Strange Time Signatures

The Eighth Episode takes a look at a great song with a strange time signature. I just love songs in this category. They are memorable and peculiar.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello there, it's Dave here at the podcast. I'm a normal guy. As promised, I am going to deliver, I am delivering my video about um my first music video. Um before I get into it though, I want to thank the viewers for uh following me in this journey along. I am kind of an old dog with new tricks trying to figure out all this new technology and stuff. Well, it's not new, new to me, uh technology. And uh it's been really fun, so hopefully you'll enjoy this one too. So I am a big music person and uh I wanted to share uh my love of uh weird time signatures. I always found uh strange different time signatures always add so much life and character to a song, and really it's what makes us remember them. Uh for example, uh I mean there's all kinds of examples. I mean, um uh uh one I can think of right now is uh Money, Pink Floyd. Uh I won't play their video uh in case they pull my uh I pull it down. Um but that's a song, I believe it's in uh 7-4. It's a weird Time Signature uh excuse me, time signature, but you everyone remembers it. Um there's lots and lots and lots. Uh Take Five, if you're into jazz, uh Cool Jazz, Dave Brubeck. Uh it's right in the title, Take Five, it's in Five Four. Uh it's a great song. Everyone knows it. It's been in lots of movies and shows and everything else. Um but um the song I want to talk about today is by a band that I uh I absolutely love them. Um I have for a very long time, and it's uh Finger Eleven, and this is off of one of their uh uh off the one of their first albums. And the song is um Quicksand, and it's in a very odd time. And and I'm I'm I'll I'll go into it. I'll I'll tell you what it is. I mean there's there's there's a couple different ways you can count it if you really wanted to. You can count it in um well the eighth for music nerds um or m moderate music nerds like me, the uh the uh eighth note is getting the beat. And if you count it, you can count it in eleven. Uh you you can count eleven beats, but I prefer, and I actually I learned this kind of from uh sort of a pseudo mentor of mine, never having met him or or anything, but uh loving his channel's uh Rick Beato. Um really I feel it as two bars, two separate bars. So we were looking at a bar of um six and then a bar of five, and then that repeats. But the only time it changes in the song really is in the uh chorus and part of the bridge where it's just in straight like six eight. So I'm gonna switch over um and we'll listen to uh it for a little bit, and I'll pause it and then uh you know, you can sort of sort of feel it, and then I'll count it out. Um it's just a great song. Uh this will be a bit of a shorter video too. It's just um you know, I'm not gonna go too much into uh um into more songs, but uh just an example of the kind of stuff you could maybe expect to see from me. So let's switch over here and uh let's let's give this uh um let's give this song uh excuse me, uh the hiccups, uh give this song a bit of a listen here. So let's go. This is uh finger 11 quicksand. It's a live performance. You can count 11. I'll count it next, but you can count eleven, or you can count uh one bar of uh six and then a bar of five. So let me pick it up here, I'll do that, and then I'll excuse me, and then I'll let it run into the uh the chorus and you can hear it's in six, eight. So here we go. Two, three, four. Oh, wait. Okay, here, right. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five. Right? Or you can count eleven. I'll do the second half. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

One, six, five.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

I I feel it more in the two bars, but I'll let it play here for a bit more.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

One, two, three, four, five, six, one, two, four, five, one, stick it here, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

And then they'll play the chorus. Don't for us, play the chorus, and uh, we'll head right back into that weird chip.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

One, two, three, four, five, six, one, two, three, four, five, one, two, five, six, one, two, three, four, five.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

I just love it, man. I just love weird time signatures like this. So I'm gonna pause it here. And again, like I say, um, you really, really have to go once you're done listening to my silly video here, and uh listen to this uh song. Listen to the whole album, man. You know, I I would encourage anyone to uh to get into this band because they're just absolutely amazing. Um, anyways, uh yeah, so there's a great example of a weird time signature. Um maybe I'll throw a few more out there uh down the road, but uh that's finger eleven and it's uh quicksand, and it's uh like I say, that first bit you can count in eleven, or you can count one bar six, one bar five, and then you got your uh bridge and chorus that are in six eight. Alright, this is Dave here, podcast of the normal die guy. Guy, guy, whatever. Have a great night. Uh listen to finger eleven. See you later.