Please post your own odd, compound or mixed meter tunes here

[Gothi]

Hi ya wonderful Eddie Van H wannabees. Would you like to collect a session with a lousy keyplayer/percussionist?

We are going for non-4/4 signatures (unless shuffled), that is odd or compound meters. Do you have any of your own you would like to share then plz do.

As to signatures allowed, note that I do not consider a shuffled 4/4 a straight forward 4/4 because the subdivisions will actually be pushed toward 12 or 24 and not 8 or 16. So if you got some shuffle or swing this will do. So will a Waltz. Likewise if you have a tune where parts of it is in 4/4 but it alternates between other signatures it is welcome too. However, a syncopated 4/4 is still a 4/4, so being funky won't help it turn into something else.


I will start by posting some examples and hope you will chime in with yours.

10/4 -> 10 vs 8 polyrhythm (when the flute kicks in)-> 10/4


5/8 -> 5/4 -> 5/8


6/4:


7/4


6/8 -> 4/4 -> 6/8


Freya's peace and happy music making to all of ya

Gothi

 

[PLX]

You had me at "when the flute kicks in".

 

[spawnofthesith]

Cool stuff! I love me some odd meters and I wasn't quite expecting the folk vibes so that was cool!


My band has a few tunes with polyrhythms against 4 here and there and some of the newer material we (especially my bsss player) has been working on are in a number of odd time signatures


Here’s a demo track of one of mine in 7, pardon the drums, programming nor playing them is my forte

 

[Gothi]

Come on, Guys. Aren’t some of you fusionists who love to show off in mixed meters, or african guitarplayers going polyrhythmic in 12? Or classical guitar players on weed or…???

 

[FuzzyAce]

Here's an experimental track I did earlier this year, using bits of an old radio program. Sherlock Holmes.

7/4 for the main sections. 9/8 for the bridge parts which I tried to mimic being in a spinning roulette wheel.

 

[likitlikeyoulikeit]

Here's an experimental track I did earlier this year, using bits of an old radio program. Sherlock Holmes.

7/4 for the main sections. 9/8 for the bridge parts which I tried to mimic being in a spinning roulette wheel.

That is supremely awesome dude!!!!I absolutely love it!!!!

 

[FuzzyAce]

That is supremely awesome dude!!!!I absolutely love it!!!!

Thanks!

 

[spawnofthesith]

Yeah that’s sick!

 

[Gothi]

Here's an experimental track I did earlier this year, using bits of an old radio program. Sherlock Holmes.

7/4 for the main sections. 9/8 for the bridge parts which I tried to mimic being in a spinning roulette wheel.

Yeah. Now that was pretty cool. And I love music, which makes me chill and smile ;- D. Thanks.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Yeah. Now that was pretty cool. And I love music, which makes me chill and smile ;- D. Thanks.

Awesome, thank you for listening. I just finished listening to all of yours and really enjoyed them.

I think Lullaby for Fenrir is my favorite!

 

[ian_dissonance]

Pretty much everything on here has multiple time signatures, sometimes measure to measure, sometimes over large sections of songs.

 

[Orvillain]

 

[Gothi]

That is really awesome and pro sounding to me.

If anyone is making Black/Death Metal exploring the wasteland between odd measured guitar riffs and white noise, you are very welcome in this thread too. Black Sabbath started everything for me back in the days, so I am very receptive to Metal.

Okay, here are some more from me.
Below is a 6 vs 4 polyrhythm, though a subtle one because it is heavily biased towards 6/4. The 4 is marked by the dotted toms and the cello to the right, which follows the 4 in contrast to the guitar to the left, which follows the 6. Everything else stays in 6/4. However, towards the end, you will hear some strings to the left enter a 2 vs 3 polyrhythm taking advantage of both meters.




Here is another 7/4 that gets a little tricky in the last part where you will hear a pair of cellos counter the 7 by a 3/4 + 3/4 + 8/4 mixed meter figure.



Kindly
Gothi

 

[KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!!]

Nothing too crazy, but the arpeggio sections of this demo from '96 has measures of 6,7,8,7,6,7,8,7.

 

[Gothi]

Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. It is much appreciated.

Western music is very focused on 4/4, so it is quite understandable that many may feel alienated by the flow of other meters. To help beginners explore this wonderful world I have posted this little course elsewhere and now I offer it here too. I am trained by an afro-american teacher who taught me cuban/african clave theory and some secrets of native african drumming where everything is understood in numbers and math, so this will be the approach here too.

A Simple guide into odd and compound meters *

* Anything divisible with 3.

1. Think of a steady hi hat in, say, 120 bpm. The same sample just ticking ahead tik tik tik tik tik tik tik tik: This is a count, a tempo at best.

2. Now, decide which meter you want to play in. 5/4? 6/4? Let´s say we choose 7/4. Make an accent on the hihat on 1 in every measure of 7. TIK-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik. Now you have turned your count into a meter.

3. Now it is time to add a clave. In native african-cuban music a clave is the ground figure of a rhythm. It is called a clave because it is often marked by the high pitch of that instrument, but it need not to be, it could be any drum that is in charge of the clave or even a rhythm guitar or other instruments. Here we can do it by accents alone. Keep the accent on 1 and add another on 5 and 7. Now we have a ground figure TIK-tik-tik-tik-TIK-tik-TIK.

4. Now you can add more drumbeats. A bd could take 1 and 5, a tom 7 and 1 together with the bd. As long as the clave rules the rhythm, you can play with syncopes around it or place things directly on top of it as you like.

An example of the clave in question you can hear in Lullaby for Fenrir in 7/4 from the OP. To the right the clave 1-5-7 is introduced by a native drum. Everything else is build around it or on top of it. You will hear the clave be supplied with a guitar that follows it precisely and eventually supporting strings.



5. To expand complexity and work with polyrhythms there are some simple basics to get one started. Let´s say we want to play a meter of 3 against a meter of 4. The numbers of beats needed for this is easily calculated, we simply need the nearest number that is divisible with both 3 and 4, and that is 3 x 4 = 12. So 12/4 would allow this division. This is a cyclus. They share an accent on 1, but one plays in periods of 3, the other in 4. The same with more fancy stuff, e.g. 5 vs 4 = cyclus of 20 beats needed. 2 vs 3 vs 5 = 30 beats and so forth.

6. Further complexity can arise with mixed meters where you combine different meters serially.

7. Even further complexity will arise if we work with polytempo, but I will leave that for now,

Hope it makes sense to you. Otherwise you are welcome to ask.

Kindly
Gothi