2.07am
8 January 2015
There’s nothing technically that says you can’t have an odd number on the bottom, but there are no odd-length notes in the Western system. Because we define the time signature as part of a bar and the largest number in a bar is a semibreve or whole note, a bar can only be subdivided evenly like notes, so we go from whole note – half note (NOT 3rd of a note) – quarter note and so on. Time signatures like 3/4 seem to go against that rule but it makes sense if you think of it as 3 of quarter notes to a bar.
There are odd time signatures called irrational meters. Back when the whole idea of time signatures were still debatable, whenever a composer wanted a tuplet in a piece (that’s a melody played in groups of three), it seemed wrong to put it into 4/4 and some people wrote 3/6 instead. The wiki page on time signatures has a good illustration of how you might use them (including 2/5), it seems using them in pairs of an irrational meter with a standard meter works well.
You should have a look at Tala also, for an idea of time that is more like syllables than a measure structure. There, the length of notes is purely within whatever beat structure laid down for a piece, and that is simply how many beats to a section you want. Within You, Without You is of course based on a tala structure, and the way it fits with Western music is to alternate time signatures to fit those beat sections or anga.
So, to answer your question, it’s very difficult to hear an irrational time signature in your head or make sense of them because we have no reference for bits of time that are arbitrarily short or long, although it’s technically possible to define that. We naturally think in whole beats and subdivide them to make an even number.
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2.29pm
15 May 2015
Thanks for your in depth reply, ewe2. Some of that Indian music is probably using beats that are of varying lengths which we don’t break down evenly in Western music. On a related note, I’ve noticed that a style of Latin percussion solo – when timbale drummers do their solos – seems like they are straining against the limits of the Western 2 or 4 based beat length. For example, at about 30 seconds into this you tube video, the timbale player’s long solo exemplifies what I mean.
I’ve noticed it’s the norm for various Latino timbale players — they seem to really go to town on the “jagged” syncopation, delving into rhythms that seem to go against the grain of the main rhythm being sustained by the other percussionists around them. If someone could measure the beats he’s hitting scientifically in comparison with the rhythms his fellow musicians are maintaining, perhaps it could be shown that he is in fact sometimes going off into /5 or /3 or /7 tempos. Sure, one can find similar experimentations outside the box in some jazz solos, but it seems especially pronounced in solos like this one above.
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2.41pm
8 January 2015
What a showoff 😀 It’s not as if those guys work off Western sheet music anyway. I agree, it does push the boundaries, it does seem more like tala rhythm doesn’t it?
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3.26pm
15 May 2015
Thanks ewe2, I found a couple of tala percussion examples on YouTube (if your word “tala” was supposed to be a link, it didn’t work). Problem with searching for “tala” is that Google & YouTube tries to force you to search for “tabla” instead — but I found some examples anyway.
One difference between the tala examples and the timbale solo I linked is that it seems that in tala, everyone is on the same free-form wavelength and there is no contrast with a main tempo being maintained by the backup musicians — as there is in the typical Latin band.
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4.03pm
8 January 2015
Hmm I’ll fix that when not phone posting, but with Latin music I think of syncopation as a way of distinguishing solo voices, which Indian music also does.
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5.11pm
5 September 2012
I know this is an old topic, but it piqued my interest, and I think I’ve managed to collate every Beatles song with a non-4/4 time signature. It’s not the neatest, but it’s exhaustive to the best of my knowledge. Enjoy! Please ignore the sloppy numbering/bulleting, I just wanted to keep each song separate, and some songs had several sub-headings. So it seems that the most complex songs are, as expected, Happiness Is A Warm Gun and perhaps less expectedly, Good Morning Good Morning and Blackbird . I was also surprised to learn that Girl was 2/2 and not 4/4, but I think you could chalk that up to semantics.
