Tips on weird time signatures

[Leonard Smalls]

I've just joined yet another band, this time with a seriously good drummer. I mean world-class-good, played with Free Improv types like Evan Parker; problem is I'm well-used to playing standard funk or rock grooves but mainly in 3 or 4 time.

So has anybody got any tips on coping with weird rhythms/time sigs etc? Any exercises, books, YouTube tutorials? 

We're doing crazy, semi-improvised jazz-rock and so far I've managed to busk it by watching his hi-hat like a hawk and dropping notes where appropriate, but it would be nice to find a way to work with strange grooves as well as also being On The One!

[leftybassman392]

Weird time signatures tend to get split into manageable chunks. For example, a bar of 7:4 might get split into 4:4+3:4 or vice versa. If you're playing from a chart it would most likely be like this. Depends how freely you're improvising I guess, but improv sessions would generally follow this type of pattern as well, but be aware that somebody might decide that it's a good idea to swap it around a bit mid-song. Learn to trust your ears. Oh, and (with apologies if it sounds a bit too obvious, but) it takes practice so don't expect to be good at it straight away.

Not much I know, but hopefully it will help.

 

[scalpy]

Count groupings if threes and twos. For instance the Take Five standard is 3+2. There are typical groupings, 7 is normally 3+2+2 etc but it’s definately worth a conversation with your drummer, some are more adventurous! After you’ve got your head round that, use the same principle as you would for arpeggios and scales. Work out a set of rhythms that adds up to 2 beats (quavers or crotchets) for starters, then a set of rhythms that add up to three. Then decide on a metre, 3+2 for example, pick a rhythm for each and hammer out a chord change on root notes until you feel comfortable. Then try using chord tones etc and scaffold up from there. In this video the tune is in 5. What I decided to do was reverse the typical Take Five rhythm for the verses so 3 = 3 straight quavers and the 2 = semiquaver quaver semiquaver before using the normal pattern for the chorus. As the drummer has the ability to bend time and space I stuck to this formula a) to provide a reference for all concerned and b) if I deviate I get hopelessly lost! 

 

[Leonard Smalls]

I was hoping someone could recommend a bit of software I could load directly into my brain!

But I suspect that's not an option...

The problem isn't so much playing straight 5:4 or 7:8, it's more playing a groove within those sigs that doesn't start on the first note and doesn't follow an obvious groove pattern - I suppose it's a question of practice, and learning to play more melodic lines than I'm used to. I've always played straight riffs that repeat or get developed...

[Hellzero]

My advice would be even simpler : follow the snare drum, not the bass drum as you'll get lost after the first measure.

Don't try to understand and decompose the signature, but let the music flow.

On the opposite, as I'm into weird time signatures (I've been listening to strange time signatures, being it classical, jazz or even rock, since I'm a teenager), it's hard for me to play in 4:4, I think because I get bored very quick.

[scalpy]

The principle is still the same, just like you’d learn licks that fit over certain harmonies, learn rhythmic cells that fit over the metre. Tempo Advance is a great app for using to practice. 

[Leonard Smalls]

Problem is the drum pattern is so complex I can't see the groove in it - following the hi hat so far seems easiest as he's doing rolling and shuffle patterns on toms and snare...

[Yank]

My advice is to follow the bass drum.  

[Dad3353]

It may help to listen to what's going on, not in classical 'solfège' terms, but more akin to a verbal conversation, maybe in a language you're unfamiliar with. Listen to the 'chatter', rather than the 'beat', and try to 'speak' the same language. An example..? I'll try, but ...

Imagine a conversation such as "I'm going to the wedding tomorrow, but don't have any idea is to what I should be wearing. Any idea..? It may be too late to get a peremptory fitting at the local tailors, so I'm in a bit of a quandary..."

There's no set pattern to the above, and only an inkling of tempo, so to play along, one would just have to try to use a similar 'flow', and when it matches, all will be well. It's not necessary to be the same, or even similar 'patter'; in a conversation, some folks will be using simply interjections such as 'Oh yeah..?' or 'You don't say..!', and they'd be fitted in depending on the pauses or intonations of the others.
Just a thought; that's how I do 'odd' stuff, and learn complex patterns. I equate them to phrases, or complete sentences of my own choosing, which becoming mnemonic.
Hope this helps; good luck with it all, and 'Well done..!' on getting the chance to play such stuff. My thumb is up. 

[lowdown]

'Weird Time signatures'?

3/5/7/9/11/13/15 etc... Odd yes, but what's weird?

 

 

[chris_b]

If they let you into their band you must be doing something right.

You don't count 5 in Brubeck's Take Five, it's 3 and 2, so break the rhythm into manageable chunks.

Also, every weird time signature has a pattern. Whipping Post by The Allman Brothers is in 11/8.  The count is 3, 3, 3, 2 but when the bass starts this pattern in the intro no one's counting 11, they've just got the bass riff in their heads.

Then again this drummer could just be playing 4/4 and throwing the beat around, accenting different parts of the beat. Feel the pulse and even if you get lost in the bar, always know where the 1 is. This drummer will have phrases and "tricks". When you've worked those out you'll be fine. I wish I was playing with a drummer like this again.

Keep doing what you did in the audition.

[Sibob]

My advice is to unlearn what you’ve learned about common band interaction. Typically we very much rely on the drummer to dictate time, forget that, and assume that’s he’s stretching time, displacing any drum hits at any given time (so not giving you a steady pulse). What this means, is that you rely on your internal timing! If you know what the timing is, you should be able to play the song, start to finish with the drummer playing absolutely anything, out of time, polyrhythms etc. 

