Anyone Else Enjoy Counting Time Signatures/Meter?

Frenetic Zetetic wrote: hieronymous wrote: I love odd time signatures - probably ever since listening to Rush and Yes when I was in high school learning bass guitar in the '80s.  This is one of my current odd-time favorites, "Answers? Questions! Questions? Answers!" by Focus from Focus 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsqFEI_Ulhs I love playing along with it - I actually learned it without counting, the opening riff I would say is in 9/8, then goes into 4/4, switching back and forth between the two sections, then it goes off into something else! This is such a fantastic album, improvisational rock at its finest if you ask me.   I was very fortunate to see John McLaughlin & Jimmy Herring on the Meeting of the Spirits tour a few weeks ago - during one of the insane guitar & drum sections, Gary Husband (on keys but also an astounding drummer) clapped along for the entire solo - it was really cool, I videotaped it so that I could remember it later! It's in 7, so he's clapping on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th & 6th beats. If I don't clap along I get lost and just enjoy the sensation of the music, but I think that clapping (as opposed to counting?) definitely is an enjoyable component of listening.  Excellent! I myself am a bass player, so perhaps we're a bit biased with our counting :P Great link and post, brother!

Aha, a fellow bassist – I think that musicians will often have a variety of ways of thinking about and playing odd times – you can’t just let go and relax without practice – or at least I definitely need practice! I remember jamming something in 7 with my drummer but when I did a fill I mis-counted – I had taped it so I know it was me, can’t blame the drummer!

I thought of a couple more cool ones:

Gong – “The Isle of Forever” from You

It’s a cool progression where they jam on a groove in 4/4 (well, I’ll call it 8), then move it up a minor third, then move it up a minor third again, then back to the original key but this time in 7. They go through the harmonic progression again, then it’s 6! Then back to 8 – and then they actually go to 7 again. They abbreviate the 6, then go into the next song. All with fantastic soloing by sax & keyboards. (I may not have the chords right, I’m going partly on memory)

The other one is Space is the Place by Sun Ra – the studio version from the Impulse album of the same name.

The vocal melody is in 4, but the line that opens up the piece is in 5 – it starts on a sax and is taken up by various other instruments throughout. You can try and count along with the 5 line while listening to the rest of the piece – I just played along with it for 20 minutes – I couldn’t keep the line just going like they do – the liner notes say the legendary saxophonist Pat Patrick is playing the electric bass on this – insane!

I think ideally I don’t count while I’m playing, I tend to feel it. But I’m basically a rock bassist – I listen to jazz but my harmonic knowledge is limited. It’s nice to relax and just listen, but there are times where you realize you’ve lost count! Actually, that happens while playing sometimes – if everyone is listening you can latch on to a pulse and get back to safety!