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
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.
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