I have been doing a drumming course on 'odd time'. This can be anything beyond the standard 3/4 and 4/4 time that most music uses. A lot of folk music uses triplet rhythms in 6/8 or 12/8. On the course we have covered 5/4, 7/8 and 9/8 which all feel odd to start with, but you can get used to them. Creating music that sounds good and natural in odd times is not so easy, but you may well have listened to some. A well known example is Money by Pink Floyd that is partly in 7/4 (solo in 4/4). Here are some others.

Genesis - Turn It On Again

This song was a big hit, but if might confuse you if you try to dance to it. The verse is in 13 as they throw in an extra beat. Other parts of the song are in different times. Genesis had a lot of history with odd time. Part of their Supper's Ready suite is actually called Apocalypse in 9/8. The course is being done by Nic Collins whose dad Phil could tell him a thing or two about this topic.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Blue Rondo à la Turk

I could have gone with the obvious Take 5, but this one is fun too. The main riff can be counted 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-3 three times and then has a bar of 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3. As with the last song it goes to other places, but comes back to the riff at the end. The musicians need to be concentrating to keep it all flowing. You really need to feel rather than be counting all the time. My jazz group may try Take 5 some time and that will be a challenge for me.

Porcupine Tree - Sentimental

Some of you know that I am a big fan of Steven Wilson who had this band before putting out music under his own name. He is a master of odd time. I saw them play this live when the album came out. At that point I did not really know the band, but a friend of a friend knew Mr Wilson and got us tickets. On the intro you can hear it switching between 6/4 and 5/4, but it seems quite random.

I just found this video that attempts to explain what is going on. It is a form of polyrhythm where different times are played together. In this case it is used as an effect to throw you off and make the song more disturbing. We humans like nice regular rhythms that we can clap along to. In other tunes he does this by making the groups of bars less standard. A lot of music uses multiples of four bars (e.g. 12 bar blues), but he may use sets of three instead.

Counting out

Music theory is just a way to describe how music works and you do not have to understand it much as you do not have to understand how your car engine works, but it is a fascinating topic for some of us. What really matters is whether you enjoy the music.

Rock on!