Time signatures, the heart beat of music

i'm a big fan of using lots of different time signatures - discerning the intended groove of a minimally constructed piece in an unusual time signature can be pretty rewarding - it's part of the reason i love funckarma's stuff - they constantly play with time signatures and superimposing patterns of varying time signatures on top of one another.

a good example is their remix of run return's "animals are people too" - the loop at the beginning can clearly be counted as 5/4, but once they introduce the other elements, it becomes a syncopated downbeat for the 6/4 pattern that makes up the bulk of the song. at a few other points, even these elements seem to shift into a 4/4 pattern.

i love listening to that stuff, and the way it all plays together. it really is enjoyable for me.

with certain tempo / signature combinations, the concept can become less about the groove, and more about a sense of beats being skipped... i've included an example of a track i started but never fleshed out. it's in 17/16, and at 96 bpm. 17/16 essentially just adds an extra 16th note on to the end of an otherwise 4/4-countable measure. so most folks will start to nod along to the 4/4 feel, but that extra 16th every measure resets their head nodding. it's a little annoying, really, because it's very difficult to count organically.

i find time signatures to be less about theory than organic feel. it's one of the simpler concepts of theory to understand because it's very literal. experimentation tends to be key.

enjoyment.

c

  maus said:

with certain tempo / signature combinations, the concept can become less about the groove, and more about a sense of beats being skipped... i've included an example of a track i started but never fleshed out. it's in 17/16, and at 96 bpm. 17/16 essentially just adds an extra 16th note on to the end of an otherwise 4/4-countable measure. so most folks will start to nod along to the 4/4 feel, but that extra 16th every measure resets their head nodding. it's a little annoying, really, because it's very difficult to count organically.

 

listen here

that's cool. makes you wonder what any of those very odd time signatures actually mean in numbers. 'add an extra 16th note' makes more sense to me than 'this is in 17/16'.

same as using 4/4 throughout an entire track but never really emphasizing any on-beat count with a snare or kick. or placing snares and kicks like one 64th in front or behind every exact count. the pattern repeats every 4 counts but what exactly is the count then? understandable in theory, but practically challenging. i like to experiment with that stuff every now and then.

time sigs are mostly for use by performers and conductors reading from a score, seperating the notes into readable and therefore countable chunks. If you're going to have a regular pulse even if it's 3/4 followed by 5/8 followed by 2/4 and the feel of the beat warrants it then it's worth using time sig changes but if youre just doing it for the sake of it then you're just dicking around wasting time.

Metric modulation though, thats something i'd br interested to hear in some electronic music.

  Quote

We, the Legendary Pink Dots feel it is our duty to inform an unwary public that the new number of the Beast is 834. In fact we, the Legendary Pink Dots were instrumental in this turn of events. Let us explain...

 

The change occurred on a rainy morning in August when the Legendary Pink Dots, Lisa and friends of the Prozhtet Militat were holding a party to celebrate the completion of AsYlum - a cage into which they could retreat from worldly matters.

 

Naturally, the party finished with the traditional burning of Oogchuu, the fire baby. (We must point out that the burning of Oogchuu is not an act of cruelty. Oogchuu's purpose in the order of things is to be burned, and he never protests when Poison Barbarella strikes the first match.)

 

However, things did not go as planned. Oogchuu sneezed at an inappropriate moment... the resulting ball of fire incinerated the curtains. The Legendary Pink Dots, Lisa, and the friends of the Prozhtet Militat found themselves in the midst of an inferno!

 

Happily the quick-thinking Silver Man had the foresight to dial 999 before the telephone melted. But it was not the fire brigade who appeared at our flaming portal seconds later. It was the Beast... standing on his head! Angry! Cursing!

 

We tried to reason with Him, but it was useless. The terrible one was hell-bent on revenge.

 

With one sweep of his left hand, the Beast turned the world upside down. Only we, the Legendary Pink Dots, Lisa and the friends of the Prozhtet Militat stayed rooted to the spot as our fellow mortals flew off the earth as if it was an upturned jug.

 

Then Stret Majest Alarme had a brilliant idea.

 

"Hey Terrible One", he volunteered, "Why don't you choose a number more in keeping with your dark and terrible methods? After all, 666 reminds me of three little ducks swimming across a pond..."

 

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It was Patrick Paganini Q. who reluctantly provided the answer. "We shall make our music for you alone, Terrible One. We shall create... an Infinity Waltz!"

 

And so it goes. The number is 8, the time is 3/4. Endlessly. 8-3-4, 8-3-4, 8-3-4. Endlessly.

