J-Sin
168 posts
Jun 16, 2015
7:05 AM
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My friends -- It's time for a small musical competition!
Here's a balkanesque chromatic harp cut called "Bulgari Vulgaris" from our new album. The song has been quite hard for the band to learn, mainly because of the tricky time signature I stubbornly insisted to retain. We still experience occasional hiccups on gigs with this one, but it's been a valuable learning process and the song gets better every time! Take a listen:
Now -- Can YOU guess the time signature? The first 3 on this forum with the correct answer (or a particularly good guess) will win a free digital download code for the new Sigi Tolo album!
So how does it go? And-a-one, and-a-two, and-a-one-two-three....
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Reed To The Beat!
Last Edited by J-Sin on Jun 16, 2015 7:06 AM
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yonderwall
101 posts
Jun 16, 2015
7:45 AM
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I'm going with 13/4 time. That's my story and I'm standing by it.
Great tune, btw!
EDIT: I reversed my top and bottom numbers by mistake. Corrected now.
Last Edited by yonderwall on Jun 16, 2015 7:55 AM
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HarmonicaMick
321 posts
Jun 16, 2015
7:53 AM
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You've got me stumped - at least after winding the first half back a few times.
Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that you've mixed groups of twos and threes together, otherwise counting it would be next to impossible.
As for the time signature, sometimes these types of rhythms are written out with the total number of beats, with the beams explicitly showing the groupings, e.g. 7/8 (which this isn't) as 2 quavers beamed + 3 quavers beamed + 2 quavers beamed; and sometimes they are written out with the time signature explicitly stating the groupings, e.g. 2/8 + 3/8 + 2/8.
Dave Brubeck's Take Five is the kind of thing I'm talking about, which is really just alternating bars 3/4 + 2/4, but written as 5/4.
Whatever its time signature, it's a right foot-stomping ditty that no doubt get the crowd going, with some pretty tasty harp.
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1847
2449 posts
Jun 16, 2015
8:02 AM
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33/32
i like that also, very nice.
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Komuso
618 posts
Jun 16, 2015
8:29 AM
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Nice!
Time sig..um..er...16/8?
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Paul Cohen aka Komuso Tokugawa
HarpNinja - Learn Harmonica Faster
Bringing the Boogie to the Bitstream
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Baker
404 posts
Jun 17, 2015
5:27 AM
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Errrr, hmmmm, I'm going to go for 7/8
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blingty
73 posts
Jun 17, 2015
7:49 AM
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Hey there,
Firstly, I really like the tunes, great stuff, great overall sound too - well done on this stuff.
The overall main pattern is not symmetric - it seems like 3 of 1 pattern and then 1 of an ending phrase as follows:
3 of this (pattern A):
7/8 4/8 7/8 7/8
= 25/8
Then one of these (pattern B) to end the phrase with a 4 feel at the end - similar to pattern A except ended by a bar of 8/8:
7/8 4/8 7/8 8/8 = 26/8
So overall, we get
= 3 x 25 + 26 = 75 + 26 = 101
So 101 is the number of 8th note beats in the cyclic pattern but you could say the time sign alternates between 25/8 and 26/8 :-)
But! Then between :42 and 50ish after 3 repetitions (I think) of that main theme, it seems to change to another time sig 7/8. We have 8 repetitions of 7/8,
8 x 7/8 = 56
So I guess you could say that it is 3 x 101 = 303 +56 = 359 but that's kind of ridiculous - we wouldn't really count the repetitions of each bar of 7/8, 25/8, 26/8 in the main time sig.
Nice stuff either way!
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blintgy like soundcloud, ug
Last Edited by blingty on Jun 18, 2015 1:52 AM
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MindTheGap
615 posts
Jun 17, 2015
11:51 PM
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Before this disappears off the front page..I take a stab because I want to find out what the answer was. Great music though.
I though I heard in each phrase is something like
4 2 2 4 2 so 14/x
but then the next phrase come in a bit quick, so how about
8 4 4 8 3 so 27/x
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Rubes
951 posts
Jun 18, 2015
2:50 AM
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I downloaded this album last week and I have played it to death!!!!!!! I'm gonna give my percussion student son the problem and see what he comes up with......
He says 7/16 but I think he's guessing.....I love the track and its complexity...so I assume it's more complicated than that....
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Old Man Rubes at Reverbnation
Dads in Space at Reverbnation
Last Edited by Rubes on Jun 18, 2015 2:53 AM
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blingty
74 posts
Jun 18, 2015
3:02 AM
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Yeah, I guess you can notate them as 8 or 16 for the "gets the beat" bottom number. From Wikipedia entry on Bulgarian dances:
"There is also disagreement about whether one should use 1/8 or 1/16 as meter denominator, but this is just a notational convenience."
It seems like there is some precedent for 25 beat time sigs in Bulgarian music. Again, from the Wikipedia entry on Bulgrian dances:
"Sedi Donka (???? ?????), also called Plovdivsko horo (?????????? ????) (7+7+11, where 7=3+2+2 and 11=2+2+3+2+2; 7/16+7/16+11/16 or 25/16)"
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blintgy like soundcloud, ug
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Komuso
621 posts
Jun 18, 2015
8:48 AM
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It sounds mixed time sigs to me but to keep it "simple" I just tried to work on one and came up with 16/8.
It depends where you define the measure boundaries. The patterns repeat generally in cycles of 2, but are they two measures of two patterns or one measure of two different patterns?
The pulse feels somewhere between 7 or 8 for each pattern, and the denominator would have to be 8 at least for this speed I think.
But I don't really know! Interesting challenge though.
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Paul Cohen aka Komuso Tokugawa
HarpNinja - Learn Harmonica Faster
Bringing the Boogie to the Bitstream
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J-Sin
172 posts
Jun 21, 2015
1:07 PM
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I spent a long long time writing an answer post only to have the spam filter devour it. Oh well. In a nutshell:
The time sig is indeed a tricky one. It's basically in 7/8, but like many of you gathered, it's mixed or asymmetrical as they say. I'm sure there are different ways to think this, and I'm not a pro in music theory. But this is how the band thinks the A part.
7 4 7 7
7 4 7 7
7 4 7 6
7 4 7 8
The last bars of each line really make it interesting. Just when you think you got it, you lose count!
The rest of the song is more or less in 7/8, with minor exceptions in the break parts and the ending. I was really after the main theme, as it is the most unusual one. Hope this clarifies things to some degree.
I'm giving free downloads to HarmonicaMick, blingty and Komuso for educated guesses and effort. To claim the code, please email me to: jantsojokelin (at) gmail.
Thank you all for showing interest in this, and for your kind words! If you still have questions I'll try to answer them!
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Reed To The Beat!
Last Edited by J-Sin on Jun 21, 2015 1:08 PM
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HarmonicaMick
351 posts
Jun 21, 2015
6:02 PM
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J-Sin,
That's great. Thanks very much.
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Komuso
622 posts
Jun 21, 2015
6:28 PM
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Thanks J-Sin!
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Paul Cohen aka Komuso Tokugawa
HarpNinja - Learn Harmonica Faster
Bringing the Boogie to the Bitstream
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blingty
75 posts
Jun 22, 2015
10:53 AM
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Thanks, much appreciated! I missed that 6 in the middle, ah well.
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blintgy like soundcloud, ug
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