Songs that use 7/4 time

this video is sponsored by the piano learning app skoove across the majority of popular music only a small selection of time signatures are ever used most commonly 4-4 although you will also see 3 4 6 8 and 12 8 often used but there are so many more options out there than these typical choices of meter so today we're going to look at some songs that use one of my favorite time signatures 7-4 if a piece of music is in 7-4 time then it has seven quarter note beats in each bar one of the most famous examples of a song in seven four is salisbury hill by peter gabriel [Music] now unlike the more common signatures like 4 4 3 4 6 8 7 4 is an example of an odd or complex time signature put simply an odd time signature is any meter where the number of beats the top number won't divide down into groups of two or three so other examples of odd time signatures include 5 4 13 8 and 11 8. now the reason we refer to these time signatures as odd time signatures isn't just because they have an odd number on the top for example 3 4 isn't an example of an odd signature even though it has an odd number on the top the oddness of these signatures is more down to the way that they sound at least in western music we write most of our music in signatures that divide down into groups of two or three so this includes signatures like 4 4 3 4 6 8 twelve eight two four typically audiences seem to find signatures like this to have a more natural pulse to them so signatures that don't divide down into two or three are deemed odd signatures now the reason why these signatures might sound odd and these signatures might sound normal is a question for another day although i have explored this topic a bit before in my why is 4 4 so common video so go check that out if you're interested but let's get back to looking at seven four now the interesting thing about seven four is that usually when a song is in seven four time it will group the beats of the bar into a group of four and a group of three which can actually make seven four sound a little less odd for example in the intro to salisbury hill the rhythm groups into a group of three and a group of four after the intro of salisbury hill this pattern actually swaps and we now instead get a group of four and then a group of three [Music] in fact to make this grouping clearer songs in 7 4 are sometimes transcribed as bars of alternating 3 4 and 4 4 like this this of course doesn't change how the music sounds but it might make it easier for the musician to conceptualize the rhythm of course an obvious drawback of writing it like this is that the page is suddenly a lot messier and the musician now has to keep track of when the signature is changing despite this grouping of four beats and three beats songs in 7-4 still undeniably have an odd feel to them an off-kilter energy which is part of the rhythmic charm and character of the song so that you can hear the impact that the 74 meter is having on salisbury hill this is what salisbury hill would sound like if it was instead in 4 4 time it still works of course but it suddenly loses a lot of character and a lot of rhythmic momentum interestingly at the end of the a section to salisbury hill the music briefly switches to 4 4 time [Music] this gives this phrase here a very complete sound to it as compared to the 7 4 time that the listener has now got used to 4 4 has a very even rhythmically complete sound to it and i imagine peter gabriel wound up putting this extra beat in here because the end of the phrase just wouldn't sound rhythmically complete if it's stuck in seven four a name almost synonymous with odd time signatures is dave brubeck brubeck's unsquare dance is another classic example of 7-4 time [Music] once again if i put unsquare dance into 4 4 time you can hear how it loses its curious unsquare groove [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] by the way if you're interested in learning to play the piano so you can start experimenting in 7 4 time then you can get started right now with skoov skoov is an interactive piano app which can teach you to play songs by classic artists like the beatles elton john and queen follow the link in the description to start your free trial today now since the beginning of this video i'm sure most of you have been shouting at your screens and yes pink floyd's money from dark side of the moon is a brilliant example of 7-4 [Music] although money isn't a hundred percent in seven four not only does the guitar solo section switch to a rocking twelve eight times but also this section of the verse is actually in four four with a one-off bar of twofold this metric change is actually quite easy to miss as this stretch of 14 beats could fit into 7 4 time but listening to the rhythmic accents of the section you can hear that the passage is not in 7-4 but beyond these moments when the time signature changes there is actually something else going on here money is a 7-4 shuffle a shuffle is when rather than each beat of the bar being divided into two eighth notes instead each beat divides into three eighth notes here is money's bass line in its usual shuffled rhythm and here's what it would sound like if the rhythm was played straight i.e not [Music] shuffled if we wanted to notate a shuffle in 4 4 time one solution is to put triplets on every quarter note however if the whole piece of music is shuffled it can make more sense to just write it down in 12 8 time because 12 8 is just like 4 4 however whereas in 4 4 each strong beat divides down into two eighth notes in 12 8 each strong beat divides into three eighth notes accommodating our shuffle so that's how we write down a shuffle in 4 4 time but how do we write down money's 7 4 shuffle if we follow the same logic of a 4-4 shuffle being written down in 12-8 time then a 7-4 shuffle would be written down in 21-8 time and yes as unusual as 21 8 times sounds it would be an accurate way of transcribing money but let's remember that the purpose of a time signature is to make the music easier to read and easier to understand and because the site of 21.8 would probably give most performers ibs money is usually transcribed in 7 4 time and then we use triplets to show where we want three eighth notes in a beat instead of just two [Music] another song which features a 7-4 shuffle is all you need is love [Music] now i actually discussed all you need is love before in my 3-4 trick video and in that video i described it as 4-4 with occasional bars of 3-4 and i do believe that this is the most performer-friendly way to transcribe the music and it's also probably the way that the beatles themselves thought about the timing