Trial Before Pilate (Including the Thirty-Nine Lashes), from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar includes 4/4, 3/4, 5/8, 2/4, 6/8, 6/4, 5/4, 7/4, 7/8, and 2/8, and the time signature in the piece varies a total of 41 times.
Happiness Is a Warm Gun (Beatles, cycles variously through 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 9/8, 12/8, etc)
Subdivisions - (Rush, 7/8)
Money - Pink Floyd (7/4 IIRC)
My Wave - Soundgarden (5/4)
I Say A Little Prayer - Dionne Warwick (uses 10/4 for verses and 11/4 for its chorus)
Trial Before Pilate (Including the Thirty-Nine Lashes), from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar includes 4/4, 3/4, 5/8, 2/4, 6/8, 6/4, 5/4, 7/4, 7/8, and 2/8, and the time signature in the piece varies a total of 41 times.
Happiness Is a Warm Gun (Beatles, cycles variously through 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 9/8, 12/8, etc)
Subdivisions - (Rush, 7/8)
Money - Pink Floyd (7/4 IIRC)
My Wave - Soundgarden (5/4)
I Say A Little Prayer - Dionne Warwick (uses 10/4 for verses and 11/4 for its chorus)
Trial Before Pilate (Including the Thirty-Nine Lashes), from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar includes 4/4, 3/4, 5/8, 2/4, 6/8, 6/4, 5/4, 7/4, 7/8, and 2/8, and the time signature in the piece varies a total of 41 times.
Happiness Is a Warm Gun (Beatles, cycles variously through 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 9/8, 12/8, etc)
Subdivisions - (Rush, 7/8)
Money - Pink Floyd (7/4 IIRC)
My Wave - Soundgarden (5/4)
I Say A Little Prayer - Dionne Warwick (uses 10/4 for verses and 11/4 for its chorus)
Clair de Lune (Debussy - 9/8)
Tubular Bells - (Mike Oldfield - first several minutes vary between 7/4 and 4/4)
Next: Films directed by George Roy Hill
William Goldman has said he made a mistake in this script by unexpectedly killing a character. He said it worked for the story but he lost the audience.
[Want to add this comment/nitpick because I missed a few days, and once upon a time people actually paid me to think about these things and it may be of interest…]
Music with Unusual Time Signatures
Blue Rondo a la Turk (Dave Brubeck - 9/8)
Wanderlove (Mason Williams - 10/4)
Touch and Go (The Cars - verses are in 5/4)
Take Five (Dave Brubeck - 5/4)
Turn it on Again (Genesis - 13/4)
Trial Before Pilate (Including the Thirty-Nine Lashes), from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar includes 4/4, 3/4, 5/8, 2/4, 6/8, 6/4, 5/4, 7/4, 7/8, and 2/8, and the time signature in the piece varies a total of 41 times.
Happiness Is a Warm Gun (Beatles, cycles variously through 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 9/8, 12/8, etc)
Subdivisions - (Rush, 7/8)
Money - Pink Floyd (7/4 IIRC)
My Wave - Soundgarden (5/4)
I Say A Little Prayer - Dionne Warwick (uses 10/4 for verses and 11/4 for its chorus)
Clair de Lune (Debussy - 9/8)
Tubular Bells - (Mike Oldfield - first several minutes vary between 7/4 and 4/4)
We’ve got here, which is cool, various takes:
Multiple subsequent time signatures–meters, which is different than
A consistent “unusual” meter (unusual to us Western post Renaissance listeners), unusual in that it implies rhythmic units boiling down/adding up at some level to multiples of 3 beats or 4 beats–a rhythm–which is different than
Meters which are overridden, either throughout the piece or at times, by a competing rhythm, ie non-divisible w/o a remainder spilling over, which is related to but different than
Meters which are overridden at times by a different rhythm at a larger level but without a spillover.
They all have clearer or less clear examples. For multiple subsequent meters (my 1)), an easy and famous one is Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring–but, before you get all intricate, consider that Leonard Bernstein, for one, said “fuck it,” drew big red lines every two or four bars on much of the score, and conducted it that way and let the rhythmic impulses fall where they may. Similarly, all of Western Renaissance church music, with its vocal lines coming in and out to their own musical impulses of unique arcs not beholden to a metric pattern beyond its own, was conducted, when necessary, by one guy moving his hand up-down throughout: one-two-- but “binary” metrics is simply a non-sequitur.
FTR, my meter/rhythm type 4) above was not listed in the dozen. A fun modern one is “Everything’s Better in America” from West Side Story.
I was moved to write this because of the first on the dozen, Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo,” which is an amazing example of my 3), as opposed to his famous “Take 5,” which is a plain old 2). (“Blue Rondo” technically would be in whatever the Latin would be for “sesquialtera+one third”; in Ars Nova notation from late 1300s it would be a piece of cake to read and write by writing a 3 in the meter and then putting the notes in red. Then back to black notes if you want the 3-sies again.)
Here’s the nitpick part: I’m interested why you feel “Claire d’Lune” to be unusual metrically? The last section with the even quarter notes?
Finally, my last addition to the dozen, and which I’ve used to win bar bets with inclined people: the theme from Mission Impossible. 5/4. It’s fun to click off the fingers on one hand while singing it for proof. (The last two notes are ring finger, pinky.)
A consistent “unusual” meter (unusual to us Western post Renaissance listeners), unusual in that it implies rhythmic units boiling down/adding up at some level to multiples of 3 beats or 4 beats–a rhythm–which is different than
Read:
A consistent “unusual” meter (unusual to us Western post Renaissance listeners), unusual in that it implies rhythmic units NOT boiling down/adding up at some level to multiples of 3 beats or 4 beats–a rhythm–which is different than
Name a professional team athlete (football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, etc.) whose last season before retiring was a good one. (If you can, include stats or a link to the stats.)
I apologize for quoting the whole shebang, but I wasn’t about to edit all this.
The heading was Unusual Time Signatures; explain why 9/8 is OK for #1 (Brubeck), but not for #12 (Debussy). Who mentioned metrically? I was trying to close out the durn list 'cause it seemed to be getting old.
Name a professional team athlete (football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, etc.) whose last season before retiring was a good one. (If you can, include stats or a link to the stats.)
Ted Williams (29 HR, 72 RBI, .316 BA)
John Elway (won Super Bowl and MVP)
I predict this one’s going to take a while. I hope I’m wrong.
