(seriously) XenoMeasures

I KNOW WHAT YOU MEANT!!!

Alright.

There's quite a bit of odd meters in the 70s and 80s mostly British jazz
rock fusion era. Between anyone who played with anyone who played with Yes,
Frank Zappa, or Rush even, there were a lot of odd rhythms and otherwise
strange polyrhythms out there.

A lot of times, also, it's not so much a "meter" as several-bar segments are
grouped the same way for some bizarre recurring sum. Somewhere between a
measure and a section.

Frank:

Tons of polyrhythms in any case.

I recall him saying something to the effect that his "Friendly Little
Finger" (from Zoot Allures) was a significant use of 11/8, in which I think
he actually impressed himself.

Of course "Five-Five-FIVE" from the Shut Up N Play Yer Guitar collection was
in 5/8, I think also multiples of 5 measures in places.

There's this intro from the Joe's Garage albums boinging through my head and
I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. But it's in 17/8 (5/8 5/8
7/16 7/16) Can't get rid of it now AAAA AAAA AAAA

King Crimson:

One word. D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E. Discipline was an album about one thing.
Playing rhythms against each other. It was all based on that technique Rush
used so much, playing an odd rhythm by way of playing a melody twice with
the last note left off. On Discipline, this happened where Adrian Belew
played the repetition and Robert Fripp played the shortened version.
I heard tell the bass and drums took off into 17 and 21 and such at times
but I never finished studying the album, or at least that part of it.
"Frame by Frame," in the verse, was 2 bars of 7/8 made into 13 against 14,
"Indiscipline" plows out a blaring 5/4 trail for Fripp to squeal along with,
"Thela Hun Ginjeet" we never got to. At the very least 4/4 vs 7/8 but I
think there's more.
"Discipline", the piece, does all sorts of things. The beginning two
guitars are based on 2 bars of 5/4, an unbastardization of the Indiscipline
repeat, which then are 5+5 over 5+4.
Ken and I stayed up all night on his birthday in 1984 and learned all the
double parts on the album. You should hear what we recorded at about 8am.

Also "Starless" was in 13/4, later in 13/8. Lots of odd stuff in the early
days as well.

Rush:

Well outside of that first album, once that Neil guy showed up there were a
lot of haircuts on the rhythm.
"Anthem", Peart's debut track, fires up the second album with a presto 7/8.
In the mid-early stuff, there's 7 all over the place.
The break to "Circumstances" is in a very tugging 11/8.
The "Alex (Lifeson) in Wonderland" part of "La Villa Strangiato" is in 7/4.
"Free Will" shifted from 3/4 to 4/4 a bit, every few bars.
"Jacob's Ladder", the mounting end was in 13/8.
"Tom Sawyer" I think was one of the first radio hits with a 7/4 guitar solo.
Also the coda faded out with a 14-14-14-13 sequence. See, even though it
was a discrete unit, I wouldn't call it 55/8 because it was clearly visible
as either 4 or 8 measures.
"Subdivisions" of course starts off in 7/8.
Lots of etc.

Yes:

The vocal percussion at the end of "Roundabout" has 4x 7/4 against 7x 4/4.

The middle of "South Side of the Sky", well. I've been able to play and
sing it for a long time but I never once counted it out. The piano
introduction is 10/4 by way of (3/4 + 4x 3/8 + 1/4). The next section
repeats after 40 beats; the minor 11th sort of hanging vocals that come in
last for 22, then the first 9 beats of the piano intro are repeated twice.
The Bb change is in 23/4 (8+8+7, or 7+9+7, depending on how you think of the
jump to C). Then the diminished climb in the piano left hand is in 7/4.
Which makes the point. It's both pleasant enough and complex enough that I
never really cared to push subtotal on the amount of beats per part.

For anyone who goes running for "Five Per Cent for Nothing" thinking I've
forgotten it, actually, even though there's turbulent 16th note counterpoint
going on, making you imagine it's in 5/32 or something, it's actually in
4/4.

Also, 5% going into "Long Distance Runaround", that also works out in a
certain number of bars in 4/4, but against the previous piece makes them
both seem irrationally timed. Then during the verse, if you hear the piano
in the right channel (took me years), every five piano hits, there's a very
quick "YOW" percussion stab, doubled mid-left by the snare drum.

"The Fish" has several layers building over 4 bars of 7/4.

"Siberian Khatru" is introduced with a menacing 7/4 limbo, during which a
guitar struggling to play a few notes in 4/4 emerges. And actually after 20
years of listening to it, I don't even *know* what those "dut... Dut dut..
Da do dee da do da do" vocal stabs at the end are in.

Topgraphic Oceans, ehh, nothing jostling, but a lot of what I mentioned, odd
three or four measure segments of mixed 3/4 and 4/4 and such.

"Awaken" has quite a long section in 11/4.

Then err, Trevor Rabin joined Yes and had all sort of fun with their
Synclavier and the only way anyone could tell the record wasn't skipping was
the CDs sounded the same.

Bill Bruford's stuff is plastered with odd rhythms. The beginning of his
solo stuff, the almost Sesame Streetish "Hell's Bells" which opens the "One
of a Kind" album is mostly in 19/16, with a guitar solo in 7/4.

Any additions or corrections, please reply.

Marc