the beats. I blame my cello teacher at school - she was always exhorting us to "mark time." It drives my wife mad.