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stefan
work in progress

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my brain makes up odd time signatures :s
#6382289 - 12/18/06 06:21 AM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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I'm a guitar player and can keep a steady rhythm (although not as tight as I would want it to be yet) but when I make a new riff or chord scheme that I like, it usually turns out to be in 5/4 or 7/8 time signature. It sounds perfectly normal and good to me. I never really played with a metronome, so the 4/4 time signature isn't embedded in my brain. It's probably the reason this happens. It never got to me until I'm in a band and now it's kinda problematic when I come up with new ideas and stuff...
From now on I will practice with a metronome to program my brain for 4/4 time signature. If I practice this enough should it become automatic like with most musicians, a counting metronome in the head? I shure hope so
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Syle
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Re: my brain makes up odd time signatures :s [Re: stefan]
#6382499 - 12/18/06 09:05 AM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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play what comes to you. if 5/4, 7/8, 9/8 is all that comes to you, so be it.
i prefer those types of time signatures too. although, sometimes altering back and for with like 4 measures of 5/4, then ending with a 4/4, etc, sounds kinda cool.
-------------------- https://kenaisigh.bandcamp.com/ <- Just completed the 2021 RPM challenge for February - An EP in one month (5 songs or 20 minutes). Check it out!
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thatiAM
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Registered: 06/14/06
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Re: my brain makes up odd time signatures :s [Re: stefan]
#6382513 - 12/18/06 09:10 AM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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Why would you want to program boring crap into your head?
Your band doesn't know how to play 5/4?
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ShroomNinja
P. Shuriken -Ninjas Choice!!


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Re: my brain makes up odd time signatures :s [Re: thatiAM]
#6382577 - 12/18/06 09:41 AM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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Gotta side with everyone else here... You should play what you feel. Music isnt about a set pattern. Its expression! Strange time sigs are way better than the standard 4/4 anyways. You could always bounce between time sigs. That one really screws with ur head but sounds sick as when u get it right!!
Always strive to be different! People take notice that way!!
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Viveka
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Re: my brain makes up odd time signatures :s [Re: stefan]
#6382784 - 12/18/06 11:08 AM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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NOOOOOOOOO
Don't relegate your writing to square time, just to suit other people who are squares. Do you, or have you in the past, listened to alot of prog or fusion or jazz, music typically in odd time? I do and now, to me, 7/8 often feels more natural than 8. It's strange.
What you should do is work with hemiolas and stuff and come up with parts that are odd time that still work within a square pulse. If you play a 5/4 part for 4 repetitions, you will pick back up on 'one' at the same time as a part being pleyed in 4/4. If you play a 7/8 part, and a drummer plays in 8/8, you will both arrive at one again at your eigth repetition. Maybe you don't want to play music that 'prog', but I think it's fun, challenging, and really good shit if done well. Mix it up, play what suits your expression, not what fits within someones limited idea of time.
Pulse can be maintained regardless of opposing time signature. As long as a drummer can provide a solid reference, even if he's playing the most straight ahead thing, you should be able to do whatever you feel.
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SneezingPenis
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Re: my brain makes up odd time signatures :s [Re: Viveka]
#6383244 - 12/18/06 01:46 PM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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or do what KC does..... play 5/4's on top of 4/4's ... that way the beat never really comes to a full rest and the emphasis is always changing.
If your drummer has a problem with it, tell him to put on headphones and not listen to you guys while he plays a 4/4, then let him listen to a recording of that for a while so he understands it better.
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Sheepish


