I am becoming more interested in writing music with more complex meters, and meter changes. I would really like to find artists that do this so I can study them, however I am finding it difficult to find any.
Anyone have any good suggestions?
While ambient and/or noise centered music is also welcome, the music I plan on writing is not really in that style so what I am really looking for is more sonically accessible, but utilizes time signature changes and more complex time signatures. Essentially the mathrock of Electronic music.
I do of course know of Autechre, though I havenât yet really delved into listening to their music.
http://robclouth.com is one guy that I like a lot, I find that he shares a lot of similar music concepts to Steve Reich, in terms of slowly shifting patterns that will synch up at certain points and then drift away again. Also their melodies seem very similar.
Though Rob Clouth isnât exactly what I am looking for either because he does generally keep pretty constant meter in his percussion and bass sequencing, his melodics more drift around in free meter.
Anyways, I really look forward to all of your suggestions,
Not electronic, but check out Dave Brubeck. Excellent example of layering meters to develop more complex time signatures. Check out Take Five and Blue Rondo a la Turk. The latter is in 9/8 felt as 2-2-2-3, with solos in 4/4.
I love mixing time signatures, so iâll shamelessly illustrate with some of my songs :
Here at 1â28ââ, youâll find a superposition of 2/4 (drums+pizzicati), 5/4 (chords and violin solo), and 3/4 (6-notes synth sequence)
This one starts in 3/4, then, at 3â29ââ, 2 3/4 bars become 3 2/4 bars :
This one starts in 4/4, but the end, starting with the guitar at 3â32ââ, is in 6/4 :
This shows 9/8 over 2/4, and many other combinations (as the title says):
This one is a tribute to Moondog, so plain 5/4 :
This one is 4/4, then 3/4, then 4/4:
This ones has a synth voice in 7/4 slipping on the bass in 4/4 :
you can find interesting pieces by Floex (TomĂĄĹĄ DvoĹĂĄk), Ochre, and Plaid. Autechre divide the measures in interesting ways but keep a straighter meter more often than it appears =]
Yeah, I agree that there isnât too much of this in electronic music. And in many cases itâs often */4 type odd meters, which can be interesting, but not too engaging.
Having come up playing in lots of math-y bands, I love the sound of well structured */16 bars in the mix of other meters, particularly when they arenât âremainderâ odd meters (meaning 17/16 not being 4/4 + 1/16, and 15/16 not being 3/4 + 3/16).
Iâve not listened for a ton of this, but the closest thing to this, for me, is the âin betweenâ beats part of Aphex Twin stuff, in the sense that things not only drop the 4/4-ness, but they also drop the grid. I presume this is because the workflow literally pushes it outside of a DAW (or sequencer) grid for those sections, but you can hear the subdivision disappear too, which for my ears leans towards a more creative use of time manipulation.
Where odd meters mean having a 17/16 followed by a 3/8 (at a different tempo), with a 1second swell, going back to the 17/16, only now in groups if 5 16ths that cross the bar, etcâŚ
An elastic odd-meterness.
Not electronic, but I find this kind of time manipulation much more interesting that âstraightâ time stuff (ala Tool/Sting (which I did grow up enjoying as well)):
i fell backwards into electronics thru this kind of stuff
the progression has been interesting because i literally used to count out brubeck tunes while trying to follow and calculate . then discovered additive meter in hindustani classical . stacked tempos in tuned gong ensembles
each of these shaped how i view time and make electronic music but i couldnât just mimic the timing divisionsâŚthat might work for others but i personally had to study rhythms as pulse patterns to internalize them
the resulting electronic work will capture what i liked about the beat more naturally than if forced
Iâm really bad at counting while playing, but if I suffer through it long enough, it starts to get into the muscles and I can just do it without thinking. Thatâs when it starts to be more about dynamics and feel. So much easier to get there if Iâm playing with other people, especially if they already âget itâ.
One of the disadvantages of moving out to the country is that I have a lot less (well, basically zero) opportunity to learn by osmosis these days.
Hey guys thanks a bunch for the recommendations, I will definitely check those out!
I first got into music through choir, and once I got to the advanced choir in my high school we started working with more difficult compositions that utilized more drastic meter and key changes so once I actually got into composing on the computer and saw what other people were doing, I was absolutely shocked at how much unexplored musical territory there was. Especially in more conventional mainstream music, it is pretty crazy. But even the music I worked with in choir was mostly western music, though there were exceptions.
My mentor and friend Ivo Ivanov is going to be putting out an album pretty soon and from what I have heard of it, it will be filled with odd time signatures and meter changes so i am very excited for that. Should be out later next month.
iâm glad this type of conversation is happening because iâd been mulling a similar thread but never launched it here
music composed outside 4/4 seems to be more common in the acoustic realmâŚwhy is that? the answer might be at the root of what @bwlb is asking in the OT
