Fenster writes:
I am mostly happy in 4/4 but like the odd time signature challenge.
Here are two of my favorites.
First, Blue Rondo a la Turk. This version is performed by Two Generations of Brubeck, which is Dave recording with his talented sons.
Nice how the 7/4 slides into a straight 4/4 blues and then back again.
And here is John McLaughlin doing something similar but more strongly flavored–The Dance of Maya, from the first Mahavishnu Orchestra album.
Here, McLaughlin starts out in 10/8, which is pretty easy to follow as long as you parse it out and think 3-3-4. Like Brubeck, he then breaks into at least a somewhat conventional blues riff. You want the blues to be forced back into a 4/4, as with Brubeck, but there’s something off about the move–it feels like there is a half beat missing or something. Where did it go? The answer, I guess, is that McLaughlin moved from a 10/8 (3-3-2) to a 20/8. That’s 6-6-6-2. Though, since the music is pretty fast, it feels more like 3-3-3-3-3-3-2, with each 3 being felt like a triplet on a single note, which is why when you get to the 2–oops, what’s missing?
This Mahavishnu version of McLaughlin was both musically and spiritually ambitious (I wonder what Philip Larkin made of him?) So after he does the dirge-like 10/8 and the more upbeat 20/8 he decides to crash them altogether and see how it sounds. Like some sort of storm, I think, made more dramatic by the recurring Rite-of-Spring like theme announced by Jerry Goodman on violin.
Here’s a time signature question for the commenters here with actual musical training.
You can take a 4/4 time signature and run triplets on each quarter note. It sounds a little waltz like, but you know you are moored in the overall 4/4 ness of the piece.
OK, so then you actually listen to a real 3/4 waltz. Is there a big difference between the 4/4 with triplets and a 3/4? In the case of the actual waltz, each 3/4 measure ends up being part of a four measure structure, returning you to the feel of 4/4 when considering the larger structure of the song. Is this always the case, or have composers nestled 3/4 measures into larger structures that are themselves three, rather than four, part? What would that sound like? Any examples?
Maybe where music is concerned we can deal with the non-four temporarily, but yearn in the end to return to its stability and resolution.
So then my next question is: why does drama seem to cohere in three parts, following the conventions of the three acts in a well-structured play? And even when we set these in larger frames, corresponding to measure and groups of measures in music, there remains a tendency to want to follow a rule of threes: trilogies. Do we default to 4 in music and 3 in narrative?
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
The Brubeck/Desmond Blue Rondo a la Turk was on the first record of “modern jazz” that I ever bought – flipside to Take Five, if I remember correctly. I got to that from British “trad jazz”, some of which was fine stuff. Consider this from a few years later:
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4/4 with triplets is more or less 12/8, which has a much different feel than 3/4. The “bar” would naturally only fall before the first of the four triplets in 12/8, while in 3/4 there’s an accent every three beats. Compare “Kathy’s Waltz” vs a blues shuffle like “Statesboro Blues” or something (I don’t think 12/8 was used much in jazz, but it’s heavily used in rock, r&b & blues). Although you could also say “swing eighths” in jazz *is* 12/8, but it’s never written out that way.
Here’s a fun one to try to count:
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This from La Wik, on the Scherzo in Beethoven’s 9th:
“At times during the piece, Beethoven directs that the beat should be one downbeat every three bars, perhaps because of the very fast pace of the movement, with the direction ritmo di tre battute (“rhythm of three bars”), and one beat every four bars with the direction ritmo di quattro battute (“rhythm of four bars”).
Beethoven had been criticised before for failing to adhere to standard form for his compositions. He used this movement to answer his critics. Normally, scherzi are written in triple time. Beethoven wrote this piece in triple time, but it is punctuated in a way that, when coupled with the speed of the metre, makes it sound as though it is in quadruple time.”
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That Blue Rondo with Brubeck’s sons sounds remarkably like Yes in their Bruford years. But different. And also, obviously, that’s where Yes got it from. Good stuff.
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The end of that Mahavishnu Orchestra piece sounds a lot to me like what Steven Wilson does with his solo projects and the band Porcupine Tree. The link below is a nice, longer example. More 4/4 than in the MO piece– although in the opening the accent on the upbeat of the four makes it sound math-rocky when it isn’t– be he throws in weird signatures both in grooves and one-offs.
I’ve never heard Wilson specifically cite MO as an influence, but I am sure it was in the air when he was in his formative stages as an artist. And there are better math-rock examples of Wilson’s work, but this example screams Mahavishnu. Personally, I love odd signatures, especially when at a gestalt level they don’t sound odd. That’s the trick, I think, and when pulled off it is like someone just revealed a new spacial dimension to you.
As to the larger question of whether or not narrative prefers threes, music fours, etc…that’s the sort of thinking that always points me towards physics. All those numerical rules embedded in the world. I mean, the fact the square root of negative 1 is hardwired into the world is just downright weird and inexplicable. To me, at least.
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Thanks for all comments and links. I know who Bix is but didn’t know this very nice tune. The other two artists are totally unfamiliar. I liked both a lot and will seek out more.
I was a somewhat abashed fan of progressive in the 1970s–abashed since while I loved a lot of it I recognized an equal amount or more was overripe and ready to drop. But the Porcupine Tree selection really brought me back, and in a good way. I am sure a lot of what is going on in that performance is new, but being a geezer I could not help but apprehend it through my 1970s filter. And it is all there: it starts with a lot of Gentle Giant and Corea’s electric Return to Forever, with a few abstract, somewhat atonal nods to Zappa. A soft gooey midsection reminiscent of Focus. A back third uncannily like King Crimson. First time round I didn’t have time to figure out the time signatures–all the better!
And thank you Chucho for the 3/4 12/8 explanation. Never knew that before but it makes perfect sense.
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I got nothing to add on this topic, but I’m glad we’re addressing it. Thanks Fenster.
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Good ear on the King Crimson, btw. Wilson has remastered a couple Crimson records, and is an unabashed Fripp disciple.
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