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Odd meter playing

Drew Johnson 27 October 2013

It's something I personally have not worked on enough, and struggle with. I was wondering what some of the pros' approaches are to playing in 5 and 7? Also maybe a list of good recordings in those and other odd meters. Obviously Take 5.... what else do you guys got?

Thanks,
-Drew

Comments

tonymiceli Sun, 10/27/2013 - 17:43

there's a dave holland cd with kevin eubanks on it. i forget the name. it's amazing. oh yeah with a great italian percussionist, i forget his name!! smokin'

and

DO IT OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER. that's the only way i know.

there's a great book called 'takadimi this'. i have copies for sale if you're interested. it's my buddy's book and talks about the Indian stuff in an easy way. great book IMHO.

HaukeRenken Fri, 08/22/2014 - 07:37

Do you mean the extensions CD?

it has this eubanks tune called nemesis on it. i'm practicing this 11/8 vamp. its so hard for me to to solo and still feel the pulse, the time, the rhythm etc.
if anyone is interested in practicing that you can download my logic play along and an audio file for the "nonlogicer" here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m4vpgpf2gv7053k/AABWhn5ONOt-d2_TECMMBQ66a

if you mastered it, tell me how! :)

tpvibes Tue, 11/05/2013 - 12:50

I love listening to and playing in odd meters. The grooves you can make with odd meters are just so much more interesting. I think of 4/4 as driving down a concrete road -- the expansion joints go bump-bump-bump. But odd meters are like skiing moguls: bump-bump--bumpbump---bump. Still rhythmic but you have to pay attention.

Here are some things I try. Very interested in hearing other suggestions.

  1. As Tony says, DO IT. Over and over. For those of us that haven't grown up in cultures where additive rhythms are the norm, it takes a while to get used to.
  2. As Tyler says in his post on Alone Together in 7, SUBDIVIDE. 5 is 3-2, 7 is 4-3 (many other ways to divide these up too). Learn to feel sequences of different length groups.
  3. COUNT. If you try to just feel it you're going to fall into familiar patterns that don't fit.
  4. Get a METRONOME that'll do uneven groupings. I wrote an app for Android some years ago -- Additive Metronome. It isn't perfect but it'll do these sort of things. Since then there are several better apps and web pages that do programmable metronomes.

Tom P.

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