Ron or please somebody Help! I need a few tips on changing Time Signatures....

[Fleshbleed]

Hello. I'm new to the forum and I've been playing guitar for 8 years now. I listen most types of music but metal is my primary favorite. I always try to understand music theory as much as I can ,but I dont understand how to change time signature from one measure to another. I attempted to record a metronome for 5/4 for one measure and 3/4 for the next and so on but it never sounds right to me. My question is how can I experiement with changing time signatures on the fly, considering the fact I dont have a drummer or anyone to keep me in time? Do I need a better metronome? I got a little Korg metronome that does its job but is there something out there better? Also does anyone know about Polyrhythms and Polymetrics? The Band Meshuggah (I believe) uses them and I would like to know more about it and how it works.

Thanks

 

[fragility]

Ok, my tip as a free learning tool is powertab (or if you already have some sort of midi softwarre). You can lay out your bars, in whatever time sigs you like. I'd just start by having a single chord ringing out for the duration of each bar. That way, you can start by simply trying to play the first note of each bar. So start by just having a repeating passage of 7/8 for a few bars, then switch it to something else, keep playing along with it and eventually it will become second nature. I just think the easiest way to learn is to have that chord on the first note of each bar. Play along with bands like Pain of Salvation - some changes, but not overly complex as a starting point.


OK, on to polyrhythms/polymetrics.

Polymetrics are when you have two instruments playing in two different time signatures. For example, you might have the guitar playing a pattern in 3/4 and the drums in 4/4. Now, if you look at this below, count it as one and two and three....the 1's are the first beat of the pattern. Now, after 4 repetitions of the 3/4 pattern and 3 repititions of the 4/4 pattern, they would return to falling on the same beat again.

1 + 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 3 +
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Polyrhythms however are based on dividing notes. A 3:4 polyrhythm means 3 into 4. You divide 4 beats by 3. These notes will seem to fall off the beat - they do not fall where you would normally expect them to. It works in exactly the same way as a regular triplet.

I copied this from the meshuggah forums - I think it's a good explanation of the difference between the two (copy and paste into address bar or it wont work) If you imagine it a bit like a midi grid.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid160/pd49f78e7412f10d784535b4fca49ac94/f4ddb288.jpg

If you imagine each of those little boxes in the first example as a quarter note - the red notes are the start of each pattern.

In the second example, the polyrhythm, the top line are still quarter notes, but the bottom notes are 1/3 of a whole note in length.

These are overly simple examples but it gives you the concept.

I'm sorry this wasn't the best explanation - I know it's probably confused you - I always think these are very difficult concepts to explain in text. I'm at work at the moment, but I'll try and do a better explanation with proper examples tonight....or Ron will just come on here and explain it properly.

 

[Taedium Vitae]

That's not a bad job at explaining it, actually. Good job. I'd probably recommend using melody lines to "get" odd meters instead though.

By the way, Meshuggah doesn't really use polyrhythms. I'm very hesitant to call 4:3 and 3:4 and 3:2 and 2:3 polyrhythms, because they're usually better represented as triplets, and they are very common. Think of it being the same as not treating 3/4 as an odd meter. There are a few cases of implied 4:5 and 5:4 in their music but in rough terms, 99% of Meshuggah's music is polymetric. This Meshuggah = polyrhythmic misconception is widespread, mostly due to people's inability to understand the difference between polymetrics and polyrhythms, or they interpret it verbatim, reading it in a dictionary. The literary definition is not detailed enough. Please help correcting people!
If you want to hear polyrhythms, look into Conlon Nancarrow. That's arguably the most rhythmically complex music ever written. Pete Magadini is probably a good primer. Frank Zappa, especially towards the end, used lots of polyrhythmics, the most famous (or infamous) being Black Page #1, but it's far from the craziest. Virgil Donati uses a few polyrhythms here and there in Planet X, but it's subtle.

I can think of no polyrhythms or odd tuplets in Spastic Ink either, though there might be some hidden away somewhere; maybe in A Wild Hare. A bit of a shame... I think Ron should delve into that part a bit more in the future

 

[fragility]

If you want to hear polyrhythms, look into Conlon Nancarrow. That's arguably the most rhythmically complex music ever written.

Agreed!!

 

[ronjarz]

Yeah, on "A Wild Hare", there's some wacky timing subdivisions happening on the dialogue lines. That had to be done to match up with Thumper's voice.

Aside from that, there are just a few scattered examples on Ink tunes, like the gtr/synth lines on the intro for "ACRONYM", possibly "Stop-N-Go" from "Solitarily Speaking..."., the solo on 178 Thing has some wacky timing stuff that I couldn't even notate in Encore (I think I played 7 notes over 1 1/2 counts, or something like that, not sure). The solo for Data Race has a few too, but those could just be notated as 9s (3 notes fitted into each eight note triplet). There's probably more examples, but those are a few that I just came with with. Also, the arpeggio at end of "Kill The White Noise" from PHHHP! is 8 notes fitted into 1 1/2 counts. But I guess technically that should be notated as 8:3. Correct??

http://www.spasticink.com/kill2.gif

As far as different measures being played at the same time, that happens on Melissa's Friend right after the line "primed for attack". One gtr is playing the wah-wah lead melody at the beginning of the song which is in 4, with the last measure being 3/8; bass is playing the bridge tune which is in 5; and the high gtr is playing the middle instrumental theme which is in 7/8.

Ron

 

[Taedium Vitae]

8:3 sounds about right yeah. Though, the hi-hat more than implies a metric modulation, so I guess it makes more immediate sense (from a listener's standpoint) to actually change the signature/tempo (or notate it as a metric modulation) there, no? That's what's so fun with this stuff... it's all very subjective and loose, though I'm far far far from an expert.

[Edit] Or that might actually make it needlessly convoluted. Tricky tricky stuff.

That's pretty crazy stuff still... there's more than I thought. Thanks for the info, now I must listen to things more carefully to find all the goodies : )

 

[sands of the seas]

Sounds like some good explanations, however, no thread about polyrhythms would be complete without a reference to Steve Vai's Tempo Mental. It helped me out when i started to learn about the stuff. Well, the first half of it anyway. It gets a bit crazy for me towads the end.

http://vai.com/LittleBlackDots/tempomental.html

 

[Taedium Vitae]

Yeah, but considering what the guy knows so far, that might just discourage him hehe.

 

[sands of the seas]

Well the later stuff in the article yes, but i think the first part could be very helpful. It's basically what made me understand polyrhtythms when i was in Fleshbleed's position