Most Complex Time Signature ever!?

• (1998) "New Millennium Cyanide Christ" by Meshuggah - 5 bars of 23/16 + 1 bar of 13/16, adding up to 128/16 (or simply 4/4)

...what!??!?!?!

Meshuggah "Future Breed Machine" - the clean guitar part before the solo is in 13/8, the breakdown is in 7/4

Meshuggah "New Millenium Cyanide Christ" - 5 bars of 23/16 + 1 bar of 13/16, adding up to 128/16 (or simply 4/4)

Mars Volta "Cygnus... Vismund Cygnus" - various movements of the song contain passages in 10/4, 11/8, 15/4, and 29/16

Dream Theater "Dance Of Eternity" - incorporates an incredible amount of time signature changes (in order, each entry written once): 4/4, 7/8, 3/4, 13/16, 15/16, 17/16, 14/16, 5/4, 6/8, 2/4, 5/8, 11/4, 9/4, 7/16, 6/16, 5/16, 10/16, 9/8, 15/8, 12/16, 16/16 (3+3+3+3+2+2), 3/8.

No, i didn't write that myself

I remember Bruford saying in an interview that KC are the only band he's played in where he gets to use a 17/16 time signature & still stay in a decent hotel.

Arrrghus wrote: Abstrakt wrote: It sounds very complex because it's put together very complex. Probably with 16th notes, which technically makes it 16/16      No it doesn't! Actually, making it 16/16 makes the sixteenth notes slower because the 16th note gets the beat.

Eloy's song, "Giant" has a great use of the 6/4 Signature.

Guest wrote: There really is no such thing as 17/16. Time sigs like this get written on occasion but it is mostly for shock effect (or out of ignorance on the part of the composer. Zappa was by no means ignorant and shock value was something he placed a high priority on so...) and it appears to be working well on many of you. Our rhythmic brain wiring will simply not accept the reality of a time sig like that. We understand it mathematicaly but in reality we break all rhythmic information down into groupings of 1, 2, 3 and maybe 4 (four can be felt in 2 + 2 or 3 + 1), pulses. See my breakdown of the Apocalypse above. So as I explained above a meter like 17/16 is in reality a repeating pattern of smaller pulse groupings such as 4+3+4+3+3 or 3+2+3+3+4+2 etc The trick to learning to play and to listen to these pieces is to detect and "feel" the smaller patterns within the larger structure of the measure. Otherwise you'l completely lose your sanity trying to count to 17 over and over again. Trust me no trained musician will EVER do that.

    
Sure, but, for me at least, something like 17/16 is visually much more pleasing than 4+3+4+3+3 etc. Having said that, i'm not a sight reader, i'm a composer/rehearser, so when i come across a sig like 17/16 i already know how to play and group it in my head. Though i don't count the groupings, i just know the rhythm. I wouldn't be looking at sheet music regardless.

Maybe it's also ego, you know, the more complex you write a time signature the more impressive you seem to others. For me it's probably a combination of ego and visuals/neatness.

Anyways, i think most time signatures are relatively easy within themselves. As i said before, i don't really count beats, i just memorise the rhythm so when i'm playing, 7/8 or 9/16 etc. mean little to me. When it gets tricky is when you add rhythmic devices such as polyrhythms or polymeters.

But to answer the topic question, there are rare cases where composers see fit to disrupt the standard metric measurement of your quarter, 8th, 16th (etc.) notes and use absurd signatures like 5/10...

Historically, this device has been prefigured wherever composers have written tuplets; for example, a 2/4 bar consisting of 3 triplet crotchets could arguably more sensibly be written as a bar of 3/6. Henry Cowell's piano piece "Fabric" (1920) throughout employs separate divisions of the bar (anything from 1 to 9) for the three contrapuntal parts, using a scheme of shaped noteheads to make the differences visually clear, but the pioneering of these signatures is largely due to Brian Ferneyhough. Thomas Ades has also made extensive use of them, for example in his piano work "Traced Overhead" (1996), the second movement of which contains, amongst more conventional meters, bars in such signatures as 2/6, 9/14 and 5/24. A gradual process of diffusion into less rarefied musical circles seems to be underway, hence for example, John Pickard's work "Eden", commissioned for the 2006 finals of the National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain, which contains bars of 3/10.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature#.22Irrational.22_meters

I know that doesn't really concern prog (at least not prog rock ), but i figured i'd throw it out there anyway.

Speaking strictly about prog, i'd probably say On The Virg or Planet X use some pretty silly time sigs as well.
    

listen to "Glowin'" from "Dein Kopf ist ein Schlafendes Auto" by Roman Bunka, then you have the answer. 17/16

time signatures dont always make a song complex. Five Per Cent For Nothing is in 4/4

I read somewhere that National Health's Tenemous roads is 25/16 at one point, but I've tried to count it and never found it.

"(2004) "Symptoms of You" by Lindsay Lohan - verses are in 29/8 or 9/8 + 5/4"

can lindsay be in the prog archives now??