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Re: my brain makes up odd time signatures :s [Re: stefan]
#6383415 - 12/18/06 02:26 PM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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Try listening to Meshuggah - Destroy Erase Improve. It'll give you an idea of how it can actually work in a band. Embrace it  Listening to an album with odd time changes keeps the music interesting. Tapping along doesn't work and when you think you have the pattern, it switches on you. 
"Among the band's most recognizable qualities are lead guitar player Fredrik Thordendal's smooth, clean, and jazz-ish highly influenced Allan Holdsworth-esque solos, singer Jens Kidman's vocals, which resemble manic screams and shouts; the churning, dissonant rhythm guitars and the polymetric drum beats. In a typical Meshuggah song, drummer Tomas Haake plays two separate rhythms: a standard 4/4 beat with his hands, and a completely different metrical subdivision with his feet. The guitars mostly follow the bass drum work, creating an awkwardly pulsating rhythmic pattern to work as the basis of the song.
To give an example, the main riff of the song "New Millennium Cyanide Christ" from their 1998 album Chaosphere follows the aforementioned blueprint. Haake beats a rather slow 4/4 rhythm with his hands, while the bass drums and guitars play a repetitive 23/16 rhythm pattern on top of it. As the subdivided pattern is repeated, the pattern's accents shift to different beats on each repetition. After repeating the 23/16 pattern five times, a shorter 13/16 pattern is played once. These patterns sum up to 128 16th notes, which equals exactly 8 measures in 4/4 meter."
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WhiskeyClone
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Re: my brain makes up odd time signatures :s [Re: Sheepish]
#6383584 - 12/18/06 03:21 PM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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Haven't seen you around much Sheepish! How's it going?
Yeah Meshuggah is the extreme as far as weird time signatures go. It's mind-boggling. Good stuff.
Anyway Stefan, I think it's cool that your mind defaults to odd sigs. Play the music that comes to you. I think 4/4 sounds best in a song's bridge or breakdown, in contrast to more complex beats in the verses and chorus. Tool does this well. 
Musicians lean on 4/4 too much, don't be too eager to do the same.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
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Syle
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Re: my brain makes up odd time signatures :s [Re: WhiskeyClone]
#6384158 - 12/18/06 06:46 PM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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rather than jumping into Meshuggah first hand, , you should try something a little easier to grasp. Maybe some TOOL?
I know they do a lot of 7/4, and 5/4 stuff. Try "The Grudge"
-------------------- https://kenaisigh.bandcamp.com/ <- Just completed the 2021 RPM challenge for February - An EP in one month (5 songs or 20 minutes). Check it out!
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Blastrid
e l e m e n t al i t y


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Re: my brain makes up odd time signatures :s [Re: stefan]
#6384757 - 12/18/06 09:49 PM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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I read your title and first post, and I was rushing downward to tell you the same thing everyone else just said. and I'm happy to read it!!
screw 4/4. be HAPPY that odd time signatures come natural to you. what makes 4/4 so special, anyway, that it's become most common??
-------------------- Blas'?trid (bl?s tr?d) n. 3rd generation derivitave of a combination of 'bastard' and 'blasted'. Used as both an insult or an expletive. ex. Blastrid! Stereopattern <--My music.
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stefan
work in progress

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Re: my brain makes up odd time signatures :s [Re: Blastrid]
#6385132 - 12/19/06 12:57 AM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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wel, it's not like I only want to make 4/4 stuff, but we're a beginning band and it's easier to start off that way for the others. we do have a very good drummer who can play 7/8 and 5/4 etc and our bassistis well oriented in those parts too. The thing is I just want to be able to 'count' in my head. Whenever I make something I have no clue what time signature it is in because I never learned it that way.
For example we're covering a Tool song - Prison sex - and playing that is pretty natural for me, but so are common 4/4 things like QUOTSA. It's just when making things up, unless very simple, I seem to loose track of time.
what I want is a 'clicker' in my head so I can play whatever time signature I want!
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Syle
Kenai Sigh


Registered: 10/16/05
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Re: my brain makes up odd time signatures :s [Re: stefan]
#6385161 - 12/19/06 01:09 AM (17 years, 2 months ago) |
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get a loop pedal. they are a guitarist's necessity.
-------------------- https://kenaisigh.bandcamp.com/ <- Just completed the 2021 RPM challenge for February - An EP in one month (5 songs or 20 minutes). Check it out!
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