Tigran Hamasyan’s crazy polymetric time signatures

this video is sponsored by piano you probably already know that most songs are in the time signature 4-4 4 beats in each bar of the music some songs though can be more adventurous instead using an odd or unusual time signature like Dave brubeck's Take 5 that's in 5-4 time or Mike oldfield's tubular bowels which is in 15 8 time but some songs just push the idea of time signature to its absolute limit and we wind up with a meter like this 256 16 time [Music] now of course a 256 over 16 time signature is absurd although the music of course technically fits into that meter transcribed like this we only get two bars of Music per minute meaning that we basically don't even have bars we have no bar lines subdividing this music [Music] and if we don't have bar lines in the music well the time signature isn't doing its job right the main purpose of the time signature is to subdivide to compartmentalize the meter of the music down into manageable chunks into bars now I'm not claiming that this music is in 256 over 16 to be obnoxious T Grant himself actually described this music as being in that 256 time signature the thing is though I think he was describing it more from a theoretical perspective I really don't think he would actually be thinking in those terms I don't think he's actually counting to 256 in his head when he performs a song the way to really understand what's happening in the meter here and to have any chance of actually being able to perform it is to divide these 256 16th notes in the ultimate phrase down into smaller time signatures into smaller chunks there's various ways we can do that some which make it easier to understand the music theoretically and some that make it easier just to perform the music so let's take a look at a few of these options if we go one layer down from the 256 16th notes we can see that that 256 comes from Seven repetitions of a 35 16th note phrase we get seven bars of 35 16 time and then one bar at the end of 11 16 time so that's 35 seven times plus 11 256. that's how we're getting to the 256 and now although we're still dealing with a 35 over 16 time signature which is odd enough on its own at least with this way of looking at the pattern we understand a bit more about how those 256 beats are going to be grouped [Music] but asking a performer to deal with a 35 16 time signature is still pretty unrealistic so what we need to do is look within that 35 beat phrase and see how the beats within there are subdivided and choose even smaller time signatures to get us down to something a bit more reasonable if we look a bit more closely at how the beat how the rhythm is grouped during this bar of 3516 we find that it naturally falls into four groups of five and then five groups of three so let's reflect that in our choice of times in the church that would mean rather than getting one bar of 35 16 we instead get four bars of 5 16 and then five bars of 316. [Music] thank you and now the idea of Performing this music is far more realistic far more accessible the time signatures are now working with the performer instead of against them [Music] piano note is an online interactive resource for learning how to play the piano you might already be familiar with piano's YouTube channel but they also have an excellent online service where you can access tons of exclusive videos and resources to help you not only learn songs but develop skills which you can then apply across your playing piano to have a massive library of classic songs that you can learn and the best thing is that when you're learning from the sheet music it's synced to the original record to help you work out where you are in the song and you can even adjust the speed of the playback add a metronome and create practice Loops to help you master particularly tricky sections [Music] foreign [Music] also a subscription to piano that gives you full access to their sister services drumio guitario and singio making it really good value for money to learn more about piano follow the link in the description and do consider subscribing to their YouTube channel so we could say that this song is in 256 over 16 time if for some reason we wanted to be able to accommodate the entire phrase and all of its variations into one unified bar but of course that's not really what time signatures are for so if we wanted to be a bit more accessible we could say that this is actually 35 16 time with the occasional bar of 11 16 thrown in and if we want to be really accessible and really kind to the performer we can then further subdivide that 3516 bar down into alternating groups of 516 and 316 but this has all been assuming that we're sat at the piano not the drum kit because the drummer of this song Can genuinely think of this absurd meter as being 4-4 seriously despite the piano part being in this oddest of odd meters the drums in this song are actually still plowing ahead through it all in good old 4-4 time as you listen to the music try to focus on the hi-hat which is marking the quarter note in the bar it's counting four beats per bar [Music] [Music] what is happening here is what's called a polymeter two different meters two different time signatures playing at the same time in a unified tempo [Music] they're in time with each other but they're out of sync out of phase with each other the keyboard is playing that crazy pattern of 256 16th notes or however you want to look at it but the drums are playing in 4-4 or perhaps what is better described here as 1616 1616 time of course is the same as four four but it's easier to compare the interaction of two different time signatures when the bottom number is the same subdivision and then we can work out more clearly how those two meters are going to interact when will they fall out of sync with each other and when will they realign and the mathematically inclined in the audience will have already noticed that 16 fits into 256 16 times 16 squared is 256. so the way that these two parts interact the 1616 drum beat and the 256 16 keyboard part is that they of course start together their initial downbeam is in the same place then they fall out of sync for 256 16th notes and then when tigran returns to the top of his 256 phrase that is exactly when the drums come back in line with the piano again foreign so this is a 16 against 256 polymeter or if we simplify it down a 1 against 16 polymeter but what is actually even more impressive here is that the drummer of an attack is actually playing 4-4 with his arms on the symbols and snare but his foot on the kick pedal is actually still playing in time with the keyboard and bass with that 256 16 time half of his body is playing one meter and the other half is playing a different meter here's a video of Arthur playing along with the track and you can watch how the top half of his body is in that 4-4 time but his legs are matching that 256 pattern [Music] foreign [Music] so that is the Absurd meter of tigran hamasians entertain me and what we've been talking about in this video is just the main section of this song in the other sections other meters and the variations are happening as well so if you want to understand this entire song I would actually highly recommend this video by music representations where he's visually laid out exactly how the meter is working throughout the song I've linked that down in the description [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 124,977

Keywords: plagiarize, plagiarise, copy, based on, law suit, compared, example, copyright, sued, borrow, the same, ghostbusters, padam padam, demi lovato, bruce springsteen, kiss, david bennett

Id: EWA1_XthYGE

Length: 10min 47sec (647 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 27 2023