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How to solve an audience clapping out of time


FuNkShUi
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[quote name='FuNkShUi' timestamp='1441795615' post='2861780']
[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD3iaURppQw"]https://www.youtube....h?v=yD3iaURppQw[/url]

In this clip the audience are clapping on the 1 and 3 instead of 2 & 4. So in his solo, Harry Connick throws in a 5/4 bar to correct it.
It happens at about 39 seconds in, and is bloody genius.
I cant stop watching it!
Audience are totally oblivious to the schooling they've just received :lol:
[/quote]

Great clip.

-
Here's a bit of both.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNLXxDMxe18

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  • 2 weeks later...

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1443004156' post='2871293']
:)
Boy am I glad I finally opened this thread anyway.
That was fantastic! Thanks for posting.
[/quote]

Good things come to those who wait :lol:


[quote name='Subbeh' timestamp='1443022794' post='2871571']
That really was brilliant!
[/quote]

I agree. I still watch it!

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It was all summed up brilliantly during a recent interview in a BBC Prom concert devoted to swing. Singer Elaine Delmar was asked to define swing. She said something along the lines of 'you know, you meet the man of your dreams and the music starts. He starts tapping his foot on one and three and you think................oh dear'.

Edited by bassace
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[quote name='bassace' timestamp='1443436586' post='2874572']
It was all summed up brilliantly during a recent interview in a BBC Prom concert devoted to swing. Singer Elaine Delmar was asked to define swing. She said something along the lines of 'you know, you meet the man of your dreams and the music starts. He starts tapping his foot on one and three and you think................oh dear'.
[/quote]

Why?

Other than convention give me a good reason why tapping/clapping on beats 1 and 3 is wrong.

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OK, I'll try. In a four in the bar tune you're not counting a regular 1234. The 2 and four will be syncopated, they'll be slightly in front. That gives rise to the whole in front of the beat discussion. It is this 2 and 4 snap that gives the tune it's swing or energy and by clapping on that you're fuelling that energy. That's the analysis but you should be able to feel it, a bit like riding a bike without considering how you're actually doing it.

But consider the Strictly sig tune; that's got a two in the bar feel to it, it's not meant to swing. So the audience appropriately clips on those two, which is 1 and 3. Although I'm sure I saw Carol Kirkwood clapping on 2 and 4 on Saturday.

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[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1443437439' post='2874581']
Other than convention give me a good reason why tapping/clapping on beats 1 and 3 is wrong.
[/quote]

You might as well ask "other than convention give me a good reason why I-IV-V-I is better than I-IV-VII-VII".
This stuff has to do with how human musicality has developed over centuries, governed by physics.

There are several conventions. Clapping on 1 and 3 is one of them.
The fact that clapping on 2 and 4 has become a more popular convention, I feel is due to people's notion that clapping on 1 and 3 is overtly square, is not very alive and does not add any drive to the feel of the meter.
I think it's the less musical choice.

AFAIK, musical children will change their clapping accordingly at some point in their development, not driven by convention but driven by their own feel. I for one did, even though convention in my conservative protestant circles in the early sixties dictated clapping on 1 and 3.

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Neither of you have convinced me it's anything but convention.

bassace's theory about swing might well hold true, but there's little for the audience to latch on to when the song starts, so IMO it's little wonder that they start clapping on the 1 and 3. If the drums had been there from the beginning there most likely wouldn't have been a problem. That's also why it's so simple for Harry Connick Jnr to repeat a one beat phrase to get the claps where HE wants them.

Having worked with 5 different drummers in my band over the last few years I've found that everyone's micro-timing and how they push and pull within a bar varies from musician to musician. And as a songwriter I certainly don't always want to push onto the 2 and the 4. Right now I'm writing a lot of music that very consciously pushes onto the 1.

It's the same with chord sequences. I don't find one of the examples given by BassTractor better than the other. In fact I don't really like the musicality of either of them and if I had to have a preference it would be for the second one.

Maybe I'm just weird...

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[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1443454034' post='2874831']
It's the same with chord sequences. I don't find one of the examples given by BassTractor better than the other. In fact I don't really like the musicality of either of them and if I had to have a preference it would be for the second one.
[/quote]

Now I'm sorry I tried to keep the word count to a minimum in order to fight my natural verbosity.
My example was not meant as a litteral example of how one song could start with or incorporate one certain chord sequence, in which case I-IV-V-I certainly would be more run of the mill, whilst I-IV-VII-VII might have something original and a promise of more depth.

Instead I meant them as archetypes (goes without saying I mean inside traditional, tonical music). In this case, the first mentioned is the steady, dependable chord change that has all the elements of stability, power away from stability and power back to stability, whereas the last mentioned simply isn't doable within the context, as it's totaly unresolved.
Governed by physics as they are, music history and music theory could never have resulted in a I-IV-VII-VII standard sequence.
This is where i called I-IV-V-I, for lack of a more adequate term, "better".

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