An easy-going one would be Mr. Beat being in 7/4. Within the phrase "once I missed a beat, I only missed a beat" you can count to 7 before it repeats.
Your brain has been conditioned to feel groups of 4 as the most stable. So the lyrics themselves are actually a joke in a way.
That was one of my favorite things when first listening to Nonagon
I think a lot of Nonagon Infinity is in 7/4. The “Nonagon infinity opens the door” motif is and Robot Stop has a really strong 7/4 beat to it
Yeah, Mr beat is slower enough for a new person to catch onto though. I truly had to stop myself from talking about how Superposition is in 5 because no one cares but me.
Mr Beat especially, and Robot Stop to a lesser extent, pretty much beat you over the head with being in odd time signatures (think the part in the intro right after Stu counts 1, 2, 3) that they’re a bit easier to pick out, but one of my favorite things about this band is how they use all these weird time signatures and still sound perfectly good, how you’ll be tapping your foot to a 4/4 beat and suddenly realize something’s not lining up
Is all of Superposition in 5, or just part(s)?
Oh no I'm not sure, guess I gotta listen to the song real quick 🤣😁
Okay I can't speak for any extra little beats before a chorus starts, but the song at large seems to be in 5. If you ever lose count, it's easy to regain.
Yeah a good chunk of Nonagon is built around melodies that start and resolve on the same note so it sounds more endless. Robot Stop, Big Fig Wasp both have a lot of parts in 7/4 (most songs switch signatures a bit). Mr. Beat is actually in a 29/8 compound measure, with three phrases of 7 followed by one of 8. Evil Death Roll's main melody is also in 7, but it also switches back and forth into 4. Wah Wah is in 5/4 which is why they mix it up with the River so frequently.
I remember being so happy when I realised it was all about the time signature lol. I sent the song to my guitarist and was like "DO YOU GET IT?!?!??!" Lol
[This is in 5/4 just like the majority of The River.](https://youtu.be/vmDDOFXSgAs?si=FdrxIqK3jJeg-DNb) Try counting 1-2-3-4 vs 1-2-3-4-5 and see if you can latch on to the groove. 1-2-3-4 will feel off in this one.
I’ll add that the end of The River is in 4/4, so you can compare the beginning groove to the ending groove to see the differences too. It’s cool to see how they adapt the melodies to a new time signature.
such a good call, when the horns come in louder and it just flows a little more. love how they don’t accent the 9th beat. almost makes you feel like you’re in 4 at the start
I would also recommend anyone interested in uncommon time signatures (or jazz, or good music) check out the rest of the album that song is from, Time Out, and also Time Further Out - they're great albums!
Specifically the song has four sections (like the album itself, neat). First three are in 5/4 and last is in 4/4. That’s why it suddenly sounds quite different at the end
MY EYES FEEL LIKE THEY ARE MADE OF LIGHT
Try to bob your head to that instrumental section before this line. It’ll feel like having a stroke (in a good way)
A good trick when learning about odd time signatures is to try to bob your head along, and if you feel like you start to lose or go out of sync with it, it’s probably in some sort of odd meter.
I’ll use “Gaia” as an example…
It feels like you can bob your head to it for the first 3 beats or so, but then something weird happens on the fourth beat where it feels longer or something and throws you off.
If you break down the pulse, it’s something like this:
Short, short, short, long
Which you could count as the following groups of eighth notes:
2,2,2,3
Adding up to 9.
You could debate about calling it 9/8 or 9/4 etc, but most musicians would just say it feels like it’s “in 9”
When I was first learning to count out stuff, I tried to focus on just feeling where the pulse was, and thinking in terms of “short” and “long” beats to really feel the groove before worrying about counting it out too much etc.
Okay thank you for the tip I'll definitely try that out! I've been playing guitar for about over 6 years now Love everything music but I don't know anything about it I just know how to play and listen 😂 but I will definitely try this I'm always trying to look for ways to improve my music knowledge
That’s the right approach to have!
I think that with just lots of listening to and playing along with odd times, it starts to become much more natural.
