OT: Any Muscians on the Panel?

Mar 07, 2021 Last reply: 5 years ago 14 Replies
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Andy Burns

I'm no musician, but there's nothing jarring around that time to my ears, just a couple of drum breaks around the instrumental section.

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Something doesn't sound right about this song at approx. 1m29s there appears to be some sort of issue with the time signature. It's like it goes from 4/4 to 3/4 or something of that sort then back again, but I'm no musician so can't say for sure. Opinions sought from those with a better ear than I!


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You may have to listen to the whole 2.5 minutes of the song to be certain. --



"Andrey Semyonovitch really was rather stupid; he attached himself to the progressive cause and 'our younger generation' from enthusiasm. He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animate abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion, only to vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely."



- Fyodor Dostoevsky


I'm no musician, but there's nothing jarring around that time to my ears, just a couple of drum breaks around the instrumental section.

I've been known to make semi-musical noises on a range of instruments - this seems like fairly strict 2/2 or 4/4 to me. Having said that, lots of pieces of music change time (and key) signatures and that doesn't make them "wrong".

I can't find anything wrong with it. Maybe your communication channel is slow and at the place you say, it decided to drop the delayed feed and miss a bit out to catch up again.

I can hear nothing wrong with it here at all. If you want to hear what happens if somebody tries to sing unaccompanied without a click track or a good time signature sense, Look out Sandy Shows version of Paul McCartney's Junk. I think they were far more interested in the comedy value of the end than noting the variable time signature!

Brian

Thanks, Brain. I always defer to your expert opinion on any matter non-visually related. :-) --

"Andrey Semyonovitch really was rather stupid; he attached himself to the progressive cause and 'our younger generation' from enthusiasm. He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animate abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion, only to vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely."

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

The rhythm of the song flows at a constant underlying 4/4, but the lead guitarist finishes a phrase on a totally-unexpected beat.

As someone else has said, there are lots of songs with odd bars of time signature other than the main one for the song. A good example was the Bobbie Gentry version of "I'll Never Fall In Love Again", which was in

4/4 but had one bar of 5/4 under the last line of the chorus (as per the title).

If you want odd time listen to "Golden Brown".

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The Gene Vincent sounds fine to me.

Andy

Or "Take Five".

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There's a fair bit of 5/4 in that.

"Take Five" is in 5/4 all the way through.

"Three To Get Ready" (same album) has an intro in 3/4 but the main theme alternates two bars of 3/4 and two of 4/4.

Perhaps we'd better not get into "Blue Rondo á la Turk"!

I take it you haven't heard about the story of the album?

Take five is only the best known track from

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"it is based upon the use of time signatures that were unusual for jazz"

Andy

Or the "Mission Implausible" theme.

No, I hadn't heard the story of the album. Thanks for the link - an interesting read.

Now listening to Time Out on Spotify.

That's another in 5/4, ISTR (or at least, the original version by Lalo Schifrin is).

"Living In The past" by Jethro Tull was also a 5/4 piece. You never heard local rock bands play it, and not only because they didn't usually have a flute in the line-up.

There's another on the same theme: "Time Further Out".

Try "Unsquare Dance" from that one. It's in 7/4 and you will probably find it familiar. It's frequently used as background music in TV documentaries (and a few times on adverts, if I recall correctly).

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