Are we hardwired for 4/4 time signatures?

[NancyJohnson]

Over the last few months, I've been involved in a distanced studio project; I get shortish (3-4 minute), incomplete ideas by email from our guitarist/producer - rudimentary drum loops, patchy guitars, no vocals - to which I contribute bass; I generally turn something around in a couple of hours.  My stems are pushed up to Dropbox, retrieved by the producer, integrated into the song project and a few days later I get an mp3 through, with redone drums, more of everything.  I fix what needs to be fixed and this then goes to the singer.  It's all been working splendidly until about a fortnight ago, when I just drew a 100% blank and couldn't do anything. 

Pretty much all the material has been in 4/4, various tempos, easy, like riding a bike, what the producer does after I've done my stuff is his concern, it just comes back to me for approval and in general there's little tweaking required and it all sounds good.  I got a track through...experimental the producer says.  Over six minutes, a combination of 5/4, 7/4 and 4/4, multiple tempos, more Dream Theater than say 3 Colours Red.  Within this there were this very odd, almost indiscernable changes; the guitar would be (for instance) chugging along in F# and then it would do this odd dischordant thing and change key between beats.  I have never felt so uncomfortable and would go on record as saying I was freaking out a bit.  Don't get me wrong...the basic track was OK, good even, but I was totally lost.  I looped the start and did maybe 50 takes until I hit upon something I was happy with.

We've vowed that we'll never revisit the shores of prog-rock, but this was after a brief discussion about whether we're actually hard-wired, by association, for 4/4 time signatures and because these are buried so deep in our concious that these are the norm it's a mans work to not play four beats in a bar.

 

[leftybassman392]

I would have thought 3/4 - or maybe 6/8 - is a pretty good candidate. It's how your heart beats.

Not to say that 4/4 isn't, just that if it is then it's unlikely to be the only one.

[Lozz196]

Doing some classic 70s rock that seems to put some strange timings in all sorts of places I’d say yes, 4/4 is how we are programmed, it’s much simpler.

[Dood]

Hard wired, well, maybe taught. We hear it so much from the earliest nursery rhymes to everything we hear all the time on mainstream media, radio charts and school songs.

and when we do get to hear an odd time signature on these platforms, it’s usually delivered in a way that is almost indescribable for the casual listener. The theme tune to The Bill?

I think Adam Neely discussed something similar a while back and, there are plenty of cultures where complex polyrhythms and more “out there” time signatures aren’t unusual at all.

Check out Adam’s recent video on 15/16 which is actually a delicious time signature! 
 

I love prog, tech metal and the like, so I quite enjoy making something like a complex rhythm in to something musical. (I love the tech side of it but I am still a massive sucker for a good melody in the bass!)

[leftybassman392]

Update: while I'm here, odd time signatures are invariably subdivided into 2s, 3s and 4s.

Edited December 17, 2020 by leftybassman392

[PaulWarning]

triplets cause me trouble

[Phil Starr]

I feel like I'm spoiling things but there's a fair amount of research on this and our sense of rhythm is cultural and largely learned. Other cultures and particularly folk music use wider ranges of time signatures. Even a lot of classical music has shifting time signatures. 4/4 comes from early experience and repeated listening as does a lot of the rest of our listening. To us there is something 'right' about songs with the four chords and returning to the key at the end of the song. 

One thing I've noticed is that with the demise of rock and blues from popular culture younger drummers struggle at First with the shuffle and 12/8 something no-one thought about in my generation. You can tell with my 40year old drummer he just isn't quite comfortable with triplets, they feel learned rather than natural.

[leftybassman392]

3 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

I feel like I'm spoiling things but there's a fair amount of research on this and our sense of rhythm is cultural and largely learned. Other cultures and particularly folk music use wider ranges of time signatures. Even a lot of classical music has shifting time signatures. 4/4 comes from early experience and repeated listening as does a lot of the rest of our listening. To us there is something 'right' about songs with the four chords and returning to the key at the end of the song. 

One thing I've noticed is that with the demise of rock and blues from popular culture younger drummers struggle at First with the shuffle and 12/8 something no-one thought about in my generation. You can tell with my 40year old drummer he just isn't quite comfortable with triplets, they feel learned rather than natural.

