# Odd time signatures



## GatodeCafe (Jul 16, 2010)

Been playing with them a bit lately.. Less in the shitty tech metal sense but more in a musical, radiohead sort of way. Believe it or not, open D slide guitar in 5/4 sounds fucking awesome. Like blues mixed with fucked up native american music. Listen to anonymous by tomahawk if you want to hear what I'm talking about. 

Anybody else mess around with odd time signatures? It's pretty fun, to say the least, LOL. If anything, it's just a nice creative exercise to be able to make music in times other than 4/4 and 3/4.


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## Aden (Jul 16, 2010)

Most of the crap I write isn't in 4/4 or 3/4 |3

5/4 has a really nice flow to it, btw.


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## GatodeCafe (Jul 16, 2010)

Aden said:


> Most of the crap I write isn't in 4/4 or 3/4 |3
> 
> 5/4 has a really nice flow to it, btw.



Yeah my personal favorites are probably 5/4 and 7/4.. They actually have a really elegant sound if you go out of your way to subdivide them properly.

I've noticed a lot of musicians just count out 1-2-3-4-5 for 5/4 for example when it's so much more musical and intuitive to think of it as 1-2-3-1-2 or 1-2-1-2-3.. The staggered downbeats give it structure and make the rhythm more pleasing to the ear, IMHO. That's how I voice all my polyrhythms, in groups of 2, 3 and four. so 7/4 could be 1-2-1-2-1-2-3, 1-2-3-4-1-2-3 1-2-3-1-2-3-4 or 1-2-3-1-2-1-2.. Nerdy, yes, but it helps me to analyze them more easily.


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## Aden (Jul 16, 2010)

GatodeCafe said:


> Yeah my personal favorites are probably 5/4 and 7/4.. They actually have a really elegant sound if you go out of your way to subdivide them properly.
> 
> I've noticed a lot of musicians just count out 1-2-3-4-5 for 5/4 for example when it's so much more musical and intuitive to think of it as 1-2-3-1-2 or 1-2-1-2-3.. The staggered downbeats give it structure and make the rhythm more pleasing to the ear, IMHO. That's how I voice all my polyrhythms, in groups of 2, 3 and four. so 7/4 could be 1-2-1-2-1-2-3, 1-2-3-4-1-2-3 1-2-3-1-2-3-4 or 1-2-3-1-2-1-2.. Nerdy, yes, but it helps me to analyze them more easily.


 
Not nerdy at all, I don't think. I honestly don't think about the overall time signature until the section is done being written. It's a series of beats that flow a certain way.


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## Plantar (Jul 16, 2010)

Here are a bunch of Indian / Iraqi patterns with some crazy time signatures. 

http://www.maqamworld.com/rhythms/muwashahat2.html#katakufti


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## Fiesta_Jack (Jul 16, 2010)

<3 5/4.


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## Willow (Jul 17, 2010)

The marching show for this year alternates between 4/4, 5/4,3/4, and 2/4

Mostly 5/4, 4/4

Not so hard if you can just remember the pattern 

I hate 6/8 with a passion though


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## Joeyyy (Jul 17, 2010)

My friend drums and he showed me his 5/4 and poly rhythms or something.

its fantastic.


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## kyle19 (Jul 17, 2010)

7/8 and 12/8 are fun to toy with since you can add more notes.


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## greg-the-fox (Jul 17, 2010)

7/8 is awesome :3
I actually hear it surprisingly often in like commercials and stuff


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## Captain Howdy (Jul 17, 2010)

Sorry, Decapitated > Radiohead.


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## Shade Koba (Jul 17, 2010)

I've worked with 5/4 and 3/4 for a few songs on my last albums, but I need to work out sumfin new like that sometime x3


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## GatodeCafe (Jul 17, 2010)

Lastdirewolf said:


> Sorry, Decapitated > Radiohead.


 

oh yeah man for real

no wait tech metal sucks balls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wniXxeTJlyM


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## Aden (Jul 17, 2010)

GatodeCafe said:


> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wniXxeTJlyM


 
I fucking _love_ Behold... the Arctopus :3


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## GatodeCafe (Jul 17, 2010)

Aden said:


> I fucking _love_ Behold... the Arctopus :3


 
Dog you are clownin.


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## Aden (Jul 17, 2010)

GatodeCafe said:


> Dog you are clownin.


 
No I really do

It's not like every band I listen to has to contain every element of music I like. I listen to different bands for different reasons. Behold... the Arctopus makes me think. Exercises the brain. It's great music, if not in a conventional way.


