Does the Amen break bother you?

[Bradtemple87]

Its basic 4 count and easy for people to follow, call me when someone writes a song in 5/4

[YoshiEgg25]

Its basic 4 count and easy for people to follow, call me when someone writes a song in 5/4

I'll take that as a challenge.

[Hobie-wan]

This is a very good history lesson on the Amen Break.



If you are worn out on the Amen Break, you need to stay away from most Jungle, Drum and Bass, Drill and Bass, and Braindance type musis as songs of these types are almost all built around pieces of the Amen. While it is the most sampled break, there are others too. Funky Drummer and other James Brown breaks are used in countless tracks, as is the beginning bit from When the Levee Breaks by Led Zepplin.

[Hobie-wan]

Its basic 4 count and easy for people to follow, call me when someone writes a song in 5/4

Lots of Venetian Snares songs are in weird time signatures like 7/4 and 11/4.

[Bradtemple87]

Its basic 4 count and easy for people to follow, call me when someone writes a song in 5/4

Lots of Venetian Snares songs are in weird time signatures like 7/4 and 11/4.

Yes 7 is fun

[Niode]

Its basic 4 count and easy for people to follow, call me when someone writes a song in 5/4

There's loads of compound time songs out there. Famous ones too. Take Five, Strangler's Golden Brown (strictly 3/4 then a bar of 4/4 then it codas to a 3/4 with a 5/4 if memory serves), Pink Floyd's Money (7/4 apart from that god-awful 4/4 solo), Radiohead's 2+2=5 (which is in so many time signatures I struggle to count it), The first part of Number of the Beast is in 5/4 (seriously count the down beats, you will get to 10 and then it repeats, it's actually 5/4, you've just counted the quavers as they're easier to count), Vicarious by Tool is in 5/4, YYZ by Rush is a very famous one in 5/4. That's just off the top of my head.

Pretty much every Dream Theater song uses several different time signatures. The solo part of the Dance of Eternity has 73 time signature changes over 110 bars alone. It goes, 5/8-5/8-7/8-5/8-7/8-5/8-5/8-7/8-4/4-3/4-3/4 next section 8/4-7/4-6/4-6/4-8/4-7/4 *breathes* 6/8-3/4-6/8-3/4-3/4-3/4-6/8-3/4-6/8-5/8-3/4-4/4-3/4 aaaaand so on. Seriously, go ahead and count it: It's the part after the trill.

Right that's my single geek musician post of the year.


Edit: How can I forget my favourite musicians 'in-joke' which is Meshuggah's New Millennium Cyanide Christ which is in 23/16 and then wanders off on it's own drifting between 13/16, 5/8 9/16 and I think even some 7/16 and 9/16 thrown in for good measure. The drums however stick a rock solid 4/4 throughout the entire song. Yay for drummers...

[AppleQueso]

Planet X deliberately avoids writing material in 4/4 for the most part.

[MrPopo]

The verses of Master of Puppets have a strange time signature. It's three measures of 4/4 and then a 3/4 measure, repeat until the chorus.

[J T]

For my fellow music geeks, here is a great little video for seeing just how frequently John Coltrane changes chords in his classic "Giant Steps". Not a measure goes by without at least one chord change.



In a jazz history class I was in years ago, I was told that Coltrane really just created this piece to practice with. He made it so the fingering required was as challenging as possible for switching through chords to improve his playing, but it became one of his most famous signature songs. What Coltrane uses for practice, most of us would never be able to play.

[Niode]

For my fellow music geeks, here is a great little video for seeing just how frequently John Coltrane changes chords in his classic "Giant Steps". Not a measure goes by without at least one chord change.



In a jazz history class I was in years ago, I was told that Coltrane really just created this piece to practice with. He made it so the fingering required was as challenging as possible for switching through chords to improve his playing, but it became one of his most famous signature songs. What Coltrane uses for practice, most of us would never be able to play.

Immense. I've just found my new practice piece though. Crikey, that must be a hell of a workout just playing the backing track on a guitar...