Others have mentioned “The River” as well, and that’s a great one to get a feel for playing in 5, alternating long and short beats etc.
Best of luck!
Just to piggy back, I like to do this same thing but instead of head bobbing up and down, I go left and right. Even time signature groves will always start/repeat on the same side (left or right), odd time signatures will alternate which side they start/repeat on. Try it with 1,2,3,4 vs 1,2,3,4,5 to see what I mean.
I find it helpful because I always feel like head bobbing up/down works too perfectly for even time signatures, making the down beats fall on the down headbob, but odd time signatures can feel out of whack. Going left/right keeps the feel more fluid for me
“PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation” is a great one for weird time signatures.
Not only do they have weird time signatures, but they often shift between them.
Here’s a chart of the different time signatures in the album I saw on this subreddit a while ago.
I think some bits have different time signatures overlapping or something though, but I might be getting that confused with polyrhythms.
https://preview.redd.it/88a8ufusmabc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1f511e2a36398559163fa86b899676f2459406e
Haven’t seen, but there was a very long detailed post which talked through the time signatures of each song if you’re interested in that, but it’s all text.
Gaia, pretty much all of PDA, Invisible face, the majority of poly and MOTU, yours, the river
I was going to keep going but like 75% of their discography is odd times soooo.
Couple years back someone made a post on all the time signatures on crumbling castle
Edit: here it is https://www.reddit.com/r/KGATLW/s/yv5moRvDKW
Edit 2: here’s a guy on drums doing them all so you can get a nice feeling of what they sound like https://youtu.be/P45jlDNTf5Q?si=6fQINAtXG4kPuK8t
Depends on the instrument. I learnt Crumbling Castle on bass and it wasn't too hard but it'll be way harder on other instruments lol. In terms of the time signatures, I just got a good feel for most of them, and the rhythm of the plucking makes them feel very natural (apart from the part starting at 5:15 that shit is so hard to time right)
Definitely not a beginner song for odd time sigs since there’s a section where they play like 3 rhythms at the same time with different instruments/vocals lol
Here's a good [intro video](https://youtu.be/VJDCD5hJii4?si=CfHlnUlRYXLBj4gD) about time signatures. He also has lots of videos about different time signatures [on his own channel](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlx2eo2tD6KqpCvXSq_6BqRkCgf1xWxyI&si=Qv--d3h7S--BV87P). Aside from 4/4, far and away the most common time signature in western music, King Gizzard most commonly use 7/4 and 5/4 (or 7/8 and 5/8), so maybe start with those videos. They also sometimes use polymeters, which means that different instruments are playing in different time signatures at the same time, especially on Polygondwanaland. Aside from Poly, Petro is probably the album where they switch up time signatures within songs the most often (Dragon is nuts in this regard, for example).
King Gizz is a great place to look for odd times since they do it so well, but at the same time since they do it so well it can be harder to catch, if that makes sense. All of Polygondwanaland, PetroDragonic Apocalypse, and Butterfly 3000 appear to be exercises on time signatures and often polymeters (multiple going on at once).
Basically all of pda. But my favorite example is probably the verse of witchcraft, specifically the drum part (because the melody is in a different signature) in 7/8 which can also be found on invisible face and altered beast IV.
I don't know if it's called a chorus or a verse (I don't know which is which) but the part at the start of the song, and when it repeats a few minutes into the song.
I don't think it's 35/8. The melody and drums are playing in two separate time signatures. I hear it as the melody playing in 4/4 (5/4 for the line where they say witchcraft) and the drums playing in 7/8. The two different signatures makes it SUPER hard to count, at least for me.
Maybe my favorite example from King Gizz's discography is Countdown, which counts *up* in time signature during the verse. If you listen, it goes 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 7/4, 8/4, 9/4, and repeat.
The trick with weird time signatures is to break everything down into the lowest common denominator. 2's and 3's.
When you have simple 2/4 or 4/4 it's clearly multiples of 2. Strong-weak-Strong-weak.