Please Please Me
All 4/4 except:
- A Taste Of Honey : 6/8 (bridge in 12/8)
With the Beatles
All 4/4 except:
- You Really Got A Hold On Me : 12/8
A Hard Day’s Night :
All 4/4
Beatles For Sale :
All 4/4 except:
- Baby’s In Black : 6/8
Help !:
All 4/4 except:
Rubber Soul :
All 4/4 except:
- Drive My Car : starting drum fill is inside a bar of 5/4
- Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown): 6/8
- Girl: 2/4
Revolver :
All 4/4 except:
- Love You To : chorus is one bar of 3/4 followed by four bars of 4/4
- She Said She Said : bridge has two bars of 4/4, three bars of 3/4, then one bar of 6/4 and one bar of 3/4 twice over
- I Want To Tell You : verse is three bars of 4/4, two bars of 6/4, and six bars of 4/4
Sgt. Pepper ‘s Lonely Hearts Club Band:
All 4/4 except:
- Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds : verses are 6/8, chorus is 4/4
- She’s Leaving Home : 6/8
- Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!: verses are 4/4, bridge/instrumental section is 3/4
- Within You Without You : intro has a bar of 2/4 near the end, bridge has a bar of 5/4 (“no-one else can make you change”, “if they only knew”)
- Good Morning Good Morning :
- verse has three bars of 5/4, one bar of 3/4, one bar of 4/4 and one bar of 5/4
- guitar solo and second verse are the same, but omit the last bar of 5/4
- fourth verse has three bars of 5/4, one bar of 3/4, one bar of 4/4, one bar of 5/4, one bar of 4/4, and two bars of 3/4
- could be argued that the bridge (“everything is closed it’s like a ruin”) is in 12/8
- chorus has one bar of 4/4, two bars of 3/4, and two bars of 4/4
- outro is in 4/4
Magical Mystery Tour :
All 4/4 except:
- Magical Mystery Tour : song is in 4/4, then after the slowdown, the “coming to take you away” part and the outro are in 6/8
- Blue Jay Way : held note before chorus in a bar of 6/4, then the chorus is in 12/8, verses are in 4/4
- Your Mother Should Know : the second bar of the instrumental piano section is in 2/4
- Hello Goodbye : last bar before chorus is 2/4 (“and I say hello”)
- Strawberry Fields Forever : last bar of intro before the vocals start is 2/4; the seventh bar of the verse is 2/4 (“nothing to get…”), and the ninth bar is 3/4 (“strawberry fields for…”)
- All You Need Is Love : the pre-verse (“love, love, love”) goes 4/4, 3/4, 4/4, 3/4, 4/4 x3, 3/4, then the verse is the same but the last bar becomes 4/4. The last bar of the chorus (after “love is all you need”) is 2/4
The Beatles:
All 4/4 except:
- Dear Prudence : the fourth bar, and “look around, round, round, aaaah” is a bar of 4/4 and a bar of 2/4
- Glass Onion : the end part, with the strings, is in 6/4
- The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill : the fourth bar of the chorus is in 2/4; in the last chorus, this also occurs on the eighth bar
- Happiness Is A Warm Gun : this is a weird one. “Like a lizard” is 2/4,
- “A soap impression of his wife which he ate and donated to the…” is in 5/4, followed by: 4/4, 9/8, 12/8, 12/8, 9/8, 12/8, 12/8
- Every other bar in the verse is in 4/4, and the drums are, for the most part, in 4/4 as well, creating a polyrhythmic feel
- “Mother Superior jumped the gun” alternates between 9/8 and 10/8, three times over
- “Happiness Is A Warm Gun ” is in 4/4 for four bars, then moves to 12/8 for four bars, 4/4 for five more, and one bar of 2/4. Until the last two bars, the drums stay in 4/4 throughout
- Martha My Dear : in the intro, a bar of 5/4, followed by six bars of 4/4, the same again, then eight bars of 4/4
- “Take a good look around you” goes 2/4, 4/4, 2/4, five bars of 4/4, and one of 2/4
- I’m So Tired : “fix myself a…”, “know what you would…” and “such a stupid…” are in 2/4
Blackbird : intro is 3/4 to 4/4
- verse is 3/4, 4/4 three times, 3/2 twice, 4/4 twice, and 2/4
- “Blackbird fly…” is 4/4 four times, followed by 2/4 and 3/4, then 4/4 until
- The instrumental section before this next verse goes: 3/4 twice, then 2/4,
- Piggies : the last bar of silence before the orchestral swell at the end is in 3/4
- Don’t Pass Me By : “love me any…” and “waiting to hear from…” are in 2/4, as well as “Don’t Pass Me By ” in the same spot at the end
- Yer Blues : verse is in 12/8, “if I ain’t dead already” goes 8/8 to 6/8
- “my mother was of the sky” bit goes 4/4 three times, then 6/8
- last bar of the solo with the drum fill is 2/4
- Mother Nature’s Son : has a bar of 2/4 before every “riff” (with the pull-offs on the high E string)
- Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey: on the word “monkey”, it alternates between 3/4 and 4/4 twice
- Long Long Long: 6/8, with a bar of 9/8 in the verses (before “so many tears…”, and other places)
- Revolution : 12/8, third bar of every verse is 6/8, as is “an-y how”
- Honey Pie : intro is essentially free time, the rest is 4/4
- Savoy Truffle : Intro goes 4/4, 7/8, 6/8, and this occurs between the first and second verses also
- Cry Baby Cry : the bar before “the duke of marigold was…”, and before the chorus, are 2/4, and the same for the other bits that are the same as this
- Revolution 9 : free time!
