Tigran Hamasyan’s crazy polymetric time signatures

[@DavidBennettPiano]

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[@thescythian321]

I love these odd and complex time signature videos! I hope you will explore sometime the rich music of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, particularly that of the Gypsies. The Time Signatures and Poly-Rythms of this music is fascinating and hypnotic. Thank you for doing such a great job!

[@svcjunior5526]

Bro just invented 16 bars of 4/4

[@svcjunior5526]

Joke(?)

[@21centuryhippie61]

Lmao literally the first thing I thought.

[@jayrussell3796]

​@@svcjunior5526well 16 times 16 is 256....

[@svcjunior5526]

@@jayrussell3796 yes, it is

[@jayrussell3796]

@@svcjunior5526 except dude broke it down into all kinds of weird time 35/7, 35/3 ...wtf

[@fbarnes123]

I love that during half the lines, it sounds like David is about to break out laughing

[@twaylan]

Justifiably so

[@SharkEatFish]

ikr

[@Satellite_Of_Love]

Yes! This song is bananas and I love it.

[@timg2727]

This is basically Meshuggah played on a piano, and I love it.

[@Passarium-1195]

Meshuggah mostly play in 4/4, just they have weird timing, use polyrhythms and commonly switch from 5/4, 3/4 etc.

[@mawsauce7786]

Tigran is directly inspired by Meshugga. If you want to understand Tigran's work then Meshugga will greatly help

[@lautaroortiz5935]

Meshuggah the metal band?

[@HEVELproyectofficial]

​@@lautaroortiz5935yes

[@warcrime5809]

@@lautaroortiz5935yup

[@bregottmannen2706]

@@lautaroortiz5935 No the romantic composer

[@gx1tar1er]

​​@@bregottmannen2706ngl this is how Meshuggah and Periphery would play this song lol

[@timothymerrylees7590]

Proof that everything is in 4/4 if you don't count like a nerd

[@LL-bl8hd]

💯 😁

[@lcpholman]

or count like a drummer. Well... a drummer's arms

[@scabbarae]

You mean like how you can count "Take Five" as "one...two...three-four"

[@GuyXVIII]

Damn I was just saying that :D :D :D

[@sorryguys1090]

​@@scabbaraeor waltz for that matter

[@elrondhubbard9127]

Seeing Tigran, Arthur Hnatek, and Evan Marien (and Tosin) perform this album in it's entirety, outdoors in a beautiful amphitheatre in summer 2022, is definitely one of the greatest concerts of my life 😁🙏

[@bernhardkrickl3567]

You forgot to make your own song in that polymeter at the end.

[@hexostatus4658]

Performance wise, it’s not practical to write songs in out of the world time signatures

[@blitzkringe]

@@hexostatus4658 yeah, better just to show your boobs

[@JonathanMeyer-o4m]

@@hexostatus4658 i think thats the joke

[@robertray2714]

What a convenient and extremely useful way to notate a song incredible stuff david

[@hifijohn]

He did it to get attention.

[@lt_johnmcclane]

@@hifijohnwell yeah of course he wants attention. People don’t make educational videos like this for themselves to watch

[@OliverSchlecter]

@@hifijohnugh just like how authors write books for people to read them 🙄

[@Grimnoire]

@@hifijohn Wtf is this comment what does it even mean

[@hifijohn]

. @Grimnoire Wow are people really this dumb ,the artist created this stupid and awkward time signature to get attention,songs in 4/4 are dime a dozen but create a weird time signature or a song with a very very long title and its bound to get someones attention and you get some cheap publicity out of.

[@TheGrenvil]

Every Tigran song is just 4/4 with some weird accents and that's why I love it, weird time signatures can sometimes be just complexity for the sake of it, but this weird times kinda emerge organically from his style of composition

[@maverator]

Mmm, seems more like complexity for the sake of it to me. It's the only thing remotely notable about this. Pretentious and pointless.

