Songs that use 5/4 time

this video is sponsored by nordvpn as you probably already know most music is in the time signature of 4 4 meaning there are four quarter notes in each bar of the music however sometimes songwriters will venture beyond the typical predictable 4-4 time and instead use an odd time signature like 5-4 if a song is in 5-4 time it means it has 5 quarter note beats in each bar of the music perhaps the most famous example of a song in 5 4 time is take 5 by the dave brubeck quartet take 5 begins by establishing the 5 4 meter with its iconic piano riff and drum groove [Music] then paul desmond's saxophone melody enters weaving its way across the 5-4 groove take five groups the five beats of the bar into a set of three and a set of two so technically you could conceptualize take five as being alternating bars of 3 4 and 2 4 [Music] this gives take 5 a sort of wonky waltz fill because the song sounds like a 3 4 jazz waltz but with every other bar missing one beat if take 5 was a typical 3 4 jazz waltz it would sound like this [Music] at first take five in three four might sound a bit jarring because we're so used to hearing it in 5 4 but once you settle into the groove i think it sounds perfectly natural but it's certainly missing the curious uneven feel of the 5 4 meter 5 4 is characterized by this off-balance uneven sound after all 5 4 is referred to as an odd time signature in reference to its irregular meter another classical example of 5 4's uneven pulse is the theme from mission impossible [Applause] [Music] despite being in 5 4 we can see that the mission impossible theme actually has four main beats in the bar two dotted quarter notes and two regular quarter notes adding a dot to a note increases its duration by 50 so whereas a regular quarter note would be worth one beat a dotted quarter note is worth one and a half beats this gives the rhythm a sense of slowing down and speeding up it's like it's going slow slow fast fast this uneven grouping of the beats in the bar kind of makes mission impossible sound like it's in 4 4 but the tempo is accelerating and decelerating every bar lelo shifrin who wrote the mission impossible theme derived this slow slow fast fast 54 rhythm from the morse code 4mi dash dash dot dot slow slow fast fast a more recent song to use this 5 4 slow slow fast fast rhythm is from eden by hozier particularly in the chorus we can hear this slow slow fast fast rhythm at the heart of the drum beat and vocal melody [Music] [Applause] another song to take advantage of five four's off-kilter rhythm is radiohead's 15 step 15 step begins with this repeating two bar rhythm played by a drum machine the first bar is simply five regular quarter notes but the second bar contrasts this by mixing regular and dotted quarter notes this two-bar repeating rhythmic motif serves as the foundation of the song pinning down the 5 4 meter another radiohead song in 5 4 is morning belle from the album kiday [Music] now usually if i wanted to show you how this song would sound in a different time signature like i did with dave brubeck's take 5 well i'd have to cut together my own edit of the song however in this case radiohead have actually already done the work for me see on radiohead's next album amnesiac they actually included another version of morning bell and this time it was in 4-4 [Music] if we compare the two versions back-to-back we can see how the 5 4 melody has been squished down to fit into bars of 4 4. each note still lands on the same beat of the bar relatively speaking but the longer notes have all been shortened to allow the melody to fit into bars of 4 4. [Music] [Music] as to why radiohead released two versions of the same song ed o'brien said we often record different versions of songs and morning bao is the first time it's been strong enough to bear hearing again a very recent example of 5 4 time is taylor swift's 2020 track tolerate it tolerate it is underpinned by this unusual repeating rhythm of four slow and then four fast beats played by the piano the vocal then sort of skates across the top of this unsteady rhythm never really unifying with the slow fast pulse and instead adding a new layer of rhythmic counterpoint to this already unusual rhythm [Music] now this track is actually a great opportunity to discuss the difference between 5-4 time and 8 time aaron destner who co-wrote this track with swift instead describes tolerate it as being in 10 8 time of course any music in 5 4 could fit into 10 8 time and vice versa in either 5 4 or 10 8 we can have five quarter notes or 10 eighth notes they are effectively equivalent time signatures so why would we choose to describe this track in 10 8 rather than 5 4 well if we look at the accented beats of tolerate its rhythm we can see that they don't really line up with the five quarter notes of five four however if we instead conceptualize the track as being in ten eight with ten eighth notes in the bar rather than five quarter notes the song's rhythm can be internalized in a far more intuitive way where it doesn't feel so much like it's going against the grain of the meter of course you can still describe tolerate it as being in 5 4 time and that is how it's transcribed in the officially published sheet music but it is good to bear in mind that there is sometimes more than one way to interpret a song's meter the song 5-4 by gorillaz is unsurprisingly in 5-4 time [Music] but what makes this song extra interesting is that whilst the guitar riff is in 5 4 the drums are actually in 4-4 the song is using two different meters at once in other words it's using a five against four polymeter now when it comes to sheet music we don't actually use more than one time signature on the page at the same time so although the drum part is in 4-4 it has been forcibly written here into bars of 5 4. however if i put numbers by the notation like this then you can see where the four beats of the drum beat are falling relative to the five beats of the guitar riff another song in phi 4 that uses polymeter is animals by muse the bulk of animals is in simple straight ahead 5 4 time [Music] but later on in the song we get this section where most of the instrumentation is still in 5 4 time but the crash symbol is instead playing every two beats giving us a five against two polymeter this effectively makes the crash symbol