This short is an excerpt from my "Music Theory Iceberg" video, which you can see in full here:
Short modified by Rob Goorney
What are Irrational time signatures?
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What are Irrational time signatures?
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Now THAT’S trippy!
Someone should write a truly irrational time signatures song. Like take an irrational numer like pi and then the first bar has 3 beats, the next 1 the next 4 then 1 again etc.
You mean Conlon Nancarrow :
https://youtu.be/e2reuQyLoZM?si=30Z_Tfu4jujQMXtx
That isn’t how irrational numbers work.
Can’t believe Tool hasn’t done this already.
Would be pretty hard to learn ngl, there’s songs which have multiple time signatures in a verse and it’s still pretty hard to follow for me.
@@ethanyalejaffe5234 technically it uses an “irrational” number to alter the time signatures so yeah, or just use 22/7
It’s worth pointing out that you will almost never find a piece of music written entirely in an irrational time signature. The reason you would implement an irrational time signature is effectively an alternative way to encode a temporary proportional tempo change (in this case, quarter = dotted quarter).
It’s a byproduct of metric modulation, right?
What is the reason for this? 7/12 sounds really good especially for a prog metal song
@@D3VAXO It’d be easier to slow down the tempo and have it be in 7/16 instead. Like eighth note triplets (the division in 7/12) at 120 bpm sound the same as sixteenth notes (the division in 7/16) at 90 bpm
is that a challenge?
Prog metal has entered the chat
Jokes aside Eleven by Primus is an 11/7 time sig
A major pet peeve of mine is that “irrational” time signatures have nothing to do with irrational numbers (such as pi or the square root of 2). It really just means that the denominator is not a power of two. Unrelated, but “interpolations” are just musical quotes and aren’t interpolating anything.
Yup! If it is written 7/12: there you go, this is a ratio, therefore it isn’t irrational. It is a cringeworthy misnomer.
I write music in pi/4 time signature 😂
@@Lotschi I work for RaspberryPi 😀
@@andrasferencz1102 😂
Exactly, irrational time signatures should follow an infinite continued fraction.
Ty as a drummer for 40 years I can honestly say, AAAAAAAAA, every time I encounter these bars. It’s like playing rhythm bar, rhythm bar, trip off, stage rhythm bar
I’m still waiting for a complex time signature like 2+i / 2
I need a polynomial time signature and the measure number is x
Good one👍
I myself am hyped for √2/e, a true irrational time signature
Wait till u hear about transcendental time signatures
I need trigonometric, integral, and differential time signatures 1😤😡 For example.
Csc( ∫ [(5^(cos(ln7x)log(6picot(ex)))/(2x^7 +13x + 17)]) /
15(tanx)^-1
Can someone explain- whats the difference between 7/12 and 7/8 apart from the grouping of notes??
7/8:
a) Hybrid triple meter
a1) A hybrid meter is when there is a mix of 2 and 3 pulses in different beats
a2) triple meter is when there’s 3 beats
a3) 2 beats with 2 eighth notes, 1 beat with 3 eighth notes
a4) the groupings can be arranged as 223, 232 and 322
7/12:
It’s not real. It’s impractical and if I composed a piece in 7/12 and handed it to musicians my career would be over because no one would take me seriously.
@@YouTubeChannel-nf2nwthe purpose will never be to compose an entire piece in 7/12. It’s very niche to the more rhythmically complex / dense compositions where it’s added in small amounts, almost exclusively a single bar at a time, because it’s easier to say _”play triplets but don’t finish the beat”_ as opposed to saying _”we’re switching to 7/8 but also changing the tempo just for this one bar then going back to the original meter and tempo.”_
It’s a very happy median between metric modulations and honestly an easy way to set up a metric mod.
See above. 7/8 would be based on the eighth note grid, locked to the metronome, whereas 7/12 would feel like a stutter-step, an incomplete beat, really throwing the listener for a loop by upsetting the perception of time temporarily before falling back into the normal power-of-two meter.
I think 22/7 would be an interesting irrational time signature if that’s possible
Haha no coincidences there
I’m here to tell you there is a whole song written in 31/16
@@galacticp1 31/16 isn’t irrational though, right?
@@LSqreneither is 22/7.
@@fatitankeris6327the joke with 22/7 os that it’s an,approximation of pi
okay but what sadistic monster would write something in 7/12?
Ades
Tool
If I were to pursue musical composition, 7/12 would be pretty fun, like 6/8 with taffy on the end
One that isn’t especially difficult on drums, is 11/12.
Play any 4/4 with triplets on the hats and skip the last one.
This guy gets it
Just play but cut the beat short and don’t finish it
DAWG THE FUCKING HFJONE MUSIC.
THIS IS WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR
MF SPOW YEAAHAHHAHAH
IK 😭😭😭
Me a mathematician: wait but 7/12 is literally a ratio. Give me the pi time signature
yerp,music theory begins with Pythagorean fractions and ratios
pi/26
Well sqrt 2 would suffice
Yours is not only irrational but transcendental
@@fahrenheit2101 fair I just wanted to pick a number anyone can understand is irrational and I think most people know that pi goes on forever
@@plasmakitten4261 well 1/3 goes on forever too, but ofc ik what you mean.
Mathematicians are crying
I’ve always called these “Polyrhythmicus Interruptus”
this man is single-handedly saving me in AP music theory this year
I can’t even read sheet music, why do I keep watching this?
Bro awakened mathmatecians
I know it’s hard to fit a lot of info into a short like this, but i really wish you had made sure to explain that these are not to be confused with Asymmetric time signatures (and maybe pointed out to your viewers if you have another video explaining that). The average developing musician might see this as being just as complex or difficult as the likes of 7/8, 5/4, 9/16, etc.
Thanks for explaining something new to me though, it made sense. I’ve encountered lots of Asymmetric meter as a musician but have never had to read an “irrational ” time signature.
With the example that was given however, there’s a way to write the exact same rythm using just Asymmetric meters instead
And I guess a 7/12 bar is an example where it would be both Asymmetric and “irrational”… but normal Asymmetric meter really is not that difficult once you get the hang of it and is much more common to see in music
I think of 7/12 as a basic understanding… 7 dotted whole notes. Where dotted half notes are 8ths, and dotted quarters are 16ths.
This is the best explanation I’ve seen yet.