Question about time signatures.

[Alex_Willden]

It seems like lots of bands or reviewers or whatever boast to having "complex time signatures" in their songs. My question is, aren't they referring more to the beats, syncopation, etc. rather than time signature? It seems like most music has the same time signature (i.e. 4 beats per measure, one quarter note equaling one beat or 6/8 time, etc.) throughout the whole song, regardless of rhythm, tempo, etc. In reality I don't care THAT much, just wondering. Anyone have any insight?

[JPatil]

What You will see in a lot of metal bands or "Tech Bands" is they will do a lot of breakdowns and verses in different time signatures, such as 7/4 or 13 beats ina measure with 8s and 5s seperate or something of that sort.

[bassdrummer2333]

Listen to

"The Crop and Pest" - The Receiving End of Sirens
"Backdraft" - Thrice
"Silhouette" - Thrice

Can't think of any others off the top of my head. I just know there hard to compose and follow.

[aloneatlastnj]

the breakdown to blood clots and black holes is a bitch to "count". listen to it enough times and it's actually pretty simple.

[bassdrummer2333]

Oh yeah, I noticed that when I was playing it on drums. The first couple times you'll come in the wrong time haha.

[liveloud4life]

Protest the Hero, esp. on Kezia, and they use alot of playing a riff 4 times in a phrase and alternating between 7 and 8, just leaving out a beat sometimes. Fall of Troy is amazing with time signatures. Switchfoot's Oh Gravity album has a couple songs, circles is in 5 and to this day I haven't figured out what the begining of Dirty Second Hands, I'm pretty sure it changes frequently. I feel terrible throwing myself in with names like these but I like to work in some 7 measures along with 8s and I have a song that has a pause with a scream in 6/4 and the outro's in 7. Outside the realm of rock music, alot of percussion ensemble peices use seriously crazy time signatures. I played a peice in 7/16 once. The beginning of YYZ by rush alternates between 7/16 and 13/16, or I guess you could say two 7/16 bars and a 3/4 bar. There's alot of different ways to count it. I'm not sure how they wanted it counted.

[acor]

Time signatures have a lot to do with the rhythm of the music. If you've ever used a click track to write music you'll know why having different time signatures are important. It can get damn hard to figure out what time to come in and what time to start playing when you don't use a different signature when you change the rhythm up.

I guess all I can say is try to write a song with different types of rhythms with a click track and you'll see that 4/4 can work for everything just by changing the beats per minute, but you'll be coming in when there isn't a down beat and that can make it hard. Hence changing the time signature to something like 3/4 will get you an easier down beat to work with.

Another suggestion, if you have Finch Say Hello to Sunshine try counting out 4/4 in it. It will all be in time but you'll never know when they are coming in. Then try switching to 3/4 and 6/8 and other stuff and it makes it a lot easier to predict when they will come in again.