So yes, learn to count, but you’ll quickly just feel the pulse and as long as that happens, you’ll need the drums less, and probably actually hear what he’s doing against the beat a lot better

Si

[ambient]

Don’t play licks. Just listen to what’s going on, feel it and act accordingly.

The most important, for me anyway, thing is to know where ‘one’ is.

When I’ve had to play in anything other than 4/4, 3/4 or 5/4 I’ve broken it into two, never more than that. So 7/4 would be 4/4 followed by 3/4. It depends though how the drummer is feeling it.

[EliasMooseblaster]

How improvised is "semi-improvised"? Can I assume you at least agree on a time signature beforehand, and the only difficulty is tracking the drummer's pulse?

If so: be the pulse. Even if just to build your own confidence to begin with.

While we're all citing Take Five as an example, there's a great example at the end of the Time Out album where Eugene Wright keeps the band anchored to 6:4 by playing steady crochets throughout the whole bar, and Morello is free to just float around his pulse:

 

[lowdown]

10 minutes ago, ambient said:

Don’t play licks. Just listen to what’s going on, feel it and act accordingly.

The most important, for me anyway, thing is to know where ‘one’ is.

When I’ve had to play in anything other than 4/4, 3/4 or 5/4 I’ve broken it into two, never more than that. So 7/4 would be 4/4 followed by 3/4. It depends though how the drummer is feeling it.

 

Yeah. pretty much how I see/hear it.

l always look/listen for one, even if I don't play on it (or have to anticipate it).

[bassace]

But at the time of Time Out and Time Further Out (I had them both) the Brubeck Quartet were quite conservative and there was a lot of anchoring going on. For instance when Joe Morrello was soloing in Take Five, Brubeck vamped under him. Later, when they were more familiar with the stuff they were able break free.

By the time the Prog groups cam along they were able to handle all sorts of time sigs with ease.

[EliasMooseblaster]

True; I'd suggest it more as a pair of stabilisers than a long-term solution. As you say, Brubeck and co were more able to break free once they were more comfortable with the material, and I'm sure our Leonard will do the same once he's feeling more settled in the band.

[cheddatom]

I always try to have a "riff" or phrase in my head, basically a melody that's the length of whatever the bar is. If I try to split it into sections, or count, I just make a mess of it. For example, I play drums on this track and I have no idea what the time signature is for the main riff

EDIT: I'd love to know what timing this is in if anyone can tell me?

 

Edited July 26, 2018 by cheddatom

[Brook_fan]

Any time signature can be reduced to a count of 3 or 2.  I play a lot of Balkan tunes, and the key with them is where does the 3 occur and where does the 2 occur.  For example, I play a tune which is in 9/8.  Now this is grouped not like your normal 9/8 (1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3) but as 1-2 1-2 1-2 1-2-3

You can play anything once you have grasped this concept, except.....if the time signature is constantly changing! 

Robbie

[Leonard Smalls]

I've been fiddling a bit - breaking the time sig down helps a lot! 

Problem is it's like a rock version of this - luckily the guitar player is the chap who just left my other band so I've played with him for a year:

 

Edited July 26, 2018 by Leonard Smalls

[chris_b]

The pattern is the thing to grasp.

7/4 can be 4, 3 or 3, 4 or 2, 3, 2 or 2, 2, 3 etc etc.

The drummer can also be playing a different pattern over the rest of the band. I know a drummer who likes to mess with bass players and could come out of a clatter around the kit into a snare on 1 and 3 pattern. It always surprised me how many bass players fell apart when he did that. The dangers of following the drummer rather than relying on their internal clock.

[Hellzero]

This might help a lot.

Listen to Franz Liszt as he had the idea of banishing the bars and measures in music. Then listen to Charles-Valentin Alkan who went further in the process by composing music without bars and time signature, even if the written music found will have both of them for pure classical notation purposes. 

Don't think in terms of measures, but phrases or movements rather than patterns and don't rely on the drummer, but on your internal perception of the flow.

Listening to real Klezmer music will also help as they start together and join back in the end without taking care of the classical rhythm approach, but only listening to each other and sliding into uncontrolled time signature(s)... 

Learning Indian music will also help a lot, and listening to it, of course.

[Dad3353]

It's not entirely necessary to 'lock in' to the drums at all; the interplay is what counts, however it's achieved. An example from Zappa...

 

The bassist and drummer never met, and were recorded at entirely different venues.

[Leonard Smalls]

What I've done so far is lock into a groove with my own time which is hopefully the same as his! 

I've found this to be much easier with fast stuff than slow where I'm much more visible...

[jonsmith]

Sounds very interesting and presumably the others already like what you're doing with it.  The stuff you're doing is probably a lot more complex than what I'm doing, but here's my experience, for what it's worth.  

Assuming that your improvisations in a given piece are always around the same odd time signature (perhaps a dangerous assumption), I think these things always work best when they flow naturally and for me that tends to come from practice.  I get to a point where I stop really thinking about the time signature because I've sort of developed a natural feel or instinct for it anyway.  This is even more handy when you have different players playing different time signatures - which happens sometimes with one of the bands I play in - and it would all fall apart if you relied too heavily on the drummer, because (for example) he's not playing 7s, but you are.  We have another song with a 15/16 phrase that I then play in 4/4 later on while the guitarist is playing a reprise of a different part of the song that just happens to mesh nice harmonically.  We jammed the 15/16 bit quite a few times at first (in the interests of getting it to sound effortless, plus the drummer does a "solo" there that kind of modulates over the top), so it's the 4/4 version that sometimes feels odd.  The end result is much easier on the ears than the description sounds (I hope).  Although I listen to a load of proggy stuff etc., I'm probably the least time signature savvy instrument player in the band, but it does all seem to work.   

Maybe ask the drummer to play a few grooves in different time signatures that you can record and then mess around with at home?