however you can also understand all you need is love as being largely in 7 4 time at least in the intro and the verse now like i mentioned all you need is love is also shuffled so this can add even more confusion to the way you transcribe the song often whether the music is transcribed in 7 4 or alternating bars of 4 4 and 3 4 this shuffle is notated in triplets much like it is in money however some sheet music for all you need is love instead writes down the rhythm as alternating bars of 12 8 and 9 8 in an attempt to accommodate the shuffled rhythm this is effectively the 21 8 signature i was talking about before but they have made it slightly more accessible by dividing the beats into groups of 12 and 9. so which time signature is all you needer's love in well really all of these answers are valid a song doesn't have to be understood in only one signature a signature after all is just a way of writing something down and sometimes you can write the same thing down in different ways the main guitar riff from times like these by the foo fighters is in 7-4 time it seems like the foo fighters have actually really tried to bring out the unevenness of 7-4 for example the song actually begins in 4-4 time this sets up our expectations for the song to continue in 4-4 making it all the more jilting when the guitar riff kicks in in [Music] 7-4 [Music] throughout times like these we continue to get shifts to 4-4 before returning back to 7-4 each time once again drawing attention to the unevenness of seven four very fitting for a song called times like these the last example that we'll look at today is a song that really brings out the oddness of seven four's odd time two plus two equals five by radiohead unlike most of the examples we've looked at so far instead of playing a rhythm that naturally divides the seven beats into a group of three and a group of four two plus two equals five divides the bar right down the middle effectively creating a 7 against 2 poly rhythm [Music] this division of the 7-4 bar into two equal halves gives the song's rhythm an uncanny pulse that simultaneously sounds odd and even at the same time and this fits perfectly with the song's title two plus two equals five is an expression lifted from george orwell's dystopian novel 1984. this song is about a world that isn't quite right where things don't quite add up so this unusual odd and even rhythm creates an appropriately uneasy backdrop for a song about when two plus two equals five as i mentioned earlier most popular music won't use odd meters like 74 instead sticking to simple meters like 4 4 and 3 4 and perhaps audiences do have a preference for these simple meters but this doesn't mean that audiences can't also enjoy odd meters the songs we've looked at today salisbury hill money all you need is love these songs are massively popular and they use odd time signatures which is a testament to the fact that audiences can and do enjoy non-standard time signatures i think the main reason that autometers are so rare in our pop music is because of a lack of exposure songwriters and composers will write music similar to the music that they're exposed to so if they're not exposed to music that uses odd meters then they're not going to write music in odd meters it effectively creates a vicious cycle where they stick to simple meters because it's the only thing they know and this isn't some new problem almost 60 years ago now dave brubeck was already discussing this problem idea was the jazz used to challenge the public and make them think in terms more advanced rhythmically than they were used to thinking in in the 20s it was hard to get a a group of people to to platform two and four one two three four this was difficult thirty years is long enough to be stuck there it's time that uh the jazz musicians uh take up their original role of leading the public into more adventurous rhythms and you think this is what is now going to take place well take five as proof of it after all the the uh the kids are tired of rock and roll too and yet they can dance in five four times ultimately on time signatures don't have to be considered odd they're not something reserved to jazz and prog rock if you look beyond western music auto meters can sometimes be just as common as 4 4 or 3 4. [Music] [Music] all we need is more writers like brubeck peter gabriel or pink floyd to bring these interesting and underutilized time signatures into the mainstream now recently i've been involved in the collaborative project with nine other music theory youtubers including adam neely david bruce 12 tone and 8-bit music theory and for that project i was tasked with rearranging freya jacka into 7-4 time [Music] if you're interested to know why i was rearranging a children's nursery rhyme into an odd time signature then do check out the main video on adam neely's channel which is all about this project i've linked it down below and as always thank you to everybody who supports me on patreon including the names you can see on screen now and abigail allen andre science diagram andrew andrew brown andy deacon austin barrett austin russell bob mckinstry britney parker cameron oliveila chris cabell christopher ryan david lee fish dr darren wicks elena scorchenko s ben hansen eugene leroy eyes fd hodor gillamo latona james ko j.a cockensparger joe watson jonas soderstrom justin vigor lavender monroes mark height melody composer squared michael vivian nancy gillard paul muller paul hazel peter dunphy piott schmiolofsky roger clay sam lin steve daly sean kennedy tim beaker tim payne toot vidad flowers and vladimir kodakov you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 712,467

Rating: 4.9489684 out of 5

Keywords: 7/4, time signature, odd time, complex time signature, odd meter, metre, music theory, examples of, songs that are in, 7/4 time, money, brubeck, pop music, adam neely, david bruce, 12tone, analysis, explained

Id: -UA6n7iKeYQ

Length: 18min 9sec (1089 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 05 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/listenbright]

I quite enjoyed this, thanks! And I really enjoyed the video you linked to with you and the other youtubers doing really strange, interesting, and wonderful things to all those children's songs. I like your 7/8 version of Frere Jacques so much that I may use it as an inspiration for a video on my humble channel, if that's ok with you. I'll of course give credit and a link to your video.

[u/maestro2005]

All You Need Is Love is in an irregular mix of 3 and 4 (with a 2 at the end of the chorus). In the verses they alternate 4 and 3 three times, but you wouldn't use 7/4.