Good post. Just out of interest, do you have any links you can put up. (Partly me being lazy, partly having something visible on the thread).

[BreadBin]

Watching how effortlessly (non-musical) people dance to Shpongle I'd say it's a learned thing. There are many shifting time signatures which don't cause any problems at all.

[4000]

12 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

I feel like I'm spoiling things but there's a fair amount of research on this and our sense of rhythm is cultural and largely learned. Other cultures and particularly folk music use wider ranges of time signatures. Even a lot of classical music has shifting time signatures. 4/4 comes from early experience and repeated listening as does a lot of the rest of our listening. To us there is something 'right' about songs with the four chords and returning to the key at the end of the song. 

One thing I've noticed is that with the demise of rock and blues from popular culture younger drummers struggle at First with the shuffle and 12/8 something no-one thought about in my generation. You can tell with my 40year old drummer he just isn't quite comfortable with triplets, they feel learned rather than natural.

This, pretty much.

As a big Prog fan, a lot of the music I like has somewhat odd time signatures;  I grew up with Jazz more than anything. I remember a guitarist friend once commenting how I didn’t seem to be as interested in rhythm as he was.  Once I thought about it, it became clear to me that to him, rhythm equalled a straight, driving backbeat, which I was indeed less interested in as a general thing. He’s most definitely not a big Prog fan. 
 

 

[wateroftyne]

I can remember the first time I heard something that was 'Obviously' non-standard, unlike (for example) Take Five, or Golden Brown, which aren't particularly jarring.

It was Down and Out by Genesis, and it confused the hell out of me.

[BigRedX]

For western melody-driven music if the odd time signature is supported by a good tune it often isn't obvious that it's not in 4/4 until you try to play it. For instance "Take 5", the "Mission Impossible" theme, or the intro section to "Tubular Bells"where the riff/melody is so strong that it covers up the fact that there are extra or missing beats.

Also what is obvious to one musician, especially if they wrote the music, can sometimes be impenetrable to others. I once wrote a middle section to what was otherwise a fairly ordinary pop/rock song that, when I actually worked it out, comprised alternating bars of 9/8 and 4/8. I would count it as quavers 123,123,123,12,12 with each chord change being on the "1". I thought it was obvious especially as the chord changes drove it along, but obviously I was wrong, as the rest of the band never got it and eventually we gave up, and moved onto something else.

Edited December 18, 2020 by BigRedX
For musical correctness.

[NickD]

I think we are conditioned into it to an extent, but I guess listening habits can make a difference. Having grown up with Grunge (by which I mean it was my big thing early on in my bass journey), 7/8 is really natural to me, just because it was present in so many tracks I loved and learned at the time. Similarly 5/4, having that same 'clipped' feel works quite well in my head too.

I'm guessing that kids who are spending their formative years playing Tool, Animals as Leaders, and crazy stuff like that will be much freer in their odd meter approach. Maybe it will all feel much more natural to them.

[4000]

21 minutes ago, wateroftyne said:

I can remember the first time I heard something that was 'Obviously' non-standard, unlike (for example) Take Five, or Golden Brown, which aren't particularly jarring.

It was Down and Out by Genesis, and it confused the hell out of me.

And Chester Thompson apparently!

[Burns-bass]

Plug for a book by the wonderful science writer Philip Ball. He tackles this (and lots of other musical questions) in a really accessible way. The guy is a phenomenal writer. I did have a copy somewhere. If I can dig it out of the loft you (or anyone) can have it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Instinct-Works-Cant-Without/dp/0099535440

[Trueno]

Most “funny” time signatures are compound time signatures anyway... if you can count to four you’re sorted.

I’ve been trying to explain 12:8 timing to our guitarist and he just looks at me like I’m a space alien. He still wonders why the pause in our slow blues doesn’t sound right when he counts 1-2...

[leftybassman392]

24 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

Plug for a book by the wonderful science writer Philip Ball. He tackles this (and lots of other musical questions) in a really accessible way. The guy is a phenomenal writer. I did have a copy somewhere. If I can dig it out of the loft you (or anyone) can have it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Music-Instinct-Works-Cant-Without/dp/0099535440

Dibs on the book?