Abbey Road :
All 4/4 except:
- Oh! Darling : 12/8
- I Want You (She’s So Heavy): intro and heavy bits are 6/8, latin-y bit is 4/4, with last bar of each verse being 2/4
- Here Comes The Sun : all 4/4 until bridge, which goes: 2/4, 3/8 three times, 5/8, 4/4, and then repeat until the verse comes back
- You Never Give Me Your Money : last bar before “came true…” is 2/4
- Mean Mr. Mustard: goes into 12/8 right at the end
- She Came In Through The Bathroom Window : last bar before second verse is 2/4
- Golden Slumbers : bar before “and I will sing a lullaby” is 2/4
- The End : “the love you take” is 3/8
Yellow Submarine :
All 4/4 except:
- Only A Northern Song : “wrote it like that”, “play it like that”, and the corresponding bar in the instrumental bits are in 2/4
- “only a northern” is in 3/4
Let it Be:
All 4/4 except:
- Two of Us: “someone’s”, “arriving”, etc, are 2/4
- “we on our way home” is 3/4, “we’re going home” is 2/4
- Dig A Pony : 6/8
- Across The Universe : “…way Across The Universe ” is 5/4
- last bar before “jai guru deva…” is 2/4
- I Me Mine : 6/8
- Dig It : 6/8
- For You Blue : 12/8
Past Masters :
All 4/4 except:
- This Boy : 12/8
- I Call Your Name : 4/4, but bridge (the ska bit) is in 12/8
- Yes It Is : 12/8
- We Can Work It Out : 4/4, but bridge is in 3/4
- Rain : in verse 2, on the second “when the suuuuun…”, is 2/4
- Hey Jude : “Hey Jude , you’ll do, the movement you need is on your shoulder, na na na NA NA…”, on the last two “nas”, is 2/4
- Revolution : same as “Revolution 1 “, but it’s 4/4 and 2/4 rather than 12/8 and 6/8 respectively
- Don’t Let Me Down : first bar of each verse is 5/4 (“nobody ever loved me like she does”)
- Across The Universe : same as the Let it Be version, but in a different key
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8 April 2016
Great List, @CebeBee13! I’d like to add I’ve Just Seen A Face . The intro sounds like 12/8, 12/8, 6/8, although the drums seems to be playing 8/8 (= 4/4), 8/8 and 4/8 (= 2/4). Does that count as an odd time signature?
7.32am
24 March 2014
Isn’t the strings at the end of Glass Onion in 4/4? It just sounds plain 4/4 to me. Anyway, such a great excuse this is to listen to it on my way back home. Good!
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9.18am
6 July 2016
I’m not good at music theory and working out time signatures but isn’t All My Loving an odd time signature because doesn’t Lennon play a 123,123 type rhythm? (is that triplets?)
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8.51pm
Moderators
15 February 2015
fabbeatlebooks said
I’m not good at music theory and working out time signatures but isn’t All My Loving an odd time signature because doesn’t Lennon play a 123,123 type rhythm? (is that triplets?)
@Leppo it’s in standard 4/4 time, but John plays triplets over it.
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1.19am
15 May 2015
Wow CebeBee13 — nicely comprehensive list, thanks!
One quibble I’d have is:
“All You Need Is Love: the pre-verse (“love, love, love”) goes 4/4, 3/4, 4/4, 3/4, 4/4 x3, 3/4…”
If you add the 4 and 3, you get 7 — and I prefer to think of John and/or Paul as being cool enough to have a song in 7/4 (with the exception of the three measures of 4 in between).
