advanced rhythms

does anyone know of any good books on advanced rhtythms sum weird off time stuff

I have seen a book that's called "10000000000 rhythms" or something... It's intended for drummers, and it has pages that are cut in 4 parts. So you can turn each quarters independantly, creating a new rhythm (each quarter is for each leg/arm) If you can get a hold of something like this,try reading it as if they were 4 consecutive staves.
Or try Polyrhythms (found in African music, and Frank Zappa :) ) Try incorporating odd meters in you music. Exemple: "Money" By Pink Floyd, the rhythm is based on a 7/4 measure (a 4 followed by a 3) or "Take Five" based on a 5/4 (or "Mission Impossible" same rhythm)

check out my polyrythmic tutorial - its in my host section - does not cover all the polyrythms, but it should help a bit

Originally posted by aiwass
Basically, just practice counting (improvising beats) over various odd time signatures.

I know you probably know this aiwass, but it's much more than just counting. It's also feel, like which beats are the strong beats and which are the downbeats. Every wonder what the guy who waves the sticks at the orchestra or jazz band is doing. He's is showing the feel of the music. Take the time signatures 4/4, 2/2, 2/4. Whats the difference? It's the feel.

Key: ^ = strong beat (accent when counting): v = downbeat (say in low [volume]voice): - = mid beat (say in normal voice).

Now here's each time signatures feel:

4/4 = [^(1)] [v(2)] [-(3)] [v(4)]
2/2 = [^(1)] [-(2)]
2/4 = [^(1)] [v(2)]

So the difference between 2/2 and 2/4 is that the second beat in 2/2 is a mid beat, there is not downbeat in 2/2. In 2/4 the second beat is a downbeat and there is not mid beat.

Hopefully that makes sense and you can see the difference. It is pretty important to understand this and it will help out alot. Especially with drum patterns cause in a simple rock beat the snare hits on the downbeat.

Aiwass- Yeah I figured that was what you were saying, and I knew that's what you meant. I just took in a step deeper in explaining the feel of particular time signatures. Also, how to count them and get the sense of feel.

well im into alot of different odd time beats,and it is about the feel.when your used to playing normal time like 4/4 beats it feels weird playing odd time signatuares,and i just was wondering if anyone knows of good practice stuff or music so i can learn and master the style.thanks everyone for replying.

well - the master of odd time things is Meshuggah .. the singer is crap, but the rythms are completely "out there"..
and dram theater of course - get one of their songbooks and play along with the record - that will also help.

The point where it starts to be interresting is when it comes to timechanges like 7/8 to 9/8 or something like that. if you can play it well along with a good drumer it sounds absolutely cool. or polyrythms like for example you play a 5/4 riff over a 4/4 drumbeat. sounds cool for every beat sounds different allthough the riff doesnt change. Just the expression of the beats changes for the "1" hits different notes in the riff every beat untill it eventually comes back to where it started.. confuzzled? *L*

Yeah those time signatures are weird at first. What I usually do is write the drum part first, then play something over top of it. Those odd signatures like 5/4, 7/8, and 9/8 become alittle easier if you have something like drums already playing the feel. Then once I got used to this method, writting in those time signatures became alot easier. If you have a drum machine or software (I generally use fruityloops), you can write up a drum pattern and convert it to wav (mp3)file and just jam over it.

Take a 5/4 drum beat.
h:--x---x---x---x---x---
s:----------x-------x---
b:--x---x-------x-x-----

Each hi-hat hit is one beat. It's a really simple beat, but you can tell it's 5/4 very easily. And it's probably just as easy to put something to it. 5/4 is made up of two signatures, 3/4 and 2/4. This gives this time signature a sense of incompleteness.

Also check out bands like Az said, like meshuggah and also quite a few 70's classic rock bands use odd time signatures.

yeah i been listenong to alot of meshuggah there band is insane but ill pass on the singer.i was just listening to it and was like i can make this **** more insane i just need to practice some polyrhythms and odd time signatures.As for the drumming goes my drummer is just a master at stuff like that i put on the nothing c.d. and hes was like thats what we need to do and he just started playing all kinds of odd beats

Another good group to listen to for odd rhythms is Rush, esp. 79-mid 80s. Plenty of oddness in Dream Theater and King Crimson excel in it.