[casapete]

When I was a kid learning to play piano, time signatures were always a struggle for me. This has continued on in my later life, and I'm wondering after reading a lot of the posts above if this has determined the sort of music I like to listen to as well as play? Nearly all the music of the last 60+ years that I enjoy is predominantly either 4/4, 3/4, 12/8 or maybe 6/8. Also most of my pro musical gigs have been playing music for people to dance to, again usually in the time signatures I've mentioned.

This may also explain why I don't do prog , metal and some jazz!! How boring am I.....

[leftybassman392]

48 minutes ago, Trueno said:

Most “funny” time signatures are compound time signatures anyway... if you can count to four you’re sorted.

 

Indeed.

'Take Five' for example, is played as 3/4 + 2/4.

'Money' (7/4) is played 3/4 + 4/4

 

 

[Barking Spiders]

I'd say the OP comment is true for those of us brought up on western rock, pop, funk, dance music etc. This wouldn't be the same in Brazil with samba and bossa nova being rooted in 2/4 while also featuring 12/8 . For many years I played caixa and rep in samba bands and I don't think we ever did owt in 4/4.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Barking Spiders

[chris_b]

11 minutes ago, leftybassman392 said:

'Money' (7/4) is played 3/4 + 4/4

The guitar solo is in 4/4 because Dave Gilmore couldn't solo in 7/4!

 

Time signatures are patterns. Like words and grammar, after practice and repetition they become second nature.

I played with John Mealing, the keyboard player with 70's band If. They were legendary for using impossible time signatures, and he told us he didn't count anything. He just came up with a pattern and followed it.

[leftybassman392]

3 minutes ago, chris_b said:

The guitar solo is in 4/4 because Dave Gilmore couldn't solo in 7/4!

 

Time signatures are patterns. Like words and grammar, after practice and repetition they become second nature.

I played with John Mealing, the keyboard player with 70's band If. They were legendary for using impossible time signatures, and he told us he didn't count anything. He just came up with a pattern and followed it.

I have a vague memory of learning the song (including the solo) at some point in the dim & distant past. Long since gone the way of all things now though.

That said, the song is known for being in 7/4. If you do a search of songs in 7/4, it's always one of the first that comes up.

While I'm here, a lot of the songs known for being in 7/4 actually alternate between 7/4/ and 4/4 (Solsbury Hill, Paranoid Android, Led Boots - strictly speaking that's 4/4 and 7/8 I think, but you get the idea...).

 

[Maude]

47 minutes ago, chris_b said:

Time signatures are patterns. Like words and grammar, after practice and repetition they become second nature.

I played with John Mealing, the keyboard player with 70's band If. They were legendary for using impossible time signatures, and he told us he didn't count anything. He just came up with a pattern and followed it.

This rings particularly true with me. I don't count or really have much knowledge of time signatures, but don't struggle playing them, unlike some of my more theory knowledgeable band mates. I just somehow know when it feels right. 

When I first started to play guitar, RHCP's Breaking The Girl was probably the first song I learnt, I had no idea it was an odd timing, it just felt nice. It's in 6/8 but I wouldn't know that without looking it up. 

I also learnt to play in the grunge era so maybe that does have a bearing on odd time signatures feeling relatively normal. 

[Bassassin]

I think most of us learn to play a bit before we learn the theory of what we're playing - therefore we probably tend to start out listening to & playing along to pretty simple stuff. So I think any affinity to 4/4 & 3/4 is learned - I certainly think that was the case for me.

My musical self-education very broadly took me from punk to metal to prog, and by the time I started trying to compose my own music I was as likely to be playing in 7 or 5 as much as 4, so that's what came out. These days I tend to sit around with a bass or guitar & noodle random ideas, and again, they're as likely to unconsciously be an in 'odd' time as a standard one. Not sure I've ever sat down with the intention of writing something wilfully not in 4 or 3, it's just what feels & sounds right.

[MrCrane]

An interesting little article on the uneven rhythms in Bulgarian folk music

https://www.fusionmagazine.org/against-the-odds-an-exploration-of-bulgarian-rhythms/#:~:text=The overwhelming majority of Bulgarian,%2C 15%2C 17 and larger.