I’ve been listening to a lot of prog rock recently and since I’m a guitarist, I also want to learn the songs I listen to. Now, I have a good ear for melody, but where I always fall short is getting the correct rhythm down. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to count time signatures, and believe me, I’m trying.
In: 4
Beginner drummer here, and I get super confused by this. I’m hanging out in the comments to see what else is shared
1 e and ah, 2 e and ah, 3 e and ah, 4 eh and ah 1. Simple 4/4 is all that I can count with reasonable confidence, hell I got lost in 4/4 at times.
I highly recommend you watch videos by Cobb the Drummer on YouTube. He explains and demonstrates very well. There is one in particular that I like that’s called “time signatures 1/1, 2/2, 3/4…”
It may help to hear the same melody in two different times.
[Here’s a piece in 3-time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWWr64r7JgY). Hear how it goes DA-da-da DA-da-d DA-da-da? You might feel some instinct to sort of sway to it. The string line here is playing almost exactly straight quarter notes, one per beat (this is in 3/4 time, so each beat is a quarter note). Like a lot of 3-time pieces, the strings have a different note on beat 1 and two of the same note on beats 2 and 3 – it’s very common for 3-time pieces to have that sort of unevenness between the first beat and the second and third, in part because if you wanted evenness you might as well just use 4-time.
[Here’s the same basic melody, but played in 4-time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvQm6e_NsKM). It’s more like DA-da-daaa-da DA-da-daaa-da or DA-DA-da-da DA-DA-da-da depending on the part of the track. The main melody is mostly eighth notes, so you’ll hear two notes for each of these beats (since it’s in 4/4 time, each beat is a quarter note). You’re more likely to tap your foot to a melody like this, because it has a more even kind of feel, and you’ll hear a lot more subdivisions of each bar into two halves.
(Both these tracks have some syncopation – breaks from the normal rhythm – in their baselines and percussion sections, so you can’t just listen to those in this case.)
Focus on finding 1 first. Listen to songs with odd time signatures, and focus *just* on clapping on the downbeat: 1… 1… 1…
Then as you build up that skill, start counting the other beats, still just focusing on quarter notes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Once you can feel where the beats are, it’s no different than however you subdivide beats in your head in 4; “1-e-and-a-2-e-and-a-3-e-and-a-4-e-and-a” except now you add a “5-e-and-a-“ (or 7, or 13, or what have you.)
Try *not* counting them, but moving your body with the full beat cycle and doing it by feel. Many pieces with odd time signatures “snip out” a beat and start the next bar a beat earlier than it otherwise would. If you’re mentally stuck in 4/4 this will always catch you off guard. If you slide yourself into the pattern where you emphasise that beat – by nodding your head, tapping your foot, swinging your shoulder *anything which affirms it* – you’ll be on the ball.
A great piece for this is [Love is Stronger than Justice](https://youtu.be/hpFslVLck-Q). The verses are in an odd signature and the choruses are in straight 4/4. I’m not going to tell you what the count is in the verse because I don’t want you to count it; just move with it for now and once you can do that you’ll figure out the count easily enough. Listen to the kick and the snare in the verse: boom (pause) chick; boom boom chick. When that pattern repeats, the first boom is a beat earlier than it would be in 4/4. You want to be moving then, not waiting. When you can move to it you can strum to it; when you can strum to it you can count to it if you still feel the need. More importantly, if you can strum to it you can solo to it, if that’s your thing.
Wait til you hear about 12/8 times. 4 triplets per bar. I count it 1-e-a-2-e-a-3-e-a-4-e-a.
Listen to [Toto’s Hold The Line](https://youtu.be/ZcVEOc7ZYgk)
I find that for prog rock and the like it’s easiest to split the long measure up into smaller bits.
For example, I’ll bring up Schism by the band Tool, I usually see it written in 12/8 which isn’t too out there, but it doesn’t feel like a typical 12/8 groove which makes counting a bit hard. But if you break it up into alternating measures of 5/8 and 7/8 it becomes easier to count.
Another part that helps in breaking up complex time signatures is listening for those “strong” beats. Usually they’re not just playing a bunch of notes the same way, there are notes that feel like they have more weight to them. Oftentimes it helps to listen to the drums and bass, oftentimes the beat is accented by a kick or root note.
I find it easiest to break things up into groups of 3 or 4. For example if I was doing something in 13/8 I migjt organize it with 3 groups of 3 and 1 group of 4: 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-4. This of course isn’t the only way to do it but it worke for me.
There’s also [this video](https://youtu.be/KsvKQhOeQjQ) by Ben Levin on how rhythm is counted in Indian music that you might find useful.
I don’t have much advice but always found this intriguing
[Radiohead Videotape](https://youtu.be/p_IHotHxIl8)
It’s a skill you just have to work from the ground up. Start counting in groups other than 4.
123 223 323 423 523…
12345 22345 32345 42345…
1 e and 2 e and 3 e and…
Or, as others mentioned, Tool-Schism: 12345 1234567 12345 1234567 12345 1234567 …
Just gotta start slow like everything else.
Indian music has a lot of legitimate odd cyclic patterns, for example, 7 beat or 9 beat, (not 7/8 or 9/8).
They are counted typically as:
7 = 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2
9 = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 1, 2
The high tempo 7 beat [1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2] count is one of the easier ones to intuit. Keep humming the [phrase] long enough and you can *feel* the rhythm and can even squeeze poetry into it. Try it!
In this form of music, you break the odd into a summation of odd and even, and you use the even to indicate the end of a beat cycle and the start of a new one. I’m sure western music has similar tricks.
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