sound like it goes out of sync with the band until it resynchronizes here [Music] also adding to this rhythmic disorientation we get an extra added beat before the pattern then repeats which makes this spar of 5 4 into a bar of 6'4 now later on in the song we get another polymetric section this time with the drums marking a half time 4-4 pulse whilst the rest of the band continues to play in 5-4 [Music] [Applause] allegedly mews were inspired to write animals after hearing how 4 had been used in the song hanging tree by queens of the stone age and sure enough just like in the mu song during the guitar solo of hanging tree we get a similar 5 against 4 polymeter with the guitar continuing the 5 4 meter as the snare drum superimposes a 4 4 meter on top odd time signatures like 5 4 are relatively rare in classical music but one noteworthy exception to this is mars from gustav host's famous planet suite mars is built on the striving 5-4 ostinato that continues throughout most of the piece [Music] the rhythm of the ostinato is like that of a military march however whereas a march would normally be in 4 4 or 2 4 time the added beat of the 5 4 meter results in a foreign foreboding rhythm perfectly illustrating the piece's namesake mars the bringer of war [Music] in just one moment we'll take a look at one of my personal favorite songs in 5 4 river man by nick drake but just before we do that i want to talk to you about our sponsor today nordvpn nordvpn offers heightened security and privacy when browsing the internet preventing third parties like advertisers or hackers from collecting data on you nordvpn is one of the most trusted vpn services available and is recommended by dozens of top technology experts on top of offering enhanced security online a bonus feature of nordvpn is it allows you to watch region blocked content on streaming services like netflix for example if you're in the usa you could use nordvpn to set your ip address to london and instantly you'd be able to watch all of these classic british comedies that are available on uk netflix but not on us netflix north vpn also offers 24 7 customer support and a 30 day money back guarantee use the link below and enter promo code david bennett to get an extra month free when you buy a two-year plan plus an additional surprise gift which could be anything from an extra month or an extra year free of charge thank you very much one of my favorite songs in five four is river man by the late great nick drake the meandering 5 4 meter combined with the harmony that swings back and forth from major to minor gives the song a hypnotic hazy sound said she had a word to say now one way to bring out the oddness of an odd meter like 5 4 is to directly contrast it with a more typical time signature like 4 4. the bulk of white room by cream is in 4 4 time but the intro is in 5 4. [Music] [Applause] not only does this help the intro section build a sense of atmosphere and anticipation but it also gets our ears attuned to the uneven 5 4 meter so when we are then hit with a solid straight ahead 4 4 time at the start of the verse the 4 4 meter sounds all the more satisfying and exciting [Music] seven days by sting is another great song in 5 4 time the placement of the snare on the fourth beat of the bar effectively splits the rhythm into a group of three and a group of two [Music] now a debate that often surrounds odd time signatures is the difference between five four and five eight or likewise seven four and seven eight five eight just means we have five eighth notes in each bar of the music so effectively two bars of five eight are exactly equal to one bar of five four both five four five eight and also 5 16 are simple quintuple time therefore any music in 5 4 could fit into a 5 8 or 5 16 time signature or vice versa so why would we opt to use one over the other well there are some situations where one signature would definitely be a better fit for example the title track from sufjan stephen's album come on feel the illinois has five beats in a bar so we could write it in 5 4. however in this example i think 5 8 is the better choice and this is because a couple minutes into the track we swap into 4 4 time [Music] if we had written out the first section in 5 4 we would then have to include a tempo mark to cut the tempo in half at this point when we switch to 4 4 which would just add unnecessary complication one of the biggest factors though in selecting 5 8 vs 5 4 can be the tempo of the music usually musicians will be expecting to perceive the quarter note of a piece of music as the tempo so this means that if the five beats in the bar are too quick to comfortably count then it would be better to describe those five beats as eighth notes not quarter notes and therefore the music would be written down in five eight an example of this would actually be my own song the longest march the longest march has five beats in the bar but they are so fleeting that the whole bar sort of just feels like one long beat so i think 5 8 is the best fit for this piece of music and on top of that i might even add an instruction next to that meter saying one in a bar indicating to the performer that they should expect to feel one beat for each bar not five i'll leave you today with this song that i wrote in 5 4. although i'm sure there'll be at least one person in the comments who says actually i prefer to think of that in 5 8. [Music] [Applause] as always a massive thanks goes to everyone who supports me on patreon including the names you see on screen right now and abigail allen andre science diagram andrew andrew brown austin barrett austin russell bob mckinstry brittany parker cameron oliveina colin aiken chris cabell christopher ryan david rivers donald howard dr darren wicks elena scotchenko as ben hansen eugene leroy fd hodor gillum latona hamish brocklebank hugo miller james ko j.a kochensparger john dye jonas sodastrom justin figger lavenderman rose mark height mark zegenhagen max o'keefe melody composer squared michael vivian nancy gillard nathan lawrence nathaniel park paul miller paul paisle peter dunphy pioche milovsky roger clay sam lin scott fenley sean kennedy steve daly stephen lazzaro tim beaker tricia adams tim payne toot victor levy the dad flowers vladimir kodakov and volte you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 1,351,492

