4 More Songs That Skip a Beat

the 34 trick is my name for when a piece of music that's in 44 suddenly uses a single oneoff bar of 34 which basically creates the effect of skipping a beat because our ears are anticipating four beats in every bar and then suddenly one bar only has three beats so it feels incomplete it feels like we've skipped over the final beat in the bar for example These Bars all have four beats in a bar hence the time signature of 44 but this bar is in the signature of 34 so it only has three beats in the bar so as we pass over this bar because we're used to the pulse of 44 and we're expecting another bar of 44 when we only get three beats in this bar it catches us off guard and it sounds like the bar has prematurely ended like we've skipped over the final beat when I made my last video on the 3 before trick you guys left loads of great suggestions for other songs that use it so today I want to have a look at some of those starting with the afternoon 9 in the afternoon by Panic at the Disco is largely in 44 but occasionally features a bar of 34 when we pass over this bar of 34 it creates an obvious skip in the music a skip in the timing others can you know yeah we're feeling so good Pi up this is because so far we've only had bars of four beats so our ears have got used to that timing got used to that sense of having four beats in every bar so when this bar unexpectedly ends One Beat early it gives us a sense of jumping forward of skipping into the next bar if I add that missing beat back in again making this bar a bar of 44 just like every other bar so far you can hear the impact that missing beat was having feeling as good as LS can you know yeah we're feeling so [Music] good panicat the Disco used this 34 trick throughout the song for example in the latter part of the verse and at the end of the chorus considering the song's lyrics are literally about losing your sense of time I do wonder whether the band actively chose to include this trick to help give the song a sense of confusion and disorientation another common suggestion that actually surprised me was Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash Ring of Fire written by June Carter and Mel kilg and made famous of course by Johnny Cash is also largely in 44 however it features oneoff bars of 3 four each time we get one of these instrumental horn breaks between each line of the verse love is a burning [Music] thing and it makes a fiery [Music] ring despite having played this song before I had never noticed anything particularly odd about this one until it was suggested the beat skip in this song is really subtle and ties perfectly into the horn Melody if I add the missing beat back in again it doesn't sound particularly weird to me although the instrumental break between each line of the verse does get that little bit longer meaning the song does lose a bit of momentum love is a burning [Music] thing and it makes a fiery ring the interesting thing about this example is depending on how you count the tempo you may conceptualize the time signature a bit differently your ears may be hearing the song more like this still in 44 but counting the tempo twice as fast so 200 beats per minute instead of 100 and if you conceptualize it this way instead of hearing a bar that's been cut short so a bar of 44 cut short to be a bar of 34 you may instead hear two beats injected into the song So a bar of two four spliced in love is a burning [Music] thing and it makes a fiery [Music] ring obviously although these two look drastically different on the page they sound identical it's not like there's a right or wrong here it's more down to your preference when it comes to how to count the music before the labotomy by Green Day is another great example of the 34 trick the song starts out with a Karma intro section in 44 time but then at about 1 minute 20 in we get hit by this disorientating guitar riff which then becomes the New Foundation of the song as you can see this riff is constantly jumping back and forth from 44 to 34 creating the skipped beat [Music] effect however to double down on this rhythmic disorientation the Riff also features what can be called beat displacement let me explain that a bit so basically in the first half of the Riff we get this three note Motif falling on the strong beats of the bar and in the second half of the Riff that Motif is then repeated and ordinarily you may expect that to happen again on the strong Beats sounding like this but instead green day shifts this Rift a half beat forward in the bar so it now folds on the offbeats of the bar it's the exact same Motif however shifted in time this beat displacement creates a similar skipping effect to the 34 trick because we hear the motif again half a beat earlier than our ears were expecting to hear it this distinctive rhythm that includes skipping a beat and displacing a Beat isn't only present in the Riff the same rhythm is used in the vocals in the next section we've got the same skipped beat here and the same displaced beat here only with a new Melody enough to make it set to catch the stone it's go up bre when the sky is falling down it's hard to say if Green Day consciously put these interesting rhythmic elements into their song however considering this song is about a labotomy about an operation where you remove part of your brain it makes a lot of sense that the rhythm of the music is also missing something it feels like something's been sliced out of the bar just like something's been sliced out of the brain one of the conditions for the 34 trick to have its desired effect for it to sound like we're skipping a beat is for there only to be one bar or three four added in not multiple bars this is what creates the effect of skipping a beat as our ears are hearing the timing as 44 hearing that 44 pulse and then suddenly as we hit a bar of 34 is interrupted but if instead of only having one bar of 34 before we return to 44 we had two bars of 34 it instead quite quickly sounds like we've shifted into 34 time our ears start getting used to that 34 pulse and this is exactly what happens in the song It Must Be Love by Labby cifre the majority of it must be love is in 44 however at the end of the chorus we get two bars of 34 back to back creating a momentary change to 34 time before we switch back to 44 it must be love love love nothing more nothing less love is the best this has a similar off-kilter feel to adding one bar of 3 four but like I just said because we've got two bars here it starts sounding more like we've entered three four time like we've entered a Walt time love love nothing more nothing less love is the [Music] best the last example that we're going to look at today effectively does the opposite of the 34 trick golden brown by the stranglers is largely in three four time giving it a wslik fail but in the intro section each line ends with an added beat an extra beat turning it into a bar of 44 so we get three bars of 34 and then one bar of four four this gives the song A JY of kilter [Music] sound the verse of golden brown is simply in 34 so because we've had this rhythmically uneven intro when the Rhythm settles into an even three four time for the verse it sounds all the more [Music] satisfying like I was saying with ring of fire considering the high tempo of golden brown you could alternatively write it down like this in 68 rather than 34 and with bars of 78 added in to accommodate the extra [Music] beat I personally though much prefer it written down in 34 with added bars of 44 as I think it makes it easier to understand where the extra beat is being added and if you're interested in hearing what golden brown would sound like if it didn't add an extra beat in well then here is a clip of it being played as a straight Walts completely in three four [Music] [Applause] [Music] time to make the song easier to dance to they've removed the extra beat making the entire piece in 34 so I hope you enjoyed this renewed look at the 34 trick back in July last year my original 34 trick video actually got blocked worldwide because of copyright infringement just because I used a few examples of songs which should be fair use and this was super annoying because the video almost had a million views after swapping out the offending audio clips from that video I did re-upload it and I just wanted to say a big thanks for you guys getting the view count almost back up to where it was the first time and as always a massive thank you goes to my patrons including Adam Granger Andre science diager Andrew Andrew Brown Andy Deacon Austin Barrett Bob mckinstry Britney Parker Bruce Mount Cameron oler Chris cabal Kieran bennon Daniel long Darren Harvey D David Lee fish David Defender Dr Darren Wicks Elena skorenko esben Hansen Eugene Leroy eyes FD Hodor golf house Gil moona James KO J cockin Sparger Joe Watson Joon the Sodom Justin Viger lavender mint rose me fellows Melody composer squ Michael Vivian Nancy Gillard Orlando Bernard Pablo oampo Paul Miller Paul pail Peter dumy Roger clay snitel craft Cene K Steve Daly Thomas Armstrong Tim Beaker Tim Payne toot vidad flowers

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 126,035

Keywords: time signatures, 3/4, 4/4, music theory, analysis, lesson, explained, metric modulation, songs that change time signature, multiple time signatures, common time

Id: I_Q7obp9AHs

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 03 2020