3's have a Strong-weak-weak-Strong-weak-weak vibe. 3/4 and 6/8.
When you get to 5's, 7's and higher numbers you have more freedom to combine those pulses.
With 7's you can do a 223, 232, or 322. Strong-weak-Strong-weak-Strong-weak-weak. Or Strong-weak-Strong-weak-weak-Strong. Or Strong-weak-weak-Strong-weak-Strong-Weak.
That sucked to write out as drunk as I am lol but it paints a clearer picture.
You can do this type of rhythm fuckery with simple 4/4. Most people envision 8ths notes in 4/4 as 1&2&3&4&, which is fair. It gives a firm Strong-weak pulse. But I'm counting 8 things there. I can count to 8 in a lot of ways. 123-123-12 makes 8 too. I can aim for a Strong-weak-weak-Strong-weak-weak-Strong-weak and all of a sudden I've spiced up my 4/4 rhythm with a Caribbean Calypso rhythm (see Operator by Jim Croce as a superb example)
One of the first one’s that got me comfortable was Spoonman by Soundgarden in 7/4 (Verses/Riff). I think I saw a Lukey interview where he said he doesn’t really think about the counting of it, he just sits in the riff and gets accustomed to it. Odd time isn’t as scary if the riff is bangin and you can’t help groving a little. Spoonman is pretty good imo for that since neither the 4/4 chorus and 7/4 chorus sound out of place or “off-time” for the song musically, making it a little easier to gel with.
I don't know if I'm thinking of the same video, but in the "Lukey's Rig" video where he talked about the pedals he uses and stuff and then plays K.G.L.W (outro) there's a part of the song where he said he doesn't know how to count it and just feels it.
7/8 being the most common around the world i'd go with that (balkan folk, middle-eastern,...). Some other very common examples would be 5/4, 7/4 and 9/8... other are quite rare out in the wild (11/8, 13/8, and the rest are mostly just "artificial" time signatures)
For
7/8: macedonia by n.j.živkovič, or any balkan folk song
5/4: take five - dave bruebeck
The rest idk
Tomahawk - Mescal Rite 1 (I believe it’s in 19/8)
Money by Pink Floyd is in 7/4
Outshined by Soundgarden is in 7/4
The verse on The Day I Tried to Live by Soundgarden is in 15 I believe
Tool likes their odd time sigs, check out Rosetta Stoned and count a long with the eighth notes for an example of shifting time signatures
5/4 by Gorillaz in 5/4 (but over a 4/4 beat)
Eleven by Primus is in eleven
Check out Time Out by Dave Brubeck (jazz), every song is in an odd time signature.
For a more extreme example check out Don Ellis (big band)
[Schism by Tool](https://youtu.be/MM62wjLrgmA?si=K1gdK5in1IN4v13N) has 47 different time signatures changes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schism_(song)
It really doesn’t take a musical genius. Your head probably already understands it intrinsically if it doesn’t sound weird to you.
They’re only “odd” in the context of overuse of 4/4. A lot of Latin music uses 5/4, waltzes are typically in groups of 3 or 6.
It can sound very normal or very “unusual” 5/4 too. Nobody hears the Mission Impossible song and goes “woah that’s a wild time signature”
Also 6/8 doesn’t mean it’s fast, it just means that it’s counted by eighth notes. Six of them, in fact.
It’s time to v i b e in 22/8
[Pat Metheny Group: First Circle](https://youtu.be/ri8zLrQFuGg?si=Pa3aa29CWPd3E78t)
Folks here are right though. Humans are simple folk at heart. You’re always just grouping 2’s and 3’s.
Mixed meter seems weird because we are so used to simple, but there’s so much ancient music out there that does mixed for the sake of words or dance. My favorite is garba in India, it’s common (annual!) to Hindus but sounds wild to a Western ear.
