Electronic Music 411 - Time signature help - music theory, time signatures

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Time signature help

StoreTags: music theory, time signatures

Author: daveojo on July 29 2006

Viewed 7257 times. 4 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.

People who enjoyed reading this: Matti, Zanf, tmns, airliner

--> Is it just me or did there used to be a forum here for music theory topics?
Maybe not...

Anyway, I've realised that I only ever write in 4/4 or 3/4 time and I want to experiment with writing in different time sigs.

So, to gain a better understanding of time signatures and how they work I've decided that the best thing to do is to listen to songs which are in unusual time sigs. So, I want to know can people recommend some songs to me that I can listen to?

A couple of things though:
- If you could tell me what signature the song is in, that would be awesome.
- They have to be all in the one time, otherwise I'll never get my head around it.
- They have to be fairly common, so I can hear it online pretty easily.

If people have any other practical tips for getting to grips with uncommon time sigs let me know.

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Comments

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07/29/06 + Zanf

another one of theirs that stiull fucks with my head is 'nuclear device' when it goes to the 'round' style bit at the end and they sing:

"Way Down Under Australia
Very Different From Over Here
Getting Rid The Strangles One By One
Buy Cheap Land For Uranium
It Reminds Me Of Sweden
Got The Same Sort Of Freeze On
All The Animals Look So Strange
All Victims Of A Testing Range"

weird time signature then or maybe just clever vocal phrasing

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07/29/06 + airliner

almost any mahvishnu orchestra track is in odd signatures. they like 5/4 and 9/8 a lot.
most venetian snares tracks are in 7/4 or 7/8, depending on what you consider the tempo to be.
radiohead, morning bell: 5/4; everything in it's right place: 5/4; pyramid song is something like 3/4 to 5/4 to 5/4 to 3/4 (but it's really syncopated....it's a tricky one)
the beatles, all you need is love: 7/4
pavement: 5/4=unity is basically a riff on take five, with a break in 3/4
blondie, heart of glass: 4/4, but has a break in 7/4.
lots of 7/8 and 5/4 on sufjan stevens illinois: come on feel the illinoise is in 5/4 at the beginning, but switches to 4/4 at the break.
sunny day real estate: the song 5/4 is in, you guessed it, 5/4.
oh! the mission impossible theme is in 5/4 (but when U2 did a version for the movie, they made it 4/4. noobs).

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07/30/06 + daveojo

airliner said: "lots of stuff"

Perfect! You're my hero.

I've never realised that so much radiohead stuff is in weird time sigs. I knew about sufjan stevens (I'm a big fan of his) but didnt know what signatures stuff was in.

So, here are my next questions:

1. How do you work out what signature something is in?

2. How would you go about learning how to write in unfamiliar signatures?

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07/30/06 + daveojo

I've just found this wiki article with a list of popular songs written in unusual time signatures (or combinations of such signatures).

Still though I've can't work these out.

Recent blogs: Time signature help, I suck at the new EM411 :(

07/30/06 + tmns

To learn to write in unusual signatures you could try just setting your sequencer to 5/4, 7/8 or something, then put the metrenome on, and listen, try to play something or a program a beat, which works within it, experiment with putting the accents in different places. It would help to study some music theory, there's a book i used called The AB guide to music theory, which is pretty good.

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07/30/06 + bleen

one thing to try with odd times is to break them down into groups of 2's and 3's. find the rhythms inside the rhythms. an 11/8 bar could have an internal rhythm of 2-3-3-3, or 3-2-3-3, or 2-3-2-2-2, etc.

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07/30/06 + daveojo

bleen said: "one thing to try with odd times is to break them down into groups of 2's and 3's. find the rhythms inside the rhythms. an 11/8 bar could have an internal rhythm of 2-3-3-3, or 3-2-3-3, or 2-3-2-2-2, etc."

Good suggestion. I just did this with Jocko Homo by Devo.
7 / 8 apparently.
1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3, / 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3

Are we not men?

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