Prog Rock: How To Count Odd Meters (Odd Time Signatures)

everyone I'm Rick Piazza day's episode we're gonna talk about how to count and feel odd time signatures now I know there's a lot of you that are into progressive rock that follow this channel you're into bands like Rush and tool and periphery and Animals As Leaders and yes and Genesis and all types of progressive rock I've talked about odd time signatures in certain videos for example my video tool schism video where it has a lot of changing time signatures but I haven't actually talked about how to count and feel an odd time signature meaning what is my process or how do you figure them out now many times you can tell it's in an odd time just because you're tapping along with it and you can feel that the time turns around somewhere okay so then it's a matter of figuring out okay what are the elements that make up this time signature I want to play a tune by a band called pelini this is a Australian guitarist that Frances band I was listening to them the other day I actually first heard about them I think from Steve Vai a couple years ago and I was listening on Spotify to their first tune the other day and it's called electric sunrise and it starts out and it's obviously in an odd time and I thought this would be actually good tune to talk about about how you actually figure out what the meter is so let's take a listen okay can I already tell it's not in 4/4 [Music] dad that okay so I know it's a regular pattern meaning that it keeps recurring so now I have to figure out what the additive pattern is meaning what are the groupings of threes and twos are in this [Music] so breaking it up into twos and threes I would count it like this 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 let's see if that works 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 so I would say that that is a 13-8 that's my first impression on how to count this let's check out when the main melody comes in you'll notice even the drums are going bomb at the end of the phrase check it out love that let's take a look at the rift I've just transcribed it and see if it lines up with a 13-8 pattern okay let me play it slowly first [Music] you that's the first line and the second line goes [Music] [Applause] if I played up to tempo go something like this [Music] okay if you look at the groupings here if I take these sixteenth notes and then subdivide into ace and use the high E flat as the target note you'll see you have the groupings of three plus three plus three plus two plus two or you could look at it as 3 plus 3 plus 3 plus 4 if you add those together it equals 13 or thirteen eighth notes so if you look at the way I've broken this down I've taken the sixteenth notes broken them into eighths and looked at the groupings using that high e-flat each time as the way that you're feeling these different groupings because that every time the e-flat hits it's the beginning of a new group so three groups of three eighth notes okay which is nine and then you have a group of four eighth notes so nine of four is thirteen or you can look at it as three three three two two I think it's easier to think of it as 3 3 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 [Music] now the difference between braiding it and feeling it are two different things I think it's easier to feel it in the way that they're playing it like [Music] [Music] one of the cool things about this tune is it goes from 13a in the intro into a halftime feel for the riff and then the solo check out then this part is still at halftime by three four one two three four so long when you think of halftime don't think of halftime necessarily as a slowdown it's just where your snare is not on two and four one two three four one two three four right because you get that high at bad die so remember there's many different ways of feeling an odd time signature 5/4 time can be 2 plus 3 or 3 plus 2 7 4 can be 2 plus 2 plus 3 it can be 2 + 3 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 2 so what you need to be able to do is to subdivide and break the meter down into where it feels natural where the natural subdivisions are in it sometimes they're not always obvious and sometimes they shift sometimes you'll have you know a 7 where it'll be 2 3 2 and then it'll go to 3 to 2 for example so always be aware of that and these are ways to think when you're playing in an odd time now when you have multiple odd time signatures if you're going from 5 to 7 to 11 then you really have to count we'll talk more about that in future episodes until then please subscribe here and give the video a thumbs up if you're interested in the Beato book you go to my website at wwlp.com and if you really want to support the channel even more think about becoming a member of the Beato Club you can find the info on my website as well thanks for watching

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 329,178

Rating: 4.972127 out of 5

Keywords: odd meters, time signatures, odd time signatures, odd time, rhythm lesson, drums (musical instrument), master class, odd meter, odd meter music, odd meter drumming, odd meter songs, Rick Beato, Vinnie Colaiuta, Djent, Prog Rock, Prog Metal, Plini, Periphery, Rush, Yes, Tool, Danny Carey, Neil Peart, Bill Bruford, tool odd time signatures, rush odd time signatures, Dream Theater, Opeth, porcupine tree, meshuggah, Gorjira, Mastodon

Id: kffnwaHtfzg

Length: 7min 39sec (459 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 12 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/sambooka]

Plini shared this on Facebook earlier today… I did a lot of what Rick does but I dig more that Plini is being recognized for what he’s doing!

[u/BittyTang]

He should do this for Arithmophobia.

[u/jonajon91]

Man the nostalgia for these old Plini tunes.

[u/kmjar2]

"Paleenee" Ha!

I always think that reducing everything to 8th notes is more of a guitarist thing. As a drummer i wanna call that feel 4.333/4 with the guitarist playing triplets with each quarter note. I guess that's what he's saying about 'feel' but i wish it was more standard to have the timing equivalent of accidentals in a time signature. Like a lot of 5/4 is more like (4+1)/4. or 9/4 is more like (4+4+1)/4, or 10/4 is more like (4+4+2)/4

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[u/slaughtered_gates]

I still don't understand shit. Can someone point me how to work these things out without diving into prog deep end? Like some simple/r tunes that help me work this out