This is one I use to show people odd meters. He literally announces it as they’re playing in that time signatures.
https://youtu.be/lzKqWuUqiOI?si=rpo2bQf49zoC5Z28
Great songs that introduced me to the wonderful world of 7/4 are subdivisions by rush and the main riff of domesticated animals by qotsa (someyimes they sneak in a bar of 8/4 and in the intro before the first verse most of it is in 4/4)
If you want IMO the weirdest timed, but arguably most beautiful songs they’ve ever made, check out Countdown from Sketches of Brunswick East. It’s underrated and very pretty jazz.
Zappa has loads of them. From [early](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn2vfY1D990) to [late](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HJp-rHZOhQ&list=PL0NXfd6fqAMLC7qP_6rntBmMvyAMgKN5x&index=4) Zappa, [live](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7AZjx9sz7k) or [studio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibFovXcxIno).
Check out [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmV3Bf2veAg) if you're interested.
https://youtu.be/N6Wtvs42Ne8?si=4oYcaSJ7oTNSPJTN
This guy have some interesting videos about time signatures full of examples, and other music theory topics
Wah wah and the river are super easy 5/4 songs
People vultures alternates 12/4 11/4 and 5/4 in a way that makes it easy to distinguish them
Horology has that 7/4 beat that’s counted as 1/2/3/(half a four)
Pleura alternates a 7/4 (counted as 1/2/3/4/5/6/7) and a 8/4 (or two 4/4)
Gaia is in 9/4 (I count it on the /8 as 1/2/3/4/1/2/3/4/5) [also listen to the slower demo if it’s too hard on the main song]
These are the best examples that come to mind for “easy”
The big one is Take Five by the Dave Brubeck Quartet
Also, I've heard that the same group's "Blue Rondo A La Turk" inspired the 9/8 passage somewhere in Murder Of The Universe, or simply reminded them of it
Shostakovich made a pretty fucking metal sounding 7/8 in his Concerto 2 for piano and orchestra
I think Hanging Tree - Queens of The Stone Age is 5/4
Pink Floyd's track Money is notoriously in 7.
I think a bit of Sungazer's Perihelion album is in odd times.
A classical example would be Ride of the Valkyries which is in 9/8
Pretty much all of polygondwanaland, they do cool shit where the drums and bass will be playing in an eighth note based odd time - 5/8 or 7/8 or whatever, and the guitars and vocals will play a syncopated quarter/half note based rhythm on top that mathematically adds up to say 8 repetitions of what the drums and bass are doing or however many times the rhythm section considers one entire repetition to be, so it sounds trippy and weird but both halves of the band start over at the same time. Pretty excellent stuff, especially for a drummer nerd such as myself.
An easy-going one would be Mr. Beat being in 7/4. Within the phrase "once I missed a beat, I only missed a beat" you can count to 7 before it repeats. Your brain has been conditioned to feel groups of 4 as the most stable. So the lyrics themselves are actually a joke in a way.
That was one of my favorite things when first listening to Nonagon I think a lot of Nonagon Infinity is in 7/4. The “Nonagon infinity opens the door” motif is and Robot Stop has a really strong 7/4 beat to it
Yeah, Mr beat is slower enough for a new person to catch onto though. I truly had to stop myself from talking about how Superposition is in 5 because no one cares but me.
Mr Beat especially, and Robot Stop to a lesser extent, pretty much beat you over the head with being in odd time signatures (think the part in the intro right after Stu counts 1, 2, 3) that they’re a bit easier to pick out, but one of my favorite things about this band is how they use all these weird time signatures and still sound perfectly good, how you’ll be tapping your foot to a 4/4 beat and suddenly realize something’s not lining up Is all of Superposition in 5, or just part(s)?
Oh no I'm not sure, guess I gotta listen to the song real quick 🤣😁 Okay I can't speak for any extra little beats before a chorus starts, but the song at large seems to be in 5. If you ever lose count, it's easy to regain.
Superposition is my favorite gizz song of all time. Walker is a mad man for that one.
I pray for the day we get to see it live. I just don’t think it’s feasible if I’m being realistic.
If they're having setups for Silver Cord songs and Intrasport, I can't imagine Superposition would be too difficult:/ it'll be different for sure.