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## Endless Humiliation (Jul 17, 2010)

you know orthrelm has the same technical aptitude without the wack haircuts/warr guitars


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## Aden (Jul 17, 2010)

Senzuri Champion said:


> you know orthrelm has the same technical aptitude without the wack haircuts/warr guitars


 
The thread was about odd time signatures, and BtH is one of the top acts in that realm 

besides he started it


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## Endless Humiliation (Jul 17, 2010)

well theyve transcended the need for time signatures 

for my money if it aint atonal it aint HUTNIHTN


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## Aden (Jul 18, 2010)

Senzuri Champion said:


> well theyve transcended the need for time signatures
> 
> for my money if it aint atonal it aint HUTNIHTN


 
I've always wanted to try composing something atonal...
doubt I could though


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## Captain Howdy (Jul 18, 2010)

GatodeCafe said:


> oh yeah man for real
> 
> no wait tech metal sucks balls



No. 8D


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## GatodeCafe (Jul 18, 2010)

Lastdirewolf said:


> No. 8D


 
Doom>Tech


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## Captain Howdy (Jul 18, 2010)

GatodeCafe said:


> Doom>Tech


 
Most metal > Doom


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## GatodeCafe (Jul 18, 2010)

Lastdirewolf said:


> Most metal > Doom



Not MF doom. That motherfucker is better than anybody anywhere. He's like so ill, I have no idea what he's even doing half the time.


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## ThisisGabe (Jul 25, 2010)

I want to see more 9-8, that one is freaky.. a waltz in a waltz


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## GatodeCafe (Jul 25, 2010)

ThisisGabe said:


> I want to see more 9-8, that one is freaky.. a waltz in a waltz


 
It depends on the phrasing, I think but that's definitely a unique way of looking at it.


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## loofa (Jul 28, 2010)

I play drums, and I love 6:8. I also love 7:8, and 5:4 goes really well with 4:4. There's a song by Minus the Bear called Michio's Death Drive that's a really good example of 5:4 and 4:4 mixing well.


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## virus (Aug 3, 2010)

I don't even pay attention to time sig anymore. Although I think my favorite crazy one is is 7/16


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## A10pex (Aug 3, 2010)

Not sure if this is true or not but my friend showed me this guy who supposedly drummed in 32/16 or something like that, I said isn't that like 12/8 or something. He insisted that it was that


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## Aden (Aug 3, 2010)

A10pex said:


> Not sure if this is true or not but my friend showed me this guy who supposedly drummed in 32/16 or something like that


 
uh
what


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## A10pex (Aug 3, 2010)

Aden said:


> uh
> what



I meant that I think he was lying about the time signature


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## Tao (Aug 7, 2010)

The only real weird time signature I've played in was 12/4 when I was in a concert band


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## Willow (Aug 8, 2010)

Tao said:


> The only real weird time signature I've played in was 12/4 when I was in a concert band


 How does that even work!?

Let's see..12 beats per measure, quarter note gets the beat. Something like that. 
That is kinda freaky. I don't think we've ever had anything like that ever. 

We've only gone up to 6/8 and it's very rare when we do. I hate it.


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## Ffzzynxnynxxyninx (Aug 8, 2010)

It's nice to hear music in a different signature once in a while. Typical radio 4/4 time gets old, not to mention most songs use the same chord progression. That's why I appreciate bands like Dream Theater. I don't necessarily LIKE them, but I appreciate them.


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## jinxtigr (Aug 12, 2010)

I just love weird time signatures. I recently did a major remix of one of my albums that's like that- Dragons 

http://www.jinxtigr.com/paintings/dragons.html

Also times against other times- for instance this one off Full Day is deceptively simple but confusing to count- http://www.jinxtigr.com/albums/fullday/Dawn.mp3


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## Impasse (Aug 19, 2010)

I can only write in 5/4 and above nowadays. Four beats are never enough.

Also, I haven't heard any other songs in the meter, but 'Blue Rondo a la Turk' is in that nice 9/8, that (2+2+2+3)/8, it's really fun. Anyone know where I can hear more in that meter?

Indian classical music also has some strange meters, it's really cool.


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## Jude (Aug 28, 2010)

Man, I love odd time signatures, they're so fun to play and listen to.

If you want a good example of 29/8 time at a 269 BPM (yeah):

[video=youtube;PL72Tyxe1rc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL72Tyxe1rc&ob=av3e[/video]

Really it's just 3 measures of 7/8 followed by one 4/4 measure.
Still awesome though.


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## Fenrir Lupus (Sep 3, 2010)

Willow said:


> I hate 6/8 with a passion though


 
Maybe that's why you hate me.

Because I love 6/8 for some reason...

Wish I could dig up the sheet music for the song that made me like 6/8...  i've found practically every other song I played in band...  (I made a copy of everything so I could practice at home and never worry about forgetting to bring the music back to school...  so I should have it somewhere.)


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