Songs with Confusing Intros

this video is sponsored by the piano learning app skoove when we first put on a piece of music we begin listening with no rhythmic context for what we're about to hear our ears don't know what time sing the show it will be in or what tempo it will play at however it doesn't usually take that long for our ears to latch on to where the downbeat is where the one is in the timing even with songs that don't start on a downbeat and instead feature an anacrusis or lead-in like this it will still be clear where the downbeat is for example on all my loving the downbeat is clearly here even though this is actually the third beat of the [Music] song however because in the opening of a song our ear is still trying to establish the meter still trying to work out where the rhythm is falling songwriters can actually take advantage of this by adding in extra beats or shifting the beat onto the offbeat and effectively trick our internal sense of rhythm making us think that a different beat is the downbeat for example in the shadows by the erasmus starts with this repeating quarter note pulse now with no context this quarter note pulse feels like it's falling on the beats like this but when the other instruments enter a couple bars later we soon learn that our ears have been tricked [Music] [Applause] did you hear what happened there at the moment when the guitar entered here it became apparent that this opening pulse was in fact falling on the offbeat not the on beat but of course like i said our ears had no way of knowing this when the song first began it was only when the guitar entered that we gained enough context to understand where the downbeat was truly falling and this creates a curious jolting sensation as our sense of timing is being forcibly shifted one eighth note earlier of course the rasmus could have just chosen to place the opening pulse on the beat like this and that still sounds fine right but it loses that odd jolt that bounce in the rhythm it doesn't make our ears prick up in the same way a similar example to this is everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey by the beatles when the song first begins it seems that the guitar riff is falling on the downbeat but when the rest of the band enter here it's revealed that the guitar riff was in fact landing on the offbeat [Music] so this once again creates a similar shift in timing the moment that the rest of the band enters the moment that the rest of the context is unveiled to us for a slightly more complex opening section let's look at the drum intro to rock and roll by led zeppelin try counting along with the opening drum groove of rock and roll and see what happens when the rest of the band enters [Music] you probably found like me that the pulse that you wound up latching onto during the drum intro in fact wound up being on the offbeat once the rest of the band entered this is because this drum intro effectively adds an extra eighth note in just before the guitars enter so although it does feel like we've latched on to the pulse at this point our sense of timing gets thrown out of sync just before the guitars come in [Music] here now as you can see i've transcribed this opening drum passage using a variety of time signatures because personally i think this is the best way to conceptualize where the strong and weak beats are falling in this intro however you could alternatively transcribe the section like this with no meter changes but with the drums beginning on the three and of the first bar of course i should also mention that this drum intro is actually lifted from little richard's version of keeper knocking and likewise in that song this disorientating drum intro creates a similar jolt of energy when the other instruments come in and reveal that the downbeat isn't quite where we thought it was [Music] if you're interested in learning the piano so you can start writing some confusing intros of your own then you can get started right now with scoove scuff is an interactive piano learning app which teaches you real songs by real artists like we are the champions or let it be use the link in the description to start your free trial today a particularly confusing intro is found in jimi hendrix's version of all along the watchtower during the first four bars of this song it seems fairly clear where the downbeat is falling however when the lead guitar enters and the groove begins there is a moment of rhythmic confusion here where it's really not very clear where the downbeat is what's happening here is somewhere in this passage an extra eighth note is being added but it's not actually super clear where i've currently transcribed it as being in this bar where the lead guitar enters but you could also perceive it as being in the bar before or after this regardless though of where exactly it's placed it has the effect of shifting our perception of the timing by an eighth note so what we were feeling as the downbeat is now shifted onto the off beat to me at least it doesn't matter how many times i listen to this there's a moment of a couple seconds here where my ear is really struggling to latch on to where the downbeat is now sitting this gives this moment here a very loose and chaotic sound to it which is all compounded by the fact that the tempo also accelerates here by about 5 bpm now one example i find particularly interesting is body snatches by radiohead to me the opening guitar riff sounds like it's falling like this with the main notes of the riff landing on the beat [Music] [Applause] however when i asked some other people how they heard it they said they thought the main riff was landing on the offbeat [Applause] and this does seem to be the more logical rhythm not only does this mean that when the rest of the band come in they are joining on the downbeat but it also matches the rhythm of the vocal melody which comes in later which is ultimately the exact same melody as this guitar riff but even though i know this is the case it doesn't stop my ear from hearing it this other way try as i might i can't hear it in this other context even though i want to once again examples like this show that because at the start of the song we don't have as much rhythmic context that you can easily hear the same guitar part in different ways it's kind of like the musical equivalent of an optical illusion where the exact same image can appear different ways to different people now one last example of an intro that seems to cause a lot of confusion is sets on fire by kings of leon during the opening guitar riff different listeners seem to latch on to different notes as the downbeat as the one for the guitar riff to line up properly when the drums come in here it should be the b that lands on the first downbeat here [Applause] however once again this isn't the way that my ear wants to hear this intro i hear it as the c-sharp falling on the downbeat meaning that when the drums come in they actually enter on the offbeat of course it's only when the rest of the band come in and dictate where the downbeat is that any confusion will arise when it's just a guitar playing the riff on its own it doesn't really matter how the player is conceptualizing it paul davids actually already has a brilliant video discussing why people often play this song's intro incorrectly so go check that out if you're interested what i find most interesting about songs like this is it's generally only when you go to learn the song that you notice these weird bits of timing when you're forced to play along with the recording and you realize that what you're doing isn't matching what's on the original record when you're listening even if these sections are confusing they don't sound odd or jarring they're just part of the character of the music if you can think of any other examples of songs with weird timing in their intros then do leave them in the comments down below also a massive massive thank you to everybody who's subscribed to the channel so far we've just hit 300 000 subscribers which is absolutely amazing to celebrate this milestone i'm going to be putting together a new q a video so if you have any questions about me or music theory or whatever stick them in the comments down below and thank you as always to everybody who supports me on patreon including the names you see on screen right now and abigail allen andrei sans diagram andrew andrew brown austin barrett austin russell bob mckinstry brittany parker cameron oliver chris cabal christopher ryan david lee fish david rivers donald howard dr darren wicks elena scorchenko espen hansen eugene leroy eyes fd hodor gillamo latona james ko j.a cockensparger joe watson jonas soderstrom justin vigor lavender mint rose mark height melody composer squared michael vivian nancy gillard nathan lawrence paul miller will hazel peter dunphy pierce milovsky roger clay sam lin scott fenley sean kennedy steve daly tim beaker tricia adams tim payne toot victor levy vidal flowers vladimir kodakov and volte [Music] you

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 1,310,445

Keywords: odd time signature, confusing, music theory, offbeat, downbeat, the 1, where's the one, rock, analysis, sheet music, metre, rhythm

Id: XrXSupjkhWw

Length: 11min 27sec (687 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 28 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Mildryd]

I always think this about the foo fighters song “all my life”. Confuses my ear every time

[u/citycity]

"All along the watchtower" by Hendrix, "Disco Ulysses" by Vulfpeck, and "the impression that I get" by might mighty bosstones are the three examples that I always think of for this