Music in 7/8

Costs are rising and times are tough.
Please consider a donation to keep this
place going.

Welcome to one of the most active flamenco sites on the Internet. Guests can read most posts but if you want to participate click here to register.

This site is dedicated to the memory of Paco de Lucía, Ron Mitchell, Guy Williams, Linda Elvira, Philip John Lee, Craig Eros, Ben Woods, David Serva and Tom Blackshear who went ahead of us.

We receive 12,200 visitors a month from 200 countries and 1.7 million page impressions a year. To advertise on this site please contact us.

Music in 7/8

You are logged in as Guest

Users viewing this topic: none

Printable Version

All Forums >>Discussions >>Off Topic >>

Page: [1]

Message

<< Newer Topic Older Topic >>

chester

Posts: 891
Joined: Oct. 29 2010

Music in 7/8

I've been fooling around with 7/8 time for a while, composing different tunes on it. I've been noticing they're pretty basic (rhythmically) -- I can't seem to get away from the 12 12 123 feel.

Can anyone point me towards a groovy music genre that uses 7/8 a lot so I can glean some rhythmic ideas?

I figured a flamenco forum would be a likely place for someone with a more esoteric musical taste (paco's masterpiece thread notwithstanding)

Thanks, I'd appreciate any direction with this.

Peace.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 19 2014 20:31:44

El Kiko

Posts: 2697
Joined: Jun. 7 2010
From: The South Ireland

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

cant think of anything obviously in 7/8 but Conlon Nancarrow has a Study for Piano No. 41a that is written in, one over the square root of pi and whose denominator is the square root of ⅔., if you want to see if you can make that groove .....what do you do when you see this written at the beginning of the piece ..

1/√π/√⅔.................???

_____________________________

Don't trust Atoms.....they make up everything.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 19 2014 20:49:02

NenadK

Posts: 137
Joined: Jun. 6 2010

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

This is Jovano Jovanke. Macedonian folk song.

Enjoy!

N

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 19 2014 22:09:07

shaun

Posts: 176
Joined: May 11 2012
From: Edmonton, Canada

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

Search for "septuple meter".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuple_meter

A lot of prog rock and prog metal use odd time signatures like that.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 19 2014 22:57:31

Estevan

Posts: 1936
Joined: Dec. 20 2006
From: Torontolucía

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

It's common in Bulgarian and Macedonian music where they have a lot of dances that are usually very fast - look for ruchenitsa (maybe also spelled rachenitsa) as well as elenino horo and chetvorno horo. There are other names but I can't recall them (I played that stuff a long time ago).

At a more moderate pace, Nenad's example is nice - there's another popular Macedonian song called 'Shto mi e milo' that you can probably find online.

In Greek music there's a dance in 7 called kalamatianos - probably others too.

There's a beautiful interlude in 'El Amor Brujo' by Manuel de Falla which is in 7/8. It's on Paco's Falla album: "Introducción y Pantomima" (it's the Pantomima).

A really great American example is the Grateful Dead song 'Estimated Prophet' which is a kind of reggae in 7/4.

Also North Indian music in rupak tal. (Or in South Indian music, tisra jati triputa tala).

_____________________________

Me da igual. La música es música.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 20 2014 0:21:27

El Kiko

Posts: 2697
Joined: Jun. 7 2010
From: The South Ireland

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to El Kiko)

only messing ...i would have thought "" Unsquare Dance"" Dave Brubeck would have came up by now .........its a definate and well known 7/8....

_____________________________

Don't trust Atoms.....they make up everything.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 20 2014 0:50:03

estebanana

Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

Get Dusan Bogdanovich's Polymetric studies for guitar.

sample: http://www.scribd.com/doc/99650125/Dusan-Bogdanovic-Polymetric-Studies

There's stuff in there that will break the 1212123 pattern in your head. Fo sizzle.

_____________________________

https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 20 2014 0:52:03

Ricardo

Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

imposing a 7/4 over top of two bars of 7/8 breaks up the monotony of your 1212123 patterns.

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 20 2014 7:18:39

Thomas

Posts: 225
Joined: Oct. 5 2005

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

_____________________________

TeFau Studio Thomas Vogt
Cuadro Sur Guitar Trio

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 20 2014 8:25:07

mark indigo

Posts: 3625
Joined: Dec. 5 2007

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

quote:

groovy music genre that uses 7/8

one of the songs in "Jesus Christ Superstar" the musical uses it

_____________________________

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 20 2014 15:24:16

tri7/5

Posts: 570
Joined: May 5 2012

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

Isn't Vicente's Roma in 7/8?

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 20 2014 17:47:29

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

quote:

Can anyone point me towards a groovy music genre that uses 7/8 a lot so I can glean some rhythmic ideas?

Check out music of the Balkans, particularly Bulgarian, Macedonian and Greek.

Andy Irvine (of Planxty fame) is heavy into this music, and popularised it considerably in the British Isles.

There’s a well known Irish reel called My Love Is In America (the Dubliners play it, among others). Someone wrote a tongue-in-cheek version in 7/8 called My Love Is In Bulgaria. You should be able to find both of them on the Web in ABC notation: you might find the comparison interesting.

_____________________________

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 20 2014 19:16:43

tommyberre

Posts: 24
Joined: Feb. 26 2013
From: Oslo, Norway

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

I used to listen a lot to prog rock, so I would like to suggest a song from Genesis live album Seconds Out, a song called Dance On A Volcano.
Great drumming from Chester Thompson and Phil Collins.
A lot of the song is in 7/8, parts in 4/4 and others as well I would guess...

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 20 2014 19:58:38

chester

Posts: 891
Joined: Oct. 29 2010

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

Great responses guys, thanks so much!

So much new stuff -- I've definitely got a lot to get inspired from.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 21 2014 14:29:03

Paul Magnussen

Posts: 1805
Joined: Nov. 8 2010
From: London (living in the Bay Area)

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

Are you sure you want to confine yourself just to 7/8? Balkan music has all sorts of interesting time signatures; try this one in 11/16 (4 + 3 + 4):

http://www.amazon.com/Sulemans-Kopanitsa/dp/B0012N11A2/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1398097016&sr=1-1-fkmr1&keywords=suleiman%27s+kopanitsa

(The MP3 sample is from the beginning; it build and builds.)

_____________________________

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 21 2014 16:24:56

Ricardo

Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Music in 7/8 (in reply to chester)

quote:

ORIGINAL: chester

Great responses guys, thanks so much!

So much new stuff -- I've definitely got a lot to get inspired from.

Forgot, you can do alternating bars of 4/4 and 3/4 doing any kind of cool 16th note syncopations and it will equal two bars of 7/8 and really make things more interesting if you have some sort of percussive reference to your 7/8 throughout. Same idea, two bars of 2/4 (like two compases of rumba for example) and a bar of 3/4 (like jaleos half compas) can create the same math.

Finally, if what you are after with 7/8 is faster phrasing (like Yanni or riverdance LOL), you can pretend it's 7/16 so then all the above will equal a nice square 4 bar phrasing.

_____________________________

CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 23 2014 14:50:28