Similarly, there’s a song by Dave Brubeck, “World’s Fair”, which is in 13/4 — but you could count it out as:
3/4 — 3/4 — 7/4
If you add 3+3+7 you get 13.
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7.02pm
5 July 2015
Wow @CebeBee13, I think you’ve done an amazing job with the list and hope it gets stickied. Excellent work.
I would like to agree with @Pineapple Records in that All You Need Is Love pre-verse and verse should be considered 7/4 rather than 2 measures of 4/4 + 3/4. For instance, I would give the first line as: 7/4, 7/4, 4/4, 4/4, 7/4
Again, wonderful list and thanks for laying it all out so beautifully. It came in very handy when I was quizzing my sister with some Beatles time signature trivia!
10.23pm
8 January 2015
The official score treats All You Need Is Love as 4/4 + 3/4 not 7/4; although changing it to 7/4 would suit the way the verses sound, this structure makes it easier to write the melody down. The complete score is pretty consistent that way, sometimes it seems non-intuitive. I’d personally play bass to it in 7/4 but I’m not playing the melody
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5.21pm
5 July 2015
ewe2 said
The official score treats All You Need Is Love as 4/4 + 3/4 not 7/4; although changing it to 7/4 would suit the way the verses sound, this structure makes it easier to write the melody down. The complete score is pretty consistent that way, sometimes it seems non-intuitive. I’d personally play bass to it in 7/4 but I’m not playing the melody
I have a Beatles sheet music book for easy guitar/piano and it also shows 4/4 + 3/4. However, that still doesn’t feel “right” to me (I suppose it’s just a matter of semantics).
However, I’m interested to know if the official score (which I do not have) gives measures like 5/4, 4/4, 9/8, 12/8, 12/8, 9/8, 12/8, 12/8 during the “soap impression” line of Happiness Is A Warm Gun . @CebeBee13, did you look at any official sheet music to get these or were just following what sounds right, phrase-wise?
12.10am
15 May 2015
6.35pm
20 November 2016
I apologize if this is obvious to everyone – my first time posting and I’m so excited about this forum.
has anyone struggled counting along with the intro of “Drive My Car ” and falling in sync with the beat when the verse starts? An example of something that does NOT help is the Hal Leonard complete scores – the big bible I used to think. They don’t use common sense – they start with a 4/4 bar followed by 9/8! I guarantee the Beatles didn’t stand up there negotiating an extra eighth note stuck at the end of a measure. I’m not suggesting they were uncomfortable with odd meters!! Most deftly handled – but they wouldn’t have in this situation. This intro is Straight forward 4/4 rock and roll.
the fix:
back up one eight note to start before the measure – the first note (A) is an eighth note pick up into the downbeat (C). I have seen a few correct transcriptions of this but the Hal Leonard while mathematically correct is not useful – I think it essential to transcribe how the artists thought of it when they played it.
i did this same “back up” count trick btw with Led Zeppelin’s rock and roll…start on the ‘and’ of count 3 and it’s straight forward 4/4 rock and roll! Sorry I know this is a Beatles forum!
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20 August 2013
@peterp62, I am so glad you are excited about posting on the forum! Our people who know about the technical side of music will certainly be happy to see your contributions. I’ll read them and nod even though I have no idea what you all are talking about. Keep it up. Maybe it will rub off on me one of these days…years…decades???
If you go to the previous page in this thread you will see a great discussion on the intro to Drive My Car . Here’s the link to get you started https://www.beatlesbible.com/f…..4/#p166158
Happy posting!
