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Has anyone hear played in 5/4 time?


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Yes, only one song though (played at two churches and on recording). "How Deep the Father's Love For Us" is a modern hymn by Stuart Townend, and it's in 5/4. Just count it as 4 + 1.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

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;) I played in 5/4 time hear.

I hear in 5/4. I played in 5/4 time here.

 

Doesn"t bother me. But this is KC, and it piqued the peak of my interest. So I gave it a peek. :)

 

 

The feel is most commonly 3+2 or 2+3. I suppose a tune could feel like 4+1.

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Odd meters are almost always kept track of (counted and felt) by being broken down such as:

5/4 is counted ||: 1 2 3 | 1 2 :|| "Take Five" is the standard tune in 5/4.

7/4 is counted 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 (or maybe 1 2 3 | 1 2 3 4 )

My 13/8 is counted fast: 1 2 3 | 1 2 | 1 2 | 1 2 3 | 1 2 3 |

 

So they are not mysterious, just rare and need to be practiced a lot in order to gain familiarity with.

 

 Find 660 of my jazz piano arrangements of standards for educational purposes and tutorials at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas Harry was the Technical Editor of Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book" and helped develop "The Jazz Piano Book."

 

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Yes, here's a track from my old band Xenat-Ra 555, from our 2012 lp Science for the Soundman.

 

The first part of the tune is based on a riff I stole from a carnatic music piece, it's alternating bars of 5/4 and 5/8, and then every 5th time through the cycle, there's a bar of 5/16, followed by a break. The fact that it came out to 5:55 was purely coincidence.

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I've played "Living in the Past" by Jethro Tull which might be the only hit Rock song in 5/4.
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'Touch and Go' by The Cars is in 5/4 (well, the intro and verses anyway). Does #37 on the US charts count as a hit?

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7/4 is counted 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 (or maybe 1 2 3 | 1 2 3 4 )

I remember when I first learned Pink Floyd's "Money" having to physically count out loud so I could play the keys on the correct beats. It's pretty tricky for a newcomer because in that song there's a heavy accent on the 7 and the 1.

 

Years later, auditioning singers using this song: It was amazing how many struggled to cope with the timing, even though they thought they "knew" the song, due to it being very popular and regularly played on radio. The 7/4 just did their head in.

 

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I've also done 7/4 when playing synth in Jesus Christ Superstar - forgotten the name of the song but it's where Jesus is in the marketplace and everyone's begging him to heal them. I used to just mentally count '1,2,3,4,5,6,7' over and over but Jazz+ 's suggestion is heaps better :thu:
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One of my favorite is 11/4: 5/4 + 6/4

 

But I'm a total sucker for 7/8 and 7/4. A lot of my original music is in 7/8. I even wrote a news theme for a morning news show in 7/8. People think it's going to be strange, but 7/8 is an extremely natural groove. I describe it as "a bassa that doesn't right itself".

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In JC Superstar, Everything's All Right ("Try not to get worried...") is in 5/4. Its rhythm is similar to Take 5, with a swing triplet feel that could almost be called 15/8. There's another 5/4 section when Pilate is trying to talk to Jesus, before having him flogged. An early 7/4 section is in Heaven on Their Minds, "Tables, Chairs and oaken chests / Would have suited Jesus best"

 

"Does Anybody Know..." feels like 5/8 if I want to be pedantic.

 

I haven't played 'em, but the opening of Tarkus and the initial loud electronic section of Trilogy are both in 5. In both case, the rhythm is unusual even for 5: "P.P.P..P..", where "P" is the accented pulse, the reverse of Mission Impossible's "P..P..P.P." groove.

 

If you like Tull, the 2nd or 3rd section of Thick as a Brick ("See there, a son is born, and we pronounce him fit to fight") is in 5.

 

 

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Only by accident.

 

Like some others above, though, I've played a bunch in 7 (7/8 or 7/4). Obviously "Money," everybody knows that, but there's some good legit music in 7 as well. It's less confusing to me than playing in 5, for some reason.

 

Plus, I don't like the tune "Take Five," so I don't play it, and Bill Evans' "Five" isn't in 5, it's just melody in five-tuplets over four, but I don't play that tune either.

