Meter changes - genius or sloppy?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mrx
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MRX

Thank you for picking up on what I was trying to say. Creativity and genius are gifts that sometimes need working with to bring them to their full potential.

Keep the faith, Ozlee:cool:
 
This is just a thought, so take it with a grain of salt.

This guy may be hearing his song with the mixed time signature based on his vocals, or just phrases things differently and has to fit syllables in, but his playing is just "tagging along".

Try this, record him and then have him overdub a rhythm instrument (cowbell, maracas, claves, tambourine, etc.). Just straight quarter notes. He should get the idea when he suddenly can't count to four.

If he is just very creative and feels the need to improvise meter as he goes along, it will be almost impossible for anyone else to play very well with him unless they do it all the time.
 
I was driving home from the pub last night cranking some tunes. At one point I popped in a version of him doing the song, figuring that if it really was just sloppy playing, it would feel very 'out of place', almost 'uncomfortable', next to everything else I was listening to. On the contrary, it felt very 'correct' and not at all 'forced' or 'jerky'.

I'm thinking that another experiment might be to have him just play the song on guitar and NOT sing. I suspect all of us can play our own songs correctly without singing - if he can't pull it off, then at least he should understand that there's an issue.
 
MRX,

From following this thread I suspect that the one thing that you haven't done yet is write out a lead sheet with just the lyrics and melody. This will probably put the problem ( if there is one ) in a very clear perspective for both of you. I strongly suspect that the problem is with the lyrics not being comfortable for him to sing and play along with and is a performance issue more than anything else. A lead sheet puts everything in a very linear form that usually makes it easy to spot and correct problems. I wish I could be of more help in this matter. As I have said many times creativity is a gift usually well worth more than the price of admission.

Keep the faith, Ozlee
 
If you listen to WAY-OLD blues "singer/ guitar" recordings, you will find them changing meter too...sometimes it was a 12-bar blues, sometimes, 11 and 1/2. lol. Usually when this happened it was by "feel" but didn't sound good sometimes as the "other" players were guessing when they were supposed to start the new form. But, that was a different time, and a different market.

I find that I use odd meters in order to frame melodies. Sometimes odd meters can be used really well. "All you need is love" has an odd-meter verse. 7/4 or 4/4 + 3/4, and it really facilitates the melody.

I worked with a few artists who had seemingly odd meters. One was because they wrote leadsheets incorrectly and didn't know that "pauses" or holds, or fermatas could be written without takiing up beats on the leadsheet. So their melody was well written on verse 1 , but, following a pause, every melody note was offset by a beat in verse 2 (yikes).

Sometimes melodies just click better in odd-meters, sometimes they sound too deliberate. Certainly, a band can't play to an eratic "feel" of a certain person and remain tight (in a pop realm). I would try tearing apart the form as much as possible and writing out a "real" form" so at least everyone knows when to play. Don't let the "hey man, its feel" keep you from being tight.
 
You have my sympathies....I used to think that anybody could learn meter, though it was possible to be tone-deaf. I now believe that there is such a thing as "meter-deaf" Have you ever seen people at the bar who "could not dance" ??They just dont relate to the pulse of the music. Someone thus afflicted may have an excellent sense of melody and/or lyric, but just don't get it when it comes to meter.. It may be possible to train them out of it but I doubt it. It seems that they don't have the ability to "predict" when the next beat will come, and be there to meet it, so to speak. Bubba Gruntner, possibly the best drummer I ever met once said that " you gotta sub-divide as finely as you can. Feel the 8thnotes, the 16th notes as they go by. Then you can hit exactly where you want to . You wont be late, you won't be early.
Any opinions on this "subdividing thing???

write-on...chazba
 
My drummer friend Tim (who's a killer drummer in his own right) said pretty much thr same thing. He always says that you can count meters in 2s and 3s. FOr example 7/8 would be "1-2-1-2-1-2-3." It really helps in transcribing Mahavishnu and Zappa stuff! :)
 
5/4 is very fun to play in... you can count it: 1-2-3-1-2 or 1-2-1-2-3.
 
I like the "subdividing thing." I suppose any rock musicians on this thread must have went through a Rush (or take your pick) phase at some point and thought, "my God what the hell is going on? I gotta learn that." And you can easily hear the 7/8 when you count it out as 1-2-1-2-1-2-3, especially in a song like "Natural Science."

It's kinda funny to think how I started obsessively picking up any odd meter music I could find...to the point where I can almost successfully bang out most Dream Theater beats on my steering wheel (to the annoyance of anyone unfortunate enough to be a passenger in my car), yet I went years without ever noticing that I song I must have heard a million times--"Money" by Pink Floyd--was in 7. I guess I would have to say that's a good sign of a successful odd meter groove. It's so natural, you don't even notice anything strange going on. How about the theme from "Mission Impossible"? 5/4 that you never notice as being 5/4.
 
Alot of would be musicians play to the beat of their own drummer and there isn't a damn thing you can do about. They never play the same arrangement twice and then wonder why you cant follow.
Thats why they are would be musicians.
 
the Ozlee said:
MRX,

From following this thread I suspect that the one thing that you haven't done yet is write out a lead sheet with just the lyrics and melody. This will probably put the problem ( if there is one ) in a very clear perspective for both of you. I strongly suspect that the problem is with the lyrics not being comfortable for him to sing and play along with and is a performance issue more than anything else. A lead sheet puts everything in a very linear form that usually makes it easy to spot and correct problems. I wish I could be of more help in this matter. As I have said many times creativity is a gift usually well worth more than the price of admission.

Keep the faith, Ozlee
Click to expand...

Great idea. (Over the weekend I sat down with a clean recording, and a chord chart showing the meter changes in that particular 'take' and tried adding another guitar. It was an exercise in futility, as I was ultilmately playing against something that was inherently "wrong". ) A lead sheet should help pin point the slippage.

The subdividing tip from lion_tone is great, also!
 
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