search: pop songs with weird time signatures and metric shifts

The drumming sort of does obscure it/smooth it out. If you're playing the snare on every single beat then there's no real indication of where the downbeat is.

xpost

Yeah, marking the beats is not necessarily the same as serving the meter.

^^ that's what I be saying about programming drums in threes, people
say what?

I mean, I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to say.

Do typical Syd Barrett songs count as pop songs?

I guess everybody is over on the Heath Ledger OD/RIP thread.

time of the season

Just syncopated 4/4 no?

I count it
four-and-One-(two)-AND-(three)

Repeat.

Unless I got up on my bad foot and started on the wrong beat...

yeah, nothing odd in that song.

OK, I read the AWP thing and listened to S^4 last night and started to understand the bridge. Once it really settles down into 3/4 it feels pretty natural, it's just the very beginning that is disorienting, where it's technically in 4/4 for two bars and then 3/4 for two bars, but there's no real backbeat as Jordan pointed out and no other hook, bass or otherwise, to hang your hat on.

I wish I understood this stuff. I bet it could enhance listening to music, it could allow you to listen with different ears. Nice work guys.

possible side effects include ranking britney spears above arcade fire.

(oops sorry you were saying high on fire, not arcade fire. um, that too.)

"Fire"? 4/4, but doesn't start on a downbeat.

You're good, tipsy, very good (yes, high on fire). I hadn't had my coffee yet when I went on a rant on that thread this morning.

we could get into led zep shit

"Fire"? 4/4, but doesn't start on a downbeat.

starts on the 4 right? yeah not starting on the 1 is a good way to sound off kilter without being off filter.

Wait the 4/4 beginning of the bridge of S^4 does have backbeat which continues into the first two 3/4 bars, so he hits the snare like this one-TWO-three ONE-two-three. The bass does a pick-up on the "two-three" and the we settle into waltz time. The SECOND time through the bridge only the first 3/4 bar is transitional having the extra backbeat carryover, drums go: one-TWO-three, one-two-three and bass figure starts on the downbeat of the second 3/4 bar, "one-two-three".

(xpost)
I think so. I think somebody makes a mistake coming back in at the end too. Not a timing mistake per se, but playing the wrong section.

Isn't "Black Dog" in 7/8 or something, I can't remember.

There's no AWP website for easy reference.

led zep, that thread about the "fool in the rain" fills is pretty good. and there's always the crunge (9/8?).

My itchy g00gle finger tells me BD switches between 4 and 5.

the crunge is so awesome. it's in 9/8, and the bridge goes three bars of 4/4 and then one bar of 9/8.

Black Dog kind of fucks me up because Bonham basically slams through it in 4/4. Also, because of the stops and starts, it's too easy just to think of the riff and not really know the time signature. Haven't listened to it in awhile.

The Crunge is a great goddamn tune.

kashmier = 4/4 but six bar phrases, i think.

lol at "jumbo time signature"

i like that you can hear some stick clicks during "black dog," it's nice to know even bonham couldn't count that in his head.

oh shit, i think youtube took down the SNL clip of P Diddy & Jimmy Page, which had the sickest drumming ever!

"Kashmir" = drums in 4, everyone else in 3, right?

I mean, for the main riff.

Stevie Wonder: Livin' For The City

This isn't all that strange: the verses are 4/4 the chorus is 3/4.

xpost Sundar OTM re "Kashmir"

yeah. i think of it as a hemiola over a six-bar phrase, but it comes out to the same thing.

same with livin' for the city, actually...it feels like 3/4 of course, but the number of bars are such that you can play in 4/4 through it and comes out correctly. this is drummerthink, i guess!

i think of it as a hemiola over a six-bar phrase, but it comes out to the same thing.

otm. it's 6/8 but bonham plays it like it's 4/4, so his beat works in a sort of ellipse with the time signature, meeting back up every two measures.

Actually, there are two bars of 4/4 at the end of the chorus for Livin' for the City. So either the chorus is in 3/4 until those bars (which is probably most accurate), or the whole thing is seven bars of 4/4.

Well, "Livin'..." mostly sounds weird because that "head" or whatever has some elongated notes that can't be subdivided easily into 4s or 3s, seems to me. And does the drum track continue at the same tempo throughout that little playlet, or does it fade entirely and then return? I'll have to give that a listen when I get home...

the drums hit quarter notes, so they're not really defining any meter during the chorus (a la that beatles tune)

All right, I had one more thing to say about S4 but I'll save it for later. In the meantime I ripped How The West Was Won. I'll see you blecches tomorrow!

OK, the dropped eight note in "The Ocean" is pretty easy to deal with, "Black Dog" is kind of hard to figure out, can't find Physical Graffiti to work on "Kashmir." Without AWP I am lost.

OK, Sorry for the geocities, but John Paul Jones explains Black Dog to you

neat

Speaking of Zep and weird time changes, I love what they always did with "Heartbreaker" in concert, changing the verses from 5 measures to 4 by playing that little tricky bit when Plant's only halfway through singing the final line in each verse. Dunno exactly when they began to perform it that way, or whether the change made it easier or more difficult to play, or neither. But it definitely makes the track swing and groove a bit more.

oh yeah, i see what you mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVM9Q6pBBWo

I think what you're hearing is a dotted eighth followed by a sixteenth
You probably were thinking of the samba version, that was only broadcast in Latin America, and had Ringo manhandling a pandeiro.

"Fire"? Is that all there is to "Fire"?

Dionne Warwick's "Anyone Who Had a Heart": It goes from 3/8 to 2/4 to 4/4....in the first line.
Hm. Lots of people on the web have quoted some source (AMG?) saying it goes from 5/4 to 4/4 and back. I'd say it's in 3/4 with bars of 5/4, which sound like two bars of 3/4 with the last beat cut out. (I guess you could also say 3/4 with an extra 2/4 now and then if you wanted to)

"Promises, Promises" also has a weird time signature, but we don't have to argue about it since, according to the myspace page of Bacharach & David
In this song, he incorporates a very complex time signature sequence of |3/8|÷|4/8|3/8|÷|4/8|.