Time Signatures

Regarding the 7/8 vs. 7/4 issue, I had always counted "Money" by Pink Floyd in the 7/4 time. However, if you watch the making of Dark Side... DVD, Dave says it's in 7/8. Wow, that would be a SLOOOOW 7/8. I guess it does just come down to where you consider the bars/measures to fall.

Well as a drummer, being able to count time sigs is a nessecary ability, and listeng to prog has definitly in that department.  But I find that you can ususaly figure out the time signature if you listen to where the drummer places a crash cymbal. also, many of the higher time sigs like 6/8 or 7/4 are ,much easier to count when broken up.

alan_pfeifer wrote: Well as a drummer, being able to count time sigs is a nessecary ability, and listeng to prog has definitly in that department.  But I find that you can ususaly figure out the time signature if you listen to where the drummer places a crash cymbal. also, many of the higher time sigs like 6/8 or 7/4 are ,much easier to count when broken up.

When counting, I usually find that with that 7/4 I count to 3.5. 1...2...3.1..2..3 When I come up with a half, I simply multiply it with two to come up with the desired number .

I am posting on this thread again to see if anyone adds anything new or interesting.

JrKASperov wrote: alan_pfeifer wrote: Well as a drummer, being able to count time sigs is a nessecary ability, and listeng to prog has definitly in that department.  But I find that you can ususaly figure out the time signature if you listen to where the drummer places a crash cymbal. also, many of the higher time sigs like 6/8 or 7/4 are ,much easier to count when broken up. When counting, I usually find that with that 7/4 I count to 3.5. 1...2...3.1..2..3 When I come up with a half, I simply multiply it with two to come up with the desired number .

Hmm, seems a bit complicated, but whatever works for you.

5/4's different to 10/8 just like 3/4 is different to 6/8 though

MikeEnRegalia wrote: I think that Money is also what you describe as a "fake" 7/4. When you listen to the bass/snare you'll get: 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 b s b s b s b it's really just 4/4 3/4 ... and nothing's wrong with that. Steve Vai - Die To Live is a good example for a "true" 7/4 song: 1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a 5 a 6 a 7 a b . . s . . . . b . b . s b Edit: the editor replaces many consecutive blank characters with garbled code, so I used dots ... just ignore them.

I'm not so sure - I can hear a definite 7 beats in the guitar lines. Maybe that was just Nick's way of coping with it - he's hardly the ultimate drummer of all time - although he's definitely the very best drummer in Pink Floyd...

I don't own a copy of "Alien Love Secrets" - but I know that Vai pulls off complex time signatures with ease - as he does with practically everything else he does. The man is so insanely gifted

 

The guitar riff in Money accents the first and fourth beat, which is what makes it sound like a slow 7/8.

goose wrote: The guitar riff in Money accents the first and fourth beat, which is what makes it sound like a slow 7/8.

I hear the hard accent on beat 1, but the accent on beat 4 is much softer, which stops the riff from "swinging" on that beat - it seems to swing around all the beats fairly evenly. Also, some of the rhythms are dotted across two main beats (e.g. notes 2 and 3 in bar 1), which is an unusual practice in 7/8.

Most tabs I've seen are in 7/4, and Roger himself describes it this way

"Paranoid Android" could well be in 7/8 though - I haven't made up my mind yet as I always stop analysing and start enjoying this one  

With regards to time signatures in that PF song, you've got to remember they are only a label, and a lot of it comes from how the listener hears the music, or the player thinks about it while he/she is playing it. In other words, there's no such thing as a "fake" 7/4. With Money, if PF thought of it as seven 1/4 notes in a bar, then it is 7 notes in a bar, regardless of what the drums do. The same is true if PF thought of it as one bar of 4 and one of 3. However, it's an obvious 7 to me - there is only one downbeat in that riff IMO, and thats on the "one" of the 7.

...

I think the most important thing when working out time signatures is being able to asses where beat one is. You can't worry about subdivisions, polyrhythms, voicings or anything complex until you're able see where beat one is. Being able to do this is more or less difficult depending on the genre you're looking at. In rock, the strongest beat is mostly 1, so that makes it easier. However, in other genres, such as Jazz, the strongest beats may be on different beats. Jazz has strong beats on 2 and 4, and in Samba, beat 1 of a set of two bars is so weak often no instrument will ever hit it full on, the note most phrases start/end on being the "and" or 4 of the previous bar. This makes it very difficult when thinking about pulses in many of these types of music. But once you've mastered assesing where beat one is, you can then count on from there and work out the possible time signature.

Time signatures ultimately relate to whatever is being played, and if in doubt, always try and make it as close to 4/4 purely for clarity. I try and relate everything to 4/4 and then look for differences - stuff added, stuff taken away, etc. But sometimes labels play an important role to the phrasings of the music - 21/8 is definitely not the same as three bars of 7/8. Most definately, there will be varied phrasings within the bar which will not make it sound like three bars of 7/8. Bartok tried to get his point across like this when writing his pieces (especially the later pieces in his Mikrokosmos books). He might write a time signature of 3+3+2/8, which is not the same as 4/4, because the sections of the bar are clearly defined - the accents will land as so...
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 ¦ 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 etc

This article deals with the more complex nature of time signatures - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature

As an example, here is a section from Ron Jarzombek's new album, Machinations of Dementia

http://www.spasticink.com/rjrem.wmv

If you've followed me this far, you'll be able to see the tim signatures go past as he plays them...

note: x [a number] indicates the number of bars this sime signature is played for.

4/4 count in
4/4 x 1
5/8 x 1
4/4 x 1
5/8 x 1
4/4 x 1
4/8 x 1 (this could also be 2/4)
5/4 x 5
4/4 x 1
3/8 x 1
4/4 x 1
3/8 x 1
5/8 x 1
4/4 x 1
5/8 x 1
4/4 x 1
5/8 x 1
4/4 x 1
5/8 x 1 and out...

Hope this helps you/answers your questions...


Edited by LDGuy