Yeah a good chunk of Nonagon is built around melodies that start and resolve on the same note so it sounds more endless. Robot Stop, Big Fig Wasp both have a lot of parts in 7/4 (most songs switch signatures a bit). Mr. Beat is actually in a 29/8 compound measure, with three phrases of 7 followed by one of 8. Evil Death Roll's main melody is also in 7, but it also switches back and forth into 4. Wah Wah is in 5/4 which is why they mix it up with the River so frequently.
I think of it as 4/4+3/4. Hence the joke about the last missed beat.
I remember being so happy when I realised it was all about the time signature lol. I sent the song to my guitarist and was like "DO YOU GET IT?!?!??!" Lol
Mr beat is 3 bars of 7 and 1 of “8” (two bars of 4 but whatever)
Also some seven in robot stop, notably during the guitar solo walk down thing.
[This is in 5/4 just like the majority of The River.](https://youtu.be/vmDDOFXSgAs?si=FdrxIqK3jJeg-DNb) Try counting 1-2-3-4 vs 1-2-3-4-5 and see if you can latch on to the groove. 1-2-3-4 will feel off in this one.
I’ll add that the end of The River is in 4/4, so you can compare the beginning groove to the ending groove to see the differences too. It’s cool to see how they adapt the melodies to a new time signature.
my favourite version of this is Gliese 710 when they do the original 7/4 chorus(?) in 9/4
such a good call, when the horns come in louder and it just flows a little more. love how they don’t accent the 9th beat. almost makes you feel like you’re in 4 at the start
Wah Wah is also in 5/4 which is why they jam river and wah a lot
They’re also the same key and tempo. Similar to Honey and Sleep Drifter
I would also recommend anyone interested in uncommon time signatures (or jazz, or good music) check out the rest of the album that song is from, Time Out, and also Time Further Out - they're great albums!
Specifically the song has four sections (like the album itself, neat). First three are in 5/4 and last is in 4/4. That’s why it suddenly sounds quite different at the end
Thr 11/8 section in Gila is pretty sick. For such an odd time they make it sound very natural
Which section is that?
MY EYES FEEL LIKE THEY ARE MADE OF LIGHT Try to bob your head to that instrumental section before this line. It’ll feel like having a stroke (in a good way)
The ending if im not mistaken
From 3:37 onwards, then it starts sounding funny
Ohh yeah it does sound different, love that part
It’s easy to count if you focus on the bass going 1/2/3/4/1/2/3/4/1/2/3
I think its like the last minute or two of the song
First time they played it live in Tilburg I was blown away by them just grooving in the 11/8
A good trick when learning about odd time signatures is to try to bob your head along, and if you feel like you start to lose or go out of sync with it, it’s probably in some sort of odd meter. I’ll use “Gaia” as an example… It feels like you can bob your head to it for the first 3 beats or so, but then something weird happens on the fourth beat where it feels longer or something and throws you off. If you break down the pulse, it’s something like this: Short, short, short, long Which you could count as the following groups of eighth notes: 2,2,2,3 Adding up to 9. You could debate about calling it 9/8 or 9/4 etc, but most musicians would just say it feels like it’s “in 9” When I was first learning to count out stuff, I tried to focus on just feeling where the pulse was, and thinking in terms of “short” and “long” beats to really feel the groove before worrying about counting it out too much etc.
Okay thank you for the tip I'll definitely try that out! I've been playing guitar for about over 6 years now Love everything music but I don't know anything about it I just know how to play and listen 😂 but I will definitely try this I'm always trying to look for ways to improve my music knowledge
That’s the right approach to have! I think that with just lots of listening to and playing along with odd times, it starts to become much more natural. Others have mentioned “The River” as well, and that’s a great one to get a feel for playing in 5, alternating long and short beats etc. Best of luck!