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8.32pm
20 November 2016
CebeBee13 said
I know this is an old topic, but it piqued my interest, and I think I’ve managed to collate every Beatles song with a non-4/4 time signature. It’s not the neatest, but it’s exhaustive to the best of my knowledge. Enjoy! Please ignore the sloppy numbering/bulleting, I just wanted to keep each song separate, and some songs had several sub-headings. So it seems that the most complex songs are, as expected, Happiness Is A Warm Gun and perhaps less expectedly, Good Morning Good Morning and Blackbird . I was also surprised to learn that Girl was 2/2 and not 4/4, but I think you could chalk that up to semantics.Please Please Me
All 4/4 except:
- A Taste Of Honey : 6/8 (bridge in 12/8)
With the Beatles
All 4/4 except:
- You Really Got A Hold On Me : 12/8
A Hard Day’s Night :
All 4/4Beatles For Sale :
All 4/4 except:
- Baby’s In Black : 6/8
Help !:
All 4/4 except:Rubber Soul :
All 4/4 except:
- Drive My Car : starting drum fill is inside a bar of 5/4
- Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown): 6/8
- Girl: 2/4
Revolver :
All 4/4 except:
- Love You To : chorus is one bar of 3/4 followed by four bars of 4/4
- She Said She Said : bridge has two bars of 4/4, three bars of 3/4, then one bar of 6/4 and one bar of 3/4 twice over
- I Want To Tell You : verse is three bars of 4/4, two bars of 6/4, and six bars of 4/4
Sgt. Pepper ‘s Lonely Hearts Club Band:
All 4/4 except:
- Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds : verses are 6/8, chorus is 4/4
- She’s Leaving Home : 6/8
- Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!: verses are 4/4, bridge/instrumental section is 3/4
- Within You Without You : intro has a bar of 2/4 near the end, bridge has a bar of 5/4 (“no-one else can make you change”, “if they only knew”)
- verse has three bars of 5/4, one bar of 3/4, one bar of 4/4 and one bar of 5/4
- guitar solo and second verse are the same, but omit the last bar of 5/4
- fourth verse has three bars of 5/4, one bar of 3/4, one bar of 4/4, one bar of 5/4, one bar of 4/4, and two bars of 3/4
- could be argued that the bridge (“everything is closed it’s like a ruin”) is in 12/8
- chorus has one bar of 4/4, two bars of 3/4, and two bars of 4/4
- outro is in 4/4
Magical Mystery Tour :
All 4/4 except:
- Magical Mystery Tour : song is in 4/4, then after the slowdown, the “coming to take you away” part and the outro are in 6/8
- Blue Jay Way : held note before chorus in a bar of 6/4, then the chorus is in 12/8, verses are in 4/4
- Your Mother Should Know : the second bar of the instrumental piano section is in 2/4
- Hello Goodbye : last bar before chorus is 2/4 (“and I say hello”)
- Strawberry Fields Forever : last bar of intro before the vocals start is 2/4; the seventh bar of the verse is 2/4 (“nothing to get…”), and the ninth bar is 3/4 (“strawberry fields for…”)
- All You Need Is Love : the pre-verse (“love, love, love”) goes 4/4, 3/4, 4/4, 3/4, 4/4 x3, 3/4, then the verse is the same but the last bar becomes 4/4. The last bar of the chorus (after “love is all you need”) is 2/4
The Beatles:
All 4/4 except:
- Dear Prudence : the fourth bar, and “look around, round, round, aaaah” is a bar of 4/4 and a bar of 2/4
- Glass Onion : the end part, with the strings, is in 6/4
- The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill : the fourth bar of the chorus is in 2/4; in the last chorus, this also occurs on the eighth bar
- Happiness Is A Warm Gun : this is a weird one. “Like a lizard” is 2/4,
- “A soap impression of his wife which he ate and donated to the…” is in 5/4, followed by: 4/4, 9/8, 12/8, 12/8, 9/8, 12/8, 12/8
- Every other bar in the verse is in 4/4, and the drums are, for the most part, in 4/4 as well, creating a polyrhythmic feel
- “Mother Superior jumped the gun” alternates between 9/8 and 10/8, three times over
- “Happiness Is A Warm Gun ” is in 4/4 for four bars, then moves to 12/8 for four bars, 4/4 for five more, and one bar of 2/4. Until the last two bars, the drums stay in 4/4 throughout
- Martha My Dear : in the intro, a bar of 5/4, followed by six bars of 4/4, the same again, then eight bars of 4/4
