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
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.
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