How King Gizzard use Odd Time Signatures, Polyrhythm & Polymeter

Australian rock band king gizard and the lizard wizard are well known for using some pretty Advanced rhythmic techniques in their music such as polyeter poly Rhythm and odd time signatures and a prime example of their metric Mischief is their 2017 album polyon Wonderland not a single track on this album is in typical old 4 four time every song on this album uses an odd or unusual time signature and many of the tracks switch between different odd time signatures or layers them on top of each other for example the opening track crumbling Castle starts out in 78 [Music] time then about a minute into the track the meter changes first to 44 and then to 5'8 the second track on the album the title track polygon dland is also in 58 time but there's an added detail here we've also got a poly Rhythm a 5 against two poly Rhythm depending on whether you latch onto the timing of the symbols or the kick drum you can either feel it in a fast five or a slow [Music] two because of these various different layers it can be quite hard to pick out one particular meter but if I use a tool like Moises to separate out the stems of the audio it makes it easier to hear each independent Rhythm track three the cast wi the air is the first track on the album to not extensively be based on an odd time signature this song is instead in 68 [Music] time so most of cast when the air is in 68 time however later on we do actually briefly switch to 44 time but the funny thing is because we're coming from 68 this 44 time sounds quite weird and disorienting [Music] this change from 68 to 44 back to 68 again sounded weird because although the tempo technically stayed the same the subdivision that we were perceiving as the main pulse of the bar changed this is what we refer to as a metric modulation in the 68 here due to the kick drum we were feeling the dotted eight note as the main pulse then going into the 44 the quarter note became the main pulse so it almost feels like the song has slowed down and now going back into the 68 again we once again feel that dotted eight note as the main pulse but now there's an extra complication because we've also got this new pulse of three quarter notes in the bar we are now in a qu Rhythm he three against four qu Rhythm the symbol is playing three in the space that the K drum is playing four so in this track we've had compound time we've had metric modulation we've had poly rthm you think that king gizard would be satisfied but no they couldn't go this entire track with at least some sort of odd time signature so at the very end of this song a fast 78 time is introduced reality you like and this 78 Rift guides us straight into the next track on the album deserted Junes welcome weary [Music] [Applause] PE this track is basically in 78 for its entire duration however later on we do get what's called a polyeter we've already heard a couple poly Rhythms on this album so far but polyeter is a bit different similar but different both polymeter and poly Rhythm involve layering two different time signatures on top of each other however there's an important distinction with poly rhythms each bar is simultaneously divided into four equal beats and three equal beats so effectively we have four four time and 34 time happening here at the same time but not at the same tempo the 44 is effectively at 120 BPM and the 34 is at 90 BPM allowing them to both be in perfect sync but with a 4 against three polyeter we still have two different time signatures layer on top of each other but unlike with poly Rhythm here with polymeter the two meters are played at the same unified temp this means that they wind up going out of syn with each other until eventually meeting up again after a full cycle the polymeter we're getting here in this song is 7 against four the song is primarily in this fast 78 time but soon enough the drums start layering a 44 beat over the 7even note sequence of the [Music] synth [Music] this creates this chaotic weaving effect we can hear the repetition of both the drum Groove and the 7even note Sy sequence but due to the polymeter they are out of sync with each other so each time we hear them they are interacting in a slightly different way [Music] track five on this album is fittingly in 54 time but the Fess of track five goes a layer deeper in a sale doesn't just use bars of 54 but those bars are grouped into sets of five in the dark off the stream there was start the living secretly you to be freedom in be in the C look for me with the beak the clod sent Le AO between F St of those above whispering in the cell Dance of the Dead earlier in the video you saw me use Moises to separate out the tracks of these King gizard songs so we could listen more closely to the individual Parts Moises is a really powerful tool that allows you to separate the stems of songs making it much easier to analyze and learn the music for example if I was trying to transcribe or learn a fast passage of music like The simp part here it's really useful to not only be able to isolate that part but to then also slow down the playback so you can really clearly and easily hear each note right here I'm using the desktop version of Moises but it's also available on mobile and iPad you can download Moises for free right now by following the link Down Below in the description thanks very much track six is called loyalty we begin with this five note Sim sequence in 58 time however soon enough the kick drum starts marking out not a 58 M but a 118 [Music] M this happens over the already established 58 simp sequence so we're getting a polymeter here we're getting an 118 M placed over a 58 M and soon enough what happen happens is the drums fully establish themselves and 118 becomes the main meter with the 58 fading away I see all that is and has ever been I am not a man I am [Music] everything track five of this album was in 5'8 time so it's only fitting I guess that track 7 is in 74 [Music] time once upon a time there was a great ve from inside and out no by Al bring of Inferno Track eight on this album is perhaps the least unusual of them all but that doesn't mean an awful lot here this song tetrachromacy is in 68 time at least the drum part is in 68 time or even 38 time if you want to consider it with twice as many bar lines but the guitar part and later the vocal is following more of a 44 pattern this is hard to notice at first because the guitar pattern is following this three note arpeggio but where we hear the whole pattern and where it repeats we realize that the guitar part is really in 44 time over the 68 so this is once again a [Applause] polyeter track 5 was in 58 Time Track 7 was in 74 time well wouldn't you know track 9 opens in 98 [Music] time now 98 can be used as an odd time signat but here it's actually being used as a compound meter much like the 68 time we heard earlier this means that the 9/8 notes of the bar are grouped into three groups of three giving us a sense of three main beats in the bar after a while a second meter or 44 time is actually layered on top of this 98 time giving us a 9 against 4 poly meter [Music] my body is not the temple it is a vessel and that takes us to the final track on this album the fourth color the fourth color opens with a fast tempo 148 time now you could notate this song in 78 time but for this song's riff I think that 148 is a better fit because of the way that the guitar riff is grouping the 16th notes the Riff groups 28 16th notes into eight groups of three and one group of four so effectively we wind up filling the pulse of the music like this basically a bar of 128 followed by a bar of 28 so that adds up to 148 at 2 minutes into the track we switch to a 68 f with this vocal [Music] line I am omnipresent for the many fingers many minds and many eyeballs myet stre then after a while the guitar Rift joins back in and the field returns to that 148 M however the vocal line in 68 time continues pushing through uninterrupted so we're now hearing both the 148 time and the 68 time at the same time so it's polymeter 14 against six King gizard may be serial users of odd and unusual meters today but when they first started out they didn't really stray that far from typical 44 time in this interview King gizard frontman Stu McKenzie explains how the very first king gizard song written in a n meter was likely subconsciously inspired by his car but uh it was we were recording our um uh what is our third record float along F lungs and um we're out in the country and um I pulled up in my car to the barn and I left my lights on in my car and my car used to make this this old Ford that I had at the time used to make this um um alarm type sound when you left your lights on it was like hey come turn your lights off but it was in um 54 the the alarm itself was in 54 it was like and it and it just it was on for like hours or something I think it crept into my brain and it wasn't until a few days later that I realized that the song I wrote has the exact same Rhythm as the car alarm and it was the first song that we wrote that was in not 44 or whatever yeah um and it blew my mind when I made this like connection I think it was the next time that I accidentally left my lights on and the alarm was going off and I just thought holy that's that song that we wrote like a few days [Music] ago [Music]

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 106,759

Keywords: moises, king gizzard, odd time signatures, polymeter, polyrhythm, music theory, analysis, explained, stem seperation, remove piano from songs, find chords

Id: tbHuhxCXFl8

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 11 2024