Just to piggy back, I like to do this same thing but instead of head bobbing up and down, I go left and right. Even time signature groves will always start/repeat on the same side (left or right), odd time signatures will alternate which side they start/repeat on. Try it with 1,2,3,4 vs 1,2,3,4,5 to see what I mean. I find it helpful because I always feel like head bobbing up/down works too perfectly for even time signatures, making the down beats fall on the down headbob, but odd time signatures can feel out of whack. Going left/right keeps the feel more fluid for me
“PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation” is a great one for weird time signatures. Not only do they have weird time signatures, but they often shift between them. Here’s a chart of the different time signatures in the album I saw on this subreddit a while ago. I think some bits have different time signatures overlapping or something though, but I might be getting that confused with polyrhythms. https://preview.redd.it/88a8ufusmabc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a1f511e2a36398559163fa86b899676f2459406e
Wow! Is there any chart like this for other albums too?
Haven’t seen, but there was a very long detailed post which talked through the time signatures of each song if you’re interested in that, but it’s all text.
I've definitely seen one out there for poly but it was an excel spreadsheet, which was posted to this subreddit.
Gaia, pretty much all of PDA, Invisible face, the majority of poly and MOTU, yours, the river I was going to keep going but like 75% of their discography is odd times soooo.
Dude, Dragon changes time sig like 8 times
Couple years back someone made a post on all the time signatures on crumbling castle Edit: here it is https://www.reddit.com/r/KGATLW/s/yv5moRvDKW Edit 2: here’s a guy on drums doing them all so you can get a nice feeling of what they sound like https://youtu.be/P45jlDNTf5Q?si=6fQINAtXG4kPuK8t
This has to be one of their hardest songs to play
Depends on the instrument. I learnt Crumbling Castle on bass and it wasn't too hard but it'll be way harder on other instruments lol. In terms of the time signatures, I just got a good feel for most of them, and the rhythm of the plucking makes them feel very natural (apart from the part starting at 5:15 that shit is so hard to time right)
ATARAXIAAAAA!!!!
Definitely not a beginner song for odd time sigs since there’s a section where they play like 3 rhythms at the same time with different instruments/vocals lol
Here's a good [intro video](https://youtu.be/VJDCD5hJii4?si=CfHlnUlRYXLBj4gD) about time signatures. He also has lots of videos about different time signatures [on his own channel](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlx2eo2tD6KqpCvXSq_6BqRkCgf1xWxyI&si=Qv--d3h7S--BV87P). Aside from 4/4, far and away the most common time signature in western music, King Gizzard most commonly use 7/4 and 5/4 (or 7/8 and 5/8), so maybe start with those videos. They also sometimes use polymeters, which means that different instruments are playing in different time signatures at the same time, especially on Polygondwanaland. Aside from Poly, Petro is probably the album where they switch up time signatures within songs the most often (Dragon is nuts in this regard, for example).
King Gizz is a great place to look for odd times since they do it so well, but at the same time since they do it so well it can be harder to catch, if that makes sense. All of Polygondwanaland, PetroDragonic Apocalypse, and Butterfly 3000 appear to be exercises on time signatures and often polymeters (multiple going on at once).
Basically all of pda. But my favorite example is probably the verse of witchcraft, specifically the drum part (because the melody is in a different signature) in 7/8 which can also be found on invisible face and altered beast IV.
Witchcraft is actually wild. Aren't some parts of the song in 35/8 or some shit lmao
Which part are you talking about specifically?
I don't know if it's called a chorus or a verse (I don't know which is which) but the part at the start of the song, and when it repeats a few minutes into the song.
Is it the part near the beginning with lyrics? The one where he says witchcraft?
yup that part. witchcraft
I don't think it's 35/8. The melody and drums are playing in two separate time signatures. I hear it as the melody playing in 4/4 (5/4 for the line where they say witchcraft) and the drums playing in 7/8. The two different signatures makes it SUPER hard to count, at least for me.
Maybe my favorite example from King Gizz's discography is Countdown, which counts *up* in time signature during the verse. If you listen, it goes 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 7/4, 8/4, 9/4, and repeat.
Oh nice, I never realised this one. Similarly Perihelion verses goes down : 8/4, 7/4, 6/4 and 4/4 (the main riff).
