Playing In Time Signature 5/4 ?
I read from music and my timing is to my ears is good. I can play 3/4 waltz in 4/4 or a 4/4 tune in 3/4. This may appear a silly exercise, but it has help me improve my playing to different time signatures.
The problem I have is I just can't play songs in 5/4. I just can not grab the timing.....What's the secret...Suggestions and guidance please.

Graham UK.

Subdivide the measures into things you already understand. one bar of 3/4 and one bar of 2/4. depending on the song,
maybe it is 2/4 then 3/4.

Graham,
I'm with you, having difficulty. I'm trying to play "Take Five" (and probably obviously as it's the only 5/4 tune I know of).
Quick answer is practice, practice etc, but in my mind I'm trying to group the last beat in the 5 with the first beat in the next bar to make a 2/4 phrase (each note has a different chord) and then group the next three, which have the same chord as the last of the previous 2/4. That seems to match the rhythm of the piece. Then back to practice, practice.
Good Luck
Keith

Give a listen to Sting's "I Hung My Head". I'm prety sure this is an example also of 5/4 time.
Like Keith said, "Take Five" is probably one of the best examples.

3+2 works best for me. The beats fall nice that way.

Thanks for your inputs. I will persevere with 5/4 practice.....possibly as with other things it will eventually drop into place.

Graham UK

Try going back to old basics ....

4/4 or Common time use to be ....

Strong weak medium weak

3/4 used to be .....

strong weak weak

So maybe 5/4 would be ...

Strong Weak weak Medium weak

JonPro. Interesting concept...I'll give it a try.

So what would 6/8 be ?.

Graham UK.

STRONG weak weak STRONG weak weak (mostly.)

Some of us play 4/4, 3/4, 6/8 and somehow manage to make them all sound like 5/4!

Now that's clever
Best wishes
Tony

[This message has been edited by Tony W (edited 02-16-2004).]

A further thought ....
I play a song which is written in 6/4 4/4. That is the first bar is 6/4 the second bar is 4/4, the remaining bars alternate between 6/4 and 4/4. The lyrics just fit this irregular measure. To get around this as an arrangement I think (play) it in 10/4 with ....
strong weak medium weak medium weak
strong weak medium weak

"Mission Impossible" theme is also in 5/4.
Starkeeper

Also "Do what you like" by Blind Faith (anyone remembers them?)

Graham,

Take Five was popular in the the late 60's early 70's. It may have been recorded a while before that. I've never heard anything else that compares to it in 5/4 time.

If you played sax at that time and couldn't do Harlem Nocturne, you weren't considerded a lead sax player. There's some tricky stuff in that tune from the 1949 recording that Earl Bostic did that many others who recorded it later left out. It dosen't sound cool faked to me that way.

Yakety Sax and "Take Five" are two others along with Night Train that there's a lick or two that many sax players skip over and fake it. Again it isn't very impressive to another musician when a Saxplayer leaves the intricate licks out.

As a matter of fact, if you couldn't play these tunes with the fancy licks, even the general audience where we worked thought you weren't a very good sax player.

If you don't have a recording of "Take Five" get it. Listen to it over and over try to play the melody note for note. After a while it will feel better, but still not natural. It's different from 99% of the other stuff all musicians play.

Instead of trying to feel where beat 1 is, you might feel it better listening to beats 4, 5 and 1 togeter.For me it sets a better grove that I'm more comfortable with. It took playing it for months before I got into that grove. It improved my inprovisation on that tune mucho.

It's not straight ahead jazz where the 2nd and 3rd beats set the pace with the hi hat accenting those beats. We use to call it the back beat.

In take five to me the feeling is 451,23 that where the bass played in our band, I look at it as that is where the actual repitituous melody line is with the rhythm section, and that the sax part is the counter melody.

Now that I have you througly confused just keep listening to it over and over and try to paly a long. If you don't you'll never get.

It's like trying to learn recording. If you don't do it over and over you'll never get it. It's just that I'm getting to dang old to learn new stuff. I still have a lot to learn on my sax.

I heard Dave Brubeck do it at a concert at Okla. State U. in the mid-60s. I can play it exactly like they did.
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I just click on the MP3.
DonM

I ALWAYS count (and feel) 5/4 time as. . . .

1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3 , 1, 2 etc.

The Yamaha Tyros includes a great 'Five-Four' swing style suitable for 'Take Five', though I prefer muting the auto accompaniment piano comping part, and playing that myself.

Scott

Boy am I glad to be a drummer originally, having played lots of jazz in the weirdest structures... Alternating 7/8, 13/12, syncopating, you name it and I hit it - Without thinking.

I guess that's the key here: if you think about it too much, you're in trouble. I can't give you any tips here, sorry. It's a feel. Either you have it, or you don't. It won't ever sound good if you're constantly counting in your head.

The best advice I can give you is: play it. Over and over again. Until you "feel" what the beat is, without asking yourself where the "1" went, and where the "weak" is supposed to be.

But keep in mind hat playing music will never be like "learning a trick". I've been a drummer for 28 years now, it becomes a second nature.


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Roland EXR-5 user - http://www.exr5.tk

For "Take Five" I count it with a jazz
swing waltz beat(1,2 a, 3)followed by: 4,5

No matter how you count it, 5/4 is not a waltz. You'll get all fouled up if you try to play it in 3.

I have a keyboard friend who timing is so bad, he is out of step by the 4th bar in every song he plays....its like having the accompaniment in a different room. It sends my brain dizzy.
Unknown to him he is playing all the key signatures through every song..Ha!!!!. I have tried to imitate him playing out of timing and I just can't do it.

Graham UK.

I didn't say play it in 3, I said play the front end with a JAZZ waltz feel, so
one measure is counted: 1,2 a,3,4,5 or
1,2 a,3,1,2

No matter what you call it, if you're counting "1 2 a 3 4 5", you're in 6/4, not 5/4.


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Roland EXR-5 user - http://www.exr5.tk

I think you're mistaking the "a" as a beat - it's actually an UPbeat and doesn't get a count. I misunderstood the original post to read that it was felt as a waltz too.
Essentially, we're saying the same thing regardless of "Swing feel" it's most often divided as 3+2.

Boys...Boys...Come on, be nice!!

Oh I am nice :-) Just misunderstood his notation.


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Roland EXR-5 user - http://www.exr5.tk

Can someone give me the basic chord changes for Take 5? Say, in the key of C.
Thanks
Chuck

Chuck,

Here's a chart (with changes) in Eb minor:
http://guitar-primer.com/Charts/RB03.html

Scott

http://guitar-primer.com/Charts/index2.html
DonM

You beat me Scott! Great minds think alike I guess.
DonM

It should be in G, or the relative minor Em

Hi Boo, the standard accepted/played key for "Take Five" for concert C instruments (piano, flute, etc) has always been Ebm, at least in all my jazz fakebooks, as well as everyone I've ever played this tune with. Of course, if you're playing from a Bb (tenor sax), or an Eb (alto sax) fakebook, then the written key would (of course) appear differently:
http://www.aebersold.com/jazzhandbook/39_transposition_chart.pdf

- Scott

He's right Boo Boo - All the charts I ever saw were in Eb.

...maybe because the original recording by Dave Brubeck is in Ebm too.