- “Take a good look around you” goes 2/4, 4/4, 2/4, five bars of 4/4, and one of 2/4
- I’m So Tired : “fix myself a…”, “know what you would…” and “such a stupid…” are in 2/4
Blackbird : intro is 3/4 to 4/4
- verse is 3/4, 4/4 three times, 3/2 twice, 4/4 twice, and 2/4
- “Blackbird fly…” is 4/4 four times, followed by 2/4 and 3/4, then 4/4 until
- The instrumental section before this next verse goes: 3/4 twice, then 2/4,
- Piggies : the last bar of silence before the orchestral swell at the end is in 3/4
- Don’t Pass Me By : “love me any…” and “waiting to hear from…” are in 2/4, as well as “Don’t Pass Me By ” in the same spot at the end
- Yer Blues : verse is in 12/8, “if I ain’t dead already” goes 8/8 to 6/8
- “my mother was of the sky” bit goes 4/4 three times, then 6/8
- last bar of the solo with the drum fill is 2/4
- Mother Nature’s Son : has a bar of 2/4 before every “riff” (with the pull-offs on the high E string)
- Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey: on the word “monkey”, it alternates between 3/4 and 4/4 twice
- Long Long Long: 6/8, with a bar of 9/8 in the verses (before “so many tears…”, and other places)
- Revolution : 12/8, third bar of every verse is 6/8, as is “an-y how”
- Honey Pie : intro is essentially free time, the rest is 4/4
- Savoy Truffle : Intro goes 4/4, 7/8, 6/8, and this occurs between the first and second verses also
- Cry Baby Cry : the bar before “the duke of marigold was…”, and before the chorus, are 2/4, and the same for the other bits that are the same as this
- Revolution 9 : free time!
Abbey Road :
All 4/4 except:
- Oh! Darling : 12/8
- I Want You (She’s So Heavy): intro and heavy bits are 6/8, latin-y bit is 4/4, with last bar of each verse being 2/4
- Here Comes The Sun : all 4/4 until bridge, which goes: 2/4, 3/8 three times, 5/8, 4/4, and then repeat until the verse comes back
- You Never Give Me Your Money : last bar before “came true…” is 2/4
- Mean Mr. Mustard: goes into 12/8 right at the end
- She Came In Through The Bathroom Window : last bar before second verse is 2/4
- Golden Slumbers : bar before “and I will sing a lullaby” is 2/4
- The End : “the love you take” is 3/8
Yellow Submarine :
All 4/4 except:
- Only A Northern Song : “wrote it like that”, “play it like that”, and the corresponding bar in the instrumental bits are in 2/4
- “only a northern” is in 3/4
Let it Be:
All 4/4 except:
- Two of Us: “someone’s”, “arriving”, etc, are 2/4
- “we on our way home” is 3/4, “we’re going home” is 2/4
- Dig A Pony : 6/8
- Across The Universe : “…way Across The Universe ” is 5/4
- last bar before “jai guru deva…” is 2/4
- I Me Mine : 6/8
- Dig It : 6/8
- For You Blue : 12/8
Past Masters :
All 4/4 except:
- This Boy : 12/8
- I Call Your Name : 4/4, but bridge (the ska bit) is in 12/8
- Yes It Is : 12/8
- We Can Work It Out : 4/4, but bridge is in 3/4
- Rain : in verse 2, on the second “when the suuuuun…”, is 2/4
- Hey Jude : “Hey Jude , you’ll do, the movement you need is on your shoulder, na na na NA NA…”, on the last two “nas”, is 2/4
- Revolution : same as “Revolution 1 “, but it’s 4/4 and 2/4 rather than 12/8 and 6/8 respectively
- Don’t Let Me Down : first bar of each verse is 5/4 (“nobody ever loved me like she does”)
- Across The Universe : same as the Let it Be version, but in a different key
I posted a question about the intro to “Day in the Life” and just erased it – I finally got hold of a multitrack – I realize it certainly is 4/4 but for some reason it is elusive to me! I can’t naturally feel the phrasing and come out right LOL
8.45pm
23 July 2016
Only thing wrong with that list is that Revolution 9 is in the same tempo as Revolution 1 , not free time.
Maybe you should try posting more.
9.29am
Moderators
15 February 2015
There’s a funny bar in the beginning of Got To Get You Into My Life that throws me every time. If you’re counting along it goes 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, and then 1-2, 1-‘I was alone, I took a ride…’
I’m terrible with time signatures — I keep rhythms instinctively as opposed to consciously. So am I correct in assuming it to be an odd bar of 2/4 thrown in to keep drummers everywhere on their toes?
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