Rating: 4.9642649 out of 5

Keywords: 5/4 time signature, metre, meter, odd time signature, examples of, songs in, explain, explained, 5/4 time, 7/4, 5/8, music theory, notation, brubeck, radiohead, beats, bar, complex time signature, odd meter, songs

Id: KQ76-WiFTlo

Length: 18min 25sec (1105 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/SERBROS16116]

Really interesting video! Enjoyed watching it yesterday and was hoping Hanging Tree would come up

[u/alf_lock3]

Matt Bellamy said that the heavy part of Animals and the general timing was inspired from Hanging Tree which is pretty cool!

[u/HurdyG]

Just count everything in 1/1 and you'll be good.

[u/fo_shizzle_Adizzle]

Dope! Music theory is the most interesting and alien language

[u/AlsoIHaveAGroupon]

I'd have called it 10/8 if you're grouping them as 3-3-2-2 eighth notes, because in 5/4 the second group of 3 would start on an upbeat. (although maybe he addressed that earlier, I only watched from the hanging tree part on)

[u/EgoPutty]

Meanwhile ITILMH is in 15/8 or some shit

[u/ed5275]

Hey I actually subscribe to this channel. Pretty sweet.

[u/Kendilious]

What a cool post, thanks for sharing. I went back and skipped through the video just to hear more 5/4 examples. I should really do a dive on music theory at some point.