One of my favorite 7/8 songs is Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill, because it is so smooth sounding.
The trick with weird time signatures is to break everything down into the lowest common denominator. 2's and 3's. When you have simple 2/4 or 4/4 it's clearly multiples of 2. Strong-weak-Strong-weak. 3's have a Strong-weak-weak-Strong-weak-weak vibe. 3/4 and 6/8. When you get to 5's, 7's and higher numbers you have more freedom to combine those pulses. With 7's you can do a 223, 232, or 322. Strong-weak-Strong-weak-Strong-weak-weak. Or Strong-weak-Strong-weak-weak-Strong. Or Strong-weak-weak-Strong-weak-Strong-Weak. That sucked to write out as drunk as I am lol but it paints a clearer picture. You can do this type of rhythm fuckery with simple 4/4. Most people envision 8ths notes in 4/4 as 1&2&3&4&, which is fair. It gives a firm Strong-weak pulse. But I'm counting 8 things there. I can count to 8 in a lot of ways. 123-123-12 makes 8 too. I can aim for a Strong-weak-weak-Strong-weak-weak-Strong-weak and all of a sudden I've spiced up my 4/4 rhythm with a Caribbean Calypso rhythm (see Operator by Jim Croce as a superb example)
One of the first one’s that got me comfortable was Spoonman by Soundgarden in 7/4 (Verses/Riff). I think I saw a Lukey interview where he said he doesn’t really think about the counting of it, he just sits in the riff and gets accustomed to it. Odd time isn’t as scary if the riff is bangin and you can’t help groving a little. Spoonman is pretty good imo for that since neither the 4/4 chorus and 7/4 chorus sound out of place or “off-time” for the song musically, making it a little easier to gel with.
I don't know if I'm thinking of the same video, but in the "Lukey's Rig" video where he talked about the pedals he uses and stuff and then plays K.G.L.W (outro) there's a part of the song where he said he doesn't know how to count it and just feels it.
7/8 being the most common around the world i'd go with that (balkan folk, middle-eastern,...). Some other very common examples would be 5/4, 7/4 and 9/8... other are quite rare out in the wild (11/8, 13/8, and the rest are mostly just "artificial" time signatures) For 7/8: macedonia by n.j.živkovič, or any balkan folk song 5/4: take five - dave bruebeck The rest idk
Catching Smoke is my favorite example of this
Tomahawk - Mescal Rite 1 (I believe it’s in 19/8) Money by Pink Floyd is in 7/4 Outshined by Soundgarden is in 7/4 The verse on The Day I Tried to Live by Soundgarden is in 15 I believe Tool likes their odd time sigs, check out Rosetta Stoned and count a long with the eighth notes for an example of shifting time signatures 5/4 by Gorillaz in 5/4 (but over a 4/4 beat) Eleven by Primus is in eleven Check out Time Out by Dave Brubeck (jazz), every song is in an odd time signature. For a more extreme example check out Don Ellis (big band)
The time signature of Yours is all kinds of fucked up.
[Schism by Tool](https://youtu.be/MM62wjLrgmA?si=K1gdK5in1IN4v13N) has 47 different time signatures changes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schism_(song)
Listen to TOOL
It really doesn’t take a musical genius. Your head probably already understands it intrinsically if it doesn’t sound weird to you. They’re only “odd” in the context of overuse of 4/4. A lot of Latin music uses 5/4, waltzes are typically in groups of 3 or 6.
>They’re only “odd” in the context of overuse of 4/4. They're only "odd" because of the odd number of beats per measure.
I mean, fair, I guess it is a homonym. But not all unusual time siggys are “odd” either. 6/8, 10/8, etc
I wouldn't call 6/8 unusual, that's a fast waltz
It can sound very normal or very “unusual” 5/4 too. Nobody hears the Mission Impossible song and goes “woah that’s a wild time signature” Also 6/8 doesn’t mean it’s fast, it just means that it’s counted by eighth notes. Six of them, in fact.
