No, no. 7/4 is the better way to write it out and appears to be the standard way to present it. You can write it out as 7/8, too, but 7/4 is a bit cleaner.
Yeah, that’s an interesting 9/8. 9/8 on its own is not really that odd a time signature if it’s split up 3+3+3 (triple compound meter). But the 2+2+2+3 subdivision gives it a jerky rhythmic quality.
Anything that’s 2+2+3/8 or 2+3+2/8 or 3+2+2/8 I’ve always just seen notated as 7/8. I suppose you’re just saying only 4+3/8 or 3+4/8 are “real 7/8”? I never really thought of it that way. They’re all types of 7/8 to me. Like see here, for example. But, like you note, they will have different feels and grooves to them depending on where the accents and sub-accents go.
Anyhow, after thinking about it, I’d personally write out Unsquare Dance as 7/4.
Just guessing here:
Hahahahahahhaha breaks down to:
Ha-ha-ha-ha-hah-ha-ha with the hah at beat 5 getting a stress?
In a sense, the bottom number in the time signature is irrelevant (or, rather, interchangeable). You can freely change something written in 7/8 to 7/4 to 7/2 to 7/16 to 7/1 if you really want to; you just need to appropriately adjust the notation and apply the tempo to the right note value and you’re golden. Which one you choose is guided largely by convention. And those conventions are regularly violated anyway.
But don’t write things in 7/1.
Bluegrass bass player here - I’m all about the 1 and 3. But I usually tap my foot to the 2 and the 4, as those are what i play off of.
It wasn’t a scarequote. I was just trying to draw attention to the fact that my choice of the adjective “real” wasn’t perhaps appropriate.
To me the “real” 7/8 would be: /BAM - bam - bam - bam - bam - bam - bam /. It sounds like one unit.
On the oher hand,
4+3/8 goes /BAM - bam - bam - bam - BAM - bam - bam /
3+4/8 goes /BAM - bam - bam - BAM - bam - bam - bam /
It sounds like two units that are glued. The feel is significantly different.
See, for me, pretty much all 7/8 I’ve played has at least a primary and a secondary stress most often either 4+3 or 3+4, just like 4/4 is 2+2 and 6/8 is two units of three. But, regardless, that doesn’t make it any less “real 7/8” to me than if it had only one stress per bar. I just looked up Wikipedia’s treatment on septuple meter and it seems to agree with my experiences with septuple meter. Or scroll down for this article. I mean, yes, you can certainly divvy it up so it’s really just one primary stress in the group of seven and no real secondary stress, but I don’t see how that makes it more “real 7/8” than the more common (at least in my experience) subdivisions.
So you’re saying emphasising the 1 isn’t funky?
Bootsy would tend to disagree. And for that matter, anyone else who played with James Brown.
Well, funk is about the 1, as you note. But note that he’s still snapping on the 2 & 4. 
Thanks for the articles.
Just to be clear: I realize that " real" was the wrong adjective to pick. Sorry, I couldn’t think of a better one.
I know what you are talking about: how you phrase and feel the pulse. I think that in my listening, I probably just hear works that have a lot stronger 2 and 3 beat subdivisions (much of these types of rhythms I hear in Balkan music, and that’s basically all twos and threes or “short” and “long” beats, although you’ll hear these subdivisions in classical, too.) Anyhow, regardless, for Unsquare Dance, divvying up the beat in twos and threes like that should help folks having difficulty getting the beat down. I just don’t want people to get all freaked out by time signatures like 7/8 and 11/8. Yes, they’re weird, but they’re really not as crazy difficult as they seem at first if you break them down (where appropriate) into their components.
You just made me spit my Mountain Dew. I aint have no business drinking it anyway, so well done.
Frylock, it means that I sometimes come back here to mine up a bit of info, or pick the brains in GQ and when I’m here and find threads like this I CRACK THE FUCK UP and miss you all a lil’ bit.
Now back to you all breaking down the science of how to clap on time.
Sure. Strap yourself in, crank the volume, and clap along with Beethoven’s 9th. 1 2 3 4
But try it with Singing in the Rain and it is disgusting.
Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange made use of this, juxtaposing a power-fantasy while listening to a tape with the horror of an actual rape.
Warning: nudity and violence in the links:
[spoiler]
Warning: nudity and violence in the links:[spoiler]Beethoven’s 9th Symphony’s Ode to Joy From the protagonist’s perspective, a fantasy fetish of power and violence, filled with icons.
Brown’s Singing in the Rain From the protagonist’s perspective, brutalizing with real kicks and real hits on a real person the first and third in what had been a light and delightful song originally based on the 2nd and 4th.
[/spoiler][/spoiler]Kubrick used the beat to illustrate the horror of transposing violent fantasy into a real beating, and worse.
I wondered where you’ve been Nzinga and yeah, assumed you kinda meant “oh, you silly white folks wonderin’ where the groove is.” For some reason, I picture Leslie Jones doing this while it happens. I hope that is okay!
Again, I really think the humor of the OP, and of Nzinga’s amusement, is in the distinction between beat and groove. Most folks regardless of race can clap the beats in a piece of music. But can they groove with it is the question. Missing the 2 and 4 is about groove.
Now, why the African and African-American populations have a culture/tradition/ability to appreciate groove more easily vs. other populations - how the heck do I know? I would say from my experience (and clearly Nzinga’s!! ;)) it appears to be a real thing, not a made-up stereotyping.
You know, for a long time I just thought it was bullshit that “white people clap like this” and “black people clap like this.” After all, the kids in my generation and yours pretty much all grew up with rock and roll or similarly African influenced pop or jazz or blues, where syncopation and stressing the backbeat are normal. Why in the hell would we clap on the 1 & 3 when the music we grew up with accents the 2 & 4? But, every so often, I do see folks clapping on the 1 & 3, and it does tend to be white folk. Most people I know do clap on 2 & 4, so, from my perspective, the meme about how white people clap is grossly overstated, but it does seem to be a phenomenon. What I do wonder about is WHY would it be this way if the music we white folk listen to is predominantly backbeat based? It’s not like we’re listening to polkas and classical symphonies most of the time, where the downbeat is stressed. (And sorry for the gross overgeneralization regarding “we” and “white folk,” but I’m using that as short hand to mean those of us of European ancestry who grew up in a musical culture, i.e. listening to popular music, where the backbeat was emphasized.)
Wordman, I finally learned that facebook can give me a Straight Dope experience with other atheists and shit, but MAINLY BLACK FOLKS. And once I found that…groove…It felt like home.
But, yes, some things are unique to just you guys and I come back to the well now and again. I miss you, in particular, … always loved you!
I had to look up Leslie Jones. I don’t have a t.v. and haven’t had one in three years. Not because I’m a hipster, but because it just worked out that way. Anyway, I like her look, at least! Her skin tone got me like wow!
Glad you found your people on FB, but miss your POV here. Feel free to check in, often!
pulykamell - yeah, I don’t get the nature vs. nurture aspects of groove. I bet it is/might be an interesting area for social science research.
Your people? What do you mean, ‘you people’?
HAHAHA. Thanks WordMan. I will drop by sometime.
My assumption would be that it’s much more nurture than nature–that perhaps feeling the groove and moving to the groove is more practiced or stressed in some cultures vs others, rather than more of a passive listening, so music is more of a kinetic experience vs a passive one, and rhythm is better engrained in those who have a more kinetic experience with music. I’m just spitballing here. In my years spending time in Hungary and south in the Balkans, I noticed lots of weird rhythms based in odd numbers, like 7s and 11s. The folks who were into this sort of folk music, who grew up with it and danced this sort of music, seemed to have no issue grooving and following along. Those who grew up in more urban areas where the music was more pop and rock, more often did have difficulty. It’s got to be an experiential thing, I’d think, but I can’t quite reconcile that completely with why some white folk clap on 1 & 3. Maybe nobody just taught us better.
I am usually quite worried that I might be expected to clap, and quite happy if I can get away with just sitting on my hands. Because I can’t be off the beat/groove if I’m not grooving to the beat at all, can I?