 

Will you spare a tear for us as we bid you farewell?

http://legendarypinkdots.org/about-the-band

i have a track in 7/4 that works, i think, because it has a steady 8th-note kick under it.

maybe having something steady makes the beat feel more natural or immediately accessible because (aside from slight accents) it's the same as it would be in 4/4. and it's kind of counting out the rhythm for you.

demo of the thing i'm talking about:

http://soundcloud.com/corbu/through-emptiness-demo

That was really really good, sir.

Moar.

Thanks man.

My EP is here: http://corbucorbu.com

Demos of new shit here: http://soundcloud.com/corbu/sets/corbu-in-progress

a signature like 17/16 could also be written 4.25/4 if that makes any more sense logically. You would never write it like that, but that's basically what it means.

but 17/16 might be unnecessarily complex unless the bar is filled with semiquavers, it should be subdivided into something like 6/8 + 5/16 (just one example of many possibilities). In contemporary music sometimes those two time sigs can be placed beside each other in the same bar.

the real question here is:

When making a DJ mix, how does one mix a 7/4 or 3/4 into a 4/4 (or vice versa) without it sounding shit?

That's what I want to know.

  sneaksta303 said:

the real question here is:

 

When making a DJ mix, how does one mix a 7/4 or 3/4 into a 4/4 (or vice versa) without it sounding shit?

 

That's what I want to know.

I think what I said about some kind of steady pulse would apply there.

Like if you were coming out of 4/4 and had a steady 1&2&3&4& beat, you should be able to drop something in 7/4 without a problem. Right? I mean the accents might be off, but as a transition that might even sound good.

  Robotussin said:

  sneaksta303 said:

the real question here is:

 

When making a DJ mix, how does one mix a 7/4 or 3/4 into a 4/4 (or vice versa) without it sounding shit?

 

That's what I want to know.

 

I think what I said about some kind of steady pulse would apply there.

Like if you were coming out of 4/4 and had a steady 1&2&3&4& beat, you should be able to drop something in 7/4 without a problem. Right? I mean the accents might be off, but as a transition that might even sound good.

Well, that's what I've tried, but maybe i just need to pick better songs for it because they have all sounded shit. i don't even try anymore. mayhap i will soon...

  sneaksta303 said:

  Robotussin said:

  sneaksta303 said:

the real question here is:

 

When making a DJ mix, how does one mix a 7/4 or 3/4 into a 4/4 (or vice versa) without it sounding shit?

 

That's what I want to know.

 

I think what I said about some kind of steady pulse would apply there.

Like if you were coming out of 4/4 and had a steady 1&2&3&4& beat, you should be able to drop something in 7/4 without a problem. Right? I mean the accents might be off, but as a transition that might even sound good.

 

Well, that's what I've tried, but maybe i just need to pick better songs for it because they have all sounded shit. i don't even try anymore. mayhap i will soon...

crossfade every single upcoming glitch :P

i love the x-fade

  Robotussin said:

  sneaksta303 said:

the real question here is:

 

When making a DJ mix, how does one mix a 7/4 or 3/4 into a 4/4 (or vice versa) without it sounding shit?

 

That's what I want to know.

 

I think what I said about some kind of steady pulse would apply there.

Like if you were coming out of 4/4 and had a steady 1&2&3&4& beat, you should be able to drop something in 7/4 without a problem. Right? I mean the accents might be off, but as a transition that might even sound good.

yeah that way would probably work best but i always wonder what would happen if you mixed them as polyrhythms. i.e. keep the bar length the same for a 3/4 and 4/4 track and let the cross rhythms just happen. Would probably sound shit like the beats were galloping even if it was nailed perfectly though, too many kick drums, although some nifty filtering could help...

"time signatures of the heart" would be a cool album name!

syncopation is far more interesting than timesignatures

but i do like 6/4, when i start jamming on guitar or piano i eventually play that naturally

  chimera slot mom said:

syncopation is far more interesting than timesignatures

 

but i do like 6/4, when i start jamming on guitar or piano i eventually play that naturally

one of my p168 tunes in in this

i don't really understand time signatures or how to read tablature

i just twinkle some keys and try to keep them afloat with the rest of the instruments through cravings and guesses

just was listening to a radiohead track in 4/5.

Thats a pretty interesting time signature.

What's the name?

  thehauntingsoul said:

just was listening to a radiohead track in 4/5.

 

Thats a pretty interesting time signature.

lol

I like 4/4 and 3/4 the best.

ntss ntss ntss ntss ntss

5/4 trance