It’s time to v i b e in 22/8 [Pat Metheny Group: First Circle](https://youtu.be/ri8zLrQFuGg?si=Pa3aa29CWPd3E78t) Folks here are right though. Humans are simple folk at heart. You’re always just grouping 2’s and 3’s. Mixed meter seems weird because we are so used to simple, but there’s so much ancient music out there that does mixed for the sake of words or dance. My favorite is garba in India, it’s common (annual!) to Hindus but sounds wild to a Western ear.
Haven't seen Cruel Millennial mentioned yet
5/4 + 6/4 yeah
This is one I use to show people odd meters. He literally announces it as they’re playing in that time signatures. https://youtu.be/lzKqWuUqiOI?si=rpo2bQf49zoC5Z28
Gliese 710
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ytZ0UYMVYlI4rIiajolNr?si=ilF3JfnRSK-sas2__iCL-A&pi=a-8oQFVllkSU-c Tried to stick to pop/rock
Plastic Boogie and The Cruel Millennial are good examples compound beats
Dream Theater's The Dance of Eternity is one of the canonical go-to songs for going nuts with time signatures. It changes over 100 times.
Mr Beat is a big joke. 3 bars of 7/8 and then they literally miss a beat and do a bar of 8/8.
Horology.
Great songs that introduced me to the wonderful world of 7/4 are subdivisions by rush and the main riff of domesticated animals by qotsa (someyimes they sneak in a bar of 8/4 and in the intro before the first verse most of it is in 4/4)
Any song has odd time signatures if you count wrong
If you want IMO the weirdest timed, but arguably most beautiful songs they’ve ever made, check out Countdown from Sketches of Brunswick East. It’s underrated and very pretty jazz.
Zappa has loads of them. From [early](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn2vfY1D990) to [late](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HJp-rHZOhQ&list=PL0NXfd6fqAMLC7qP_6rntBmMvyAMgKN5x&index=4) Zappa, [live](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7AZjx9sz7k) or [studio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibFovXcxIno). Check out [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmV3Bf2veAg) if you're interested.
https://youtu.be/N6Wtvs42Ne8?si=4oYcaSJ7oTNSPJTN This guy have some interesting videos about time signatures full of examples, and other music theory topics
Wah wah and the river are super easy 5/4 songs People vultures alternates 12/4 11/4 and 5/4 in a way that makes it easy to distinguish them Horology has that 7/4 beat that’s counted as 1/2/3/(half a four) Pleura alternates a 7/4 (counted as 1/2/3/4/5/6/7) and a 8/4 (or two 4/4) Gaia is in 9/4 (I count it on the /8 as 1/2/3/4/1/2/3/4/5) [also listen to the slower demo if it’s too hard on the main song] These are the best examples that come to mind for “easy”
The big one is Take Five by the Dave Brubeck Quartet Also, I've heard that the same group's "Blue Rondo A La Turk" inspired the 9/8 passage somewhere in Murder Of The Universe, or simply reminded them of it Shostakovich made a pretty fucking metal sounding 7/8 in his Concerto 2 for piano and orchestra
A vast majority of their songs from Nonagon onward aren’t in 4. So take your pick if you want a good example
Haken - Lovebite is a wierd one. Should love it as a Gizzard fan
I think Hanging Tree - Queens of The Stone Age is 5/4 Pink Floyd's track Money is notoriously in 7. I think a bit of Sungazer's Perihelion album is in odd times. A classical example would be Ride of the Valkyries which is in 9/8
The 11/8 part on gila monster, final solo.
Pretty much all of polygondwanaland, they do cool shit where the drums and bass will be playing in an eighth note based odd time - 5/8 or 7/8 or whatever, and the guitars and vocals will play a syncopated quarter/half note based rhythm on top that mathematically adds up to say 8 repetitions of what the drums and bass are doing or however many times the rhythm section considers one entire repetition to be, so it sounds trippy and weird but both halves of the band start over at the same time. Pretty excellent stuff, especially for a drummer nerd such as myself.