Drum beat time signature help

jesse_ohio

OK, I came up with a guitar chord progression I'm fond of and am trying to fit a drum beat to it. Bear with me because musical notation and time signatures aren't my forte (ahahaha... ahem).

So... the timing of the chords basically goes like this:

1-2-3 -- 1-2-3-4

The bold numbers are the stressed beats. You could get an idea of my rhythm/strum pattern by doubling it like this:

1-2-3 -- 1-2-3 -- 1-2-3-4 -- 1-2-3-4

If you want to put chords to that pattern to really imagine what I'm strumming it would go like this:

F F G G Em Em F F
1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4-

So musically it doesn't sound all that odd or irregular, but I can't find a standard or compound drum pattern that seems to fit.

I'm starting to wonder if the actual time signature of the whole measure is 3/4, with two added beats at the end... like this:

1-2-3 -- 1-2-3 -- 1-2-3 -- 1-2-3 -- 1-2

But those last two beats would be at a different rhythm/meter than the 3/4 part... they would sound spread out kind of. Lol, I'm sorry, I don't make any sense.

So....... any ideas what is the right time signature for this?? Thanks!

yowza

It looks like it could be a changing time signature from 3/4 to 4/4 or you might be able to use 7/4 but it really depends on where you feel the beat and rhythmic groupings and how it's accented. Any two people could feel and count time signatures differently.

Hope this helps!

jesse_ohio

Hmm, okay, that's kind of what I was expecting, but I wish it could be just some concrete known time signature that I could find a loop for, haha... And I really have no idea how to program drums manually if the time signature is indeed split/changed in the middle of the measure.

I did find this "4 over 3 polyrhythm" on youtube that worked pretty well, although that's not exactly standard either.

When I get a chance I'll try to record a quick guitar clip so you can hear what I'm actually playing and see if there's an easier way to break it down. Thanks

jg707

While it's hard to know how to program it without hearing it, my understanding is you're stressing the '1' in each grouping of 3, and again on the last 2 beat phrase. If you're looking to program this into a sequencer or daw, I would program it as 4 bars of 3/4 followed by 1 bar of 2/4. I think that will make it easier to work with rather then trying to make it it fit 7/4.

I usually go with either the "musical phrase" is (think Pink Floyd's Money which is 7/4) or the easiest way to track it in the program, such a breaking it down to [4bars of 3/4, 1bar of 2/4] as a repeating motif. Does that help?

jesse_ohio

Yeah that definitely makes sense, it's kind of like finding the lowest common denominator in a way. I'll give it a shot... I've mixed 3/4 and 4/4 in a song before in Cubasis, but it was entire large sections of the song (verse: 3/4, bridge/solo: 4/4) so it was a pretty obvious split. But I don't see why it wouldn't work for a single measure, if I can arrange each piece right in a drum app.... thanks

jg707

I'm not that familiar with Cubasis (I'm an Auria user), but could you create a template of the initial phrase and then just copy/paste it then just remove any note info? Might save some labor.....

Fitz

It could be that your rhythm is in 14. This may seem to be a ridiculously large number but in Flamenco, for example, many of their rhythms are based around 12s. For many years it's been written as a composite rhythm, using a combination of 3s and 2s, but really it's a 12 rhythm. Maybe just create a rhythm that fits your strumming - I know that Drumperfect can create 14/4 rhythms for example. You could build it up using 3s and 4s within the 14 structure, but in the end step back from it and it's a distinctive rhythm over 14.

SpookyZoo

Would recommend you check out this app... Rhythm calculator. It's great.

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/rhythm-calculator-advanced/id527973842?mt=8