Musical Question.....

[bass]

i think i did something impossible tonight... i was sitting around writing basslines and such, and i wrote this one, where when i put a drum pattern to it, was all messed up...

the bass line was in standard 4/4 time, but for some reason the drum beat was in 3/4... IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE???

either that or i just wrote something that makes no sense at all...

 

[Krokus]

Hmm

That Is Very Interesting.....

 

[qjakal]

AAcckkk....

This is a job for *swoosh* >>>>>>>>> dvnc!!!! Help this wayward minstrel d!!

 

[guitman69]

You might be able to get away with it for a little while, but eventually it will end in a train wreck. After while, you will no longer be in the same measure as the drummer. And in rock music, the drummer is the conductor. Everyone gets their beat from the drummer. If your drummer starts to run (get faster), so will the rest of the band. The only place I could see this working is in really heavy, non-melodic Jazz.

However, it is possible to make one time sound like another. Take the drum beat for the song "Kashmir" by Led Zepplin. If you are not counting beats, it almost feel like Bonham's playing a 4/4 beat, but he's actually playin in 3/4 time. On the other hand, you can also make 4/4 sound more like 3/4 by "swinging" the tempo. It's all a matter of accents.

We're used to hearing the accents on certain notes, and in rock music in 4/4 time, we're used to hearing them on the 1 beat and the 3 beat. If you accent the notes in a different place, you can give the song a whole different feel, and give the allusion that you are playing in a different time scale.

If you were to do this though, you couldn't do it with a drum machine. You would have to try this out with a live drummer.

 

[GuitarPeteTklr]

Hey bass!

You are truly a sick man, musically speaking, and one after My own heart!

The musical phenomenon you speak of is referred to technically as "superimposing conventional meters on to odd meters," or even vice-versa, depending on your frame of reference. If you need further validation, you can always visit Frank Briggs' Website . I met him, personally, when he was still active in the upstate New York mega sound/mega lights circuit in a now defunct band called "805." They landed a record deal with RCA, but soon lost it, because the RCA record execs felt that Frank's drum lines were "way too busy and cerebral" to coexist peacefully with the other musical works of the day that were present in that genre.

I think that speaks volumes for his drum prowess, Myself...Yup...a REAL virtuoso! 😀

Can't tell I love progressive rock and jazz much....Can you? LOL!!!

*GuitarPeteTklr shreds his way into tickling oblivion*

 

[Dave2112]

This is possible, but as noted, you have to avoid the train wreck at the end. Listen to "Limelight" by Rush, or "Solsbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel. These are two good examples of cleverly masked 3/4 beats.😎

 

[dvnc]

I'm late, apparently, 'cause Dave nailed it. You can do it, even if it ain't always easy. It's a matter of how you want to resolve differing time sigs, and where. There's always the jazz method - switch times 'til you resolve. It's tried and true, baby.

I'm just impressed that Dave2112 mentioned my fav example in the rock world - Salsburry Hill, by Peter Gabriel. Other cultures have a variety of shifted time sigs, like Javanese Gamelan. It's a matter of resolution, like most things in life. The creativity needed to resolve beautifully is music unto itself...

dvnc

 

[red indian]

Blimey Chaps!!

Where have you guys been for the last 30 years??? Experiments with compound time signatures have been going for a long time in western music and are as old as water in many Eastern cultures, Indian music is a positive labyrinth of arcain meters, it has virtually no harmonic movement but makes up for this with rythmic complexity. If you want to hear how far this kind of thing can go Bass i suggest you listen to a guy called Don Ellis and then come back and tell me how innovative your new track is!

Your idea of 3 against 4 is as old as the hills i,m afraid,as is 3 against 2. This kind of friction between differing meters has been grist to the mill for musicians and composers for centuries, another well known example is Dave Brubeck who has made many albums featuring experiments with time signatures.

Another thing to listen to would be a recording of Stravinskys "The Right of Spring" pick the bones out of that if you can!!

 

[dvnc]

Good call, Red. Dunno why I didn't think of Stravinsky. Hadda write a paper on him in my third year of music school in college. Better t'get the sheet music for that one, unless you have a great stereo, a perfect recording, and a phenominal ear for music.

dvnc