Popular music is stuck almost exclusively in 4/4 time

[LeMartinPecheur]

(In my head.) Not in mine.

= Out of my head?

[Flay]

There's nothing new about converting 3/4 time to 4/4 in popular music culture:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k4SLSlSmW74

[gurnemanz]

Dylan likes 3/4:
First to occur to me: Ramona, No Time to Think
also
The Times They Are A-Changin'
Masters of War
Hard Rain
All I really want to do
Sad-Eyed lady (6/8)
Man in the Long Black Coat

[jayne lee wilson]

Plenty of rhythmic interest in pop if you know where to look (and not necessarily dependent on unusual time sigs...)

Try Girls Aloud "Biology" and (after cooling off), Britney Spears "Toxic". (Then try System of Down "Toxic/Toxicity").
On a different tack, Massive Attack e.g "Hymn of the Big Wheel" or "Karmacoma"; DJ Shadow with "Changeling"...
Stranglers, "Golden Brown"...
Radiohead, "Subterranean Homesick Alien" and "Paranoid Android"...

These I have loved!...all easily found on youtube.

Pop is basically dance music, so inevitably runs on regular rhythms; as for irregular ones, the most famous is Strawberry Fields, but have a look here:

http://twentytwowords.com/2011/05/18/6

[Pabmusic]

Plenty of rhythmic interest in pop if you know where to look (and not necessarily dependent on unusual time sigs...)

Try Girls Aloud "Biology" and (after cooling off), Britney Spears "Toxic". (Then try System of Down "Toxic/Toxicity").
On a different tack, Massive Attack e.g "Hymn of the Big Wheel" or "Karmacoma"; DJ Shadow with "Changeling"...
Stranglers, "Golden Brown"...
...all easily found on youtube.

Pop is basically dance music, so inevitably runs on regular rhythms; as for irregular ones, the most famous is Strawberry Fields, but have a look here:
http://twentytwowords.com/2011/05/18/6

Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill is a good example of this rare-ish phenomenon. It's mainly in 7/4 with syncopations.

Come to think of it, Genesis's Watcher Of The Skies (Gabriel era) was complicated - clearly inspired by Mars, but with some excellent (real) playing. A world away from disco, of course.

[Mr Pee]

Nuff said matey

try this

http://www.citylit.ac.uk/courses/mus...l_ear_training

Why do you continually have to be so insulting, Mr.GG??

I did all that during my four years at music college- well, 6 years if you include my A level foundation course.

We disagree. I am not the only one who finds this link tenuous to say the least. You don't, that's fine. But there's no need to belittle and insult those who disagree.

And you accuse me of trolling?

[Quarky]

Before anyone contradicts this by bring up examples of "pop" music in 3/4 or other meters, I did say "almost exclusively". I bring up the point now because Beyonce has just sung "The Star Spangled Banner", a melody composed in 3/4 time; but she sang it in 4/4 time.
Some years ago, when England hosted the Rugby Union World Cup, the song "World in Union" was set to the big 3/4 melody at the heart of Holst's "Jupiter", from The Planets - except that it was brutally molested to make it fit into 4/4 time.

Don't these people have any imagination? Or are they stuck in a 4/4 groove?

In mitigation of Alpensinfonie's charge of Americans changing time signatures of their own music, I would refer tothe Obama's dancing at the inaugural ball to Al Green's Let's stay together. This was quoted on the "Swing" thread as an example of swing. But maybe to AS's ears it is 12/8??

[MrGongGong]

having now listened to the Beyonce clip i wouldn't say she was singing it in 4 either, it's more like a kind of elongated 3 then 4ish then pause
obviously influenced by recitative singing in Opera

and do get off you high horse mr Pee or is it time to flounce off again ?
going to music college is no guarantee of being able to listen you know !

[Mr Pee]

and do get off you high horse mr Pee or is it time to flounce off again ?
going to music college is no guarantee of being able to listen you know !

No, obviously I'm a tone-deaf moron who wouldn't recognise The Star Spangled Banner if it got up and punched me in the face.

Thanks for letting me know.

Perhaps your board name should be Mr.Perfect, since you are clearly always right about everything.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I was hoping we caould have a reasonable discussion about why pop arrangers change 3/4 into 4/4 or something similar. Instead, it quickly developed into personal attacks - AGAIN!

[Quarky]

I was hoping we caould have a reasonable discussion about why pop arrangers change 3/4 into 4/4 or something similar. Instead, it quickly developed into personal attacks - AGAIN! :sadface"

Not at all AS. It was you that raised the subject of change of time signatures. And the past couple of posts have shown that your charges were totally misconceived from a logical and musical point of view.

A fact you have conveniently overlooked!

[cloughie]

To offer an alternative theory about the 4/4 thing - as a bungling amateur who messes about with tunes a bit the thin I have most difficulty with is time signatures - 4/4 is the easiest to crack and maybe others with limited musical theoretical knowledge but a musical enthusiasm may have the same problems.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I should think that Beyonce is capable of singing in 3/4 time, just as Dame Kiri was when asked to sing "The World in Union.
Is the assumption that the listeners cannot cope with anything but common time and its variants?

[Mr Pee]

I was hoping we caould have a reasonable discussion about why pop arrangers change 3/4 into 4/4 or something similar. Instead, it quickly developed into personal attacks - AGAIN!

I apologise for my ill-tempered reaction to Mr. GG's earlier comment, but it was a personal attack- again- that I thought was wholly unwarranted. He seems to resort to this tactic time and time again and it is deeply tiresome, to put it mildly.

Anyway, to preserve my blood pressure and in order not to inflame matters further I shall confine my attention to other threads.

[Lateralthinking1]

Interesting to see the examples given, some more surprising than others. Strawberry Fields Forever, Solsbury Hill and Golden Brown are all excellent. If the term 'pop song' can be defined, the first might be my favourite of all time but there are other contenders.

Some say that the accent on 4/4 is to do with footsteps (2/2?). Many nursery rhymes and hymns are in 4/4 - and a fair number of anthems too. So you have the easiness, the accessibility and the communion aspects there. 4/4 probably suits a stadium.

4/4 fits well too with the idea of pop music as a cult or a series of cults. The historical time frame of pop music is far shorter - arguably 1950s onwards - and the commercial turnover far more rapid. Complexity would slow everything down.

Originally the music was for teenagers and to some extent that is still the case, certainly in any current outputs. Teenagers are quickly replaced by new teenagers. They want different things inside the pop framework. Few dreamed that any of it would last.

The Bacharach example is fascinating. Originally, only someone sophisticated like him could probably have been that different and commercial. You see a lot of odd time signatures in prog rock which in one way was a fad like many other fads but different concepts of times work there - the need for it to be done on albums, the fact that they would be in the album charts for years.

And more recently, other time signatures have been evident in dance-related material. Music being led by people wanting to try out different dances. I'm surprised there is the ability there but can understand it. Perhaps 'Hey Ya' deserved all the hype after all.