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A fair amount of contemporary jazz I run into is in odd meter.

 

I find there is a mental switch that can sometimes go on, that makes it easier to just feel it without relying on counting. A lot of math rock (prog or metal in odd meter) suffers from the counting syndrome, or reliance on a droning ostinato (someone once referred to that as a "whore's crutch").

 

In another neighborhood, to my ears, is something like Metheny's First Circle (in 22/8) or Bill Bruford's Earthworks acoustic jazz project, where despite odd meter, the lack of a slavish adherence to the bar line just makes it feel...like music:

 

[video:youtube]

..
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The feel is most commonly 3+2 or 2+3. I suppose a tune could feel like 4+1.

 

It's probably just that particular song. That's how I feel it anyways. :crazy:

[video:youtube]

 

 

FWIW I've done a fair bit of music in 15/16, 11/8 & 11/16, 9/8, 7/8 and 7/4. I play a lot of Balkan folk music on accordion so that's where those come in. Love that stuff. 15/16 and 11/16 are tied for my favorite music. It's hard to explain the counting in writing for any of those. Sometimes "western" music is boring. :laugh: More standard would be the numerous tunes using 2/2, 2/4, 3/4, 3/8, 4/4, 6/8, 6/4, 12/8 and 12/4. ALSO I have a song in 22/16 that I'm working on. That is a [font:Arial Black]nightmare[/font].

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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I've tried, but I find it Impossible. ;):P

 

[video:youtube]

 

That one I can play through alright. Of all things though, I never knew it was 5/4; I just "felt" it. Oh, the joys of learning something by ear as a kid. :laugh:

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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I've played "Living in the Past" by Jethro Tull which might be the only hit Rock song in 5/4.

I still play that one fairly regularly. I like singing it and playing the flute parts.

The fact there's a Highway To Hell and only a Stairway To Heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic numbers

 

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"Everyone who likes prog, raise their hands."

 

[Grey raises hand]

 

The teacher casts a stern and disapproving eye on Grey. "You! I might have known!"

 

"Damn straight!"

 

Heart of the Sunrise has that section following the intro where Steve Howe and Chris Squire are playing two entirely different tempos...waiting...waiting...until their riffs sync and they tear back into the main riff together. A bloody tour de force. I nearly wore the grooves off that album (Fragile, Yes). Wakeman, bless 'im, is off on some other tangent and I just love it. Years later I read that not only are they on different tempos, they're both oddball tempos, like 13/8 against 11/8 or something. Someone here will know. I never bothered to count the thing, I just ran it in my head and played it the way they did. Count it? That way madness lies. It's challenging enough to play non-4/4 (or 3/4) tempos, but to pull off two different tempos simultaneously? Brilliant!

 

Anyway, prog's just eat up with cool stuff like that.

 

And then there's jazz, as noted above. Brubeck opened that up. I always wanted Dave Brubeck to play with Bill Bruford, but as far as I know, it never happened.

 

There are occasional classical pieces, too, but I think it's mostly a prog and jazz thing.

 

I hear that kind of stuff in my head all the time. Makes for interesting times when I try to write it down, no better at theory and writing than I am.

 

Oh, blast, now I've got Heart of the Sunrise going in my head. Time to cue up some Yes...

 

Grey

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Trumpeter Don Ellis' cutting-edge big band composition in 5/4 'Indian Lady' is one I played in my college stage band. The hardest one, for me, was a chart in 9/4. It was a ballad, slow tempo and hard to count w/o messing-up.

 

[video:youtube]

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I've played ELP's "Eruption" live (from Tarkus - and yes I have video!)

 

My band have an original that's got several sections in 5/4. We've played quite a few originals in asymmetrical meters including an original of mine I wrote in 1982 that's in 4/4, 7/4, 11/8 and 13/4. Fun stuff!

 

What got me started on odd meters in high school was playing things in my Jazz Workshop class by Hank Levy (like "Indra" in 9/4) and Frank Zappa. Soon after I discovered RTF and Mahavishnu Orchestra and prog rock. Bless the 1970s!

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