[@TheGrenvil]

@@maverator the way he composes those things is that he thinks of macropaterns, so he probably just played with some frases using 5s and 3s and arived at the 35/16 frase, played it a couple of times and realized he could make it fit a 4/4 grid if he played one bar of 11 every 7 bars It's not like he sat in front of the piano and figured he would make a 256/16 song because he's so smart, it just emerged naturally from his style of using groups of 5,3,7 etc. There a very good David Bruce video where he talks with a guy that works with tigran and he explains more how it's actually not that complicated

[@jimit.4220]

​@@maverator So you're saying this complexity adds nothing? You don't think it creates a feel completely different from normal time signatures or even odd time signatures without a polymeter? Yeah that's ridiculous. You may not like it but a lot of people do and the complexity isn't at all just for the sake of it

[@zakm0n]

Levitation 21 is FAR from just 4/4 with weird accents. Lots of polymeter and other shenanigans in that song.

[@chegevara8896]

​@@maverator very pointless comment

[@Matematikervildtsjov]

Even though Tigran apparently says this himself, I feel it might be in a slightly joking manner. This song, like every single Meshuggah song, and most of Tigran's music, should be primarily be understood as 4/4 against a polymeter which after some ammount of 4/4 bars corrects itself with a tail to fit and start over. I know that this is exactly what David points out in the video aswell, but I don't think anyone playing this song will feel the subdivisions as any sort of main pulses, but merely as a shifting motif. The superb drummer @Yogev Gabay (who has played with Tigran in a brief colab at Berkley) has made a ton of videos of how Meshuggah (and Tigran) does this, see for example his video on the "Meshuggah Calculator" kzbin.info/www/bejne/b2eloat_rZ2lesU

[@lyoug]

Thank you, this is exactly what I wanted to add (Meshuggah, Yogev). 4/4 is the "master" here, and every 16 bars, the odd 35 (5+5+5+5+3+3+3+3+3) pattern is cut short, forced to realign.

[@solacedagony1234]

It sounded like he was saying that 256 is the "common denominator" between the drums and piano. So 256 beats will need to go by before the drums and piano line up on beat 1 again

[@OverSmart13]

the drummer is the insane one here. standing ovation for this sitting man

[@James_Anderson_]

David in 2020: Songs that use 7/4 time David in 2023:

[@ChomperZomber]

55 likes and no reply? Let me fix that.

[@SodiumWage]

Me (the band's new drummer): So what song are we going to practice? The band: We need you to count to 256 every bar. Don't mess up! Me: *literally dies*

[@DarkSideofSynth]

The band: Oh, and the tempo is 240 bpm. Ready? :))))

[@billepperson2662]

Who clicked the like button when it had 256 likes?! 🤦

[@jayclarke5466]

Zappa: ‘hey ur not feeling the 256/16’

[@l.musicandsound]

Tigran is one of my absolute favorites, and so is Meshuggah. It's so cool to see these polymeter tropes influence and be achieved by other artists. This kinda stuff jams and grooves so hard!

[@timg2727]

It's interesting to point out the similarity to Meshuggah, since a lot of their stuff is also basically just 4/4 with a bunch of weird accents and timing thrown in.

[@l.musicandsound]

@@timg2727 It's not really a secret that Tigran listens to Meshuggah, you can find that online from interviews. This song specifically follows the general Meshuggah formula for polymeter riffs over 4/4, and it does it really well. On the surface, it seems quite silly for me to compare somebody like Tigran to a band like Meshuggah because of how different the vibes are, but this one really checks out when you do the math :)

[@Altropos]

Mockroot is such a blast. Love that album.

[@rocketguardian2001]

David you just found the musical version of a run-on sentence!

[@dannymac6368]

I love Tigran; as a drummer I was hoping you’d mention the 4/4 “simplicity” of the poly-meter.

[@TheSlyFreak]

This is actually the song that introduced me to Tigran! Awesome to see a video breaking down his insanely nerdy and complex music

[@SamBrockmann]

That's wild. The whole song just sounds like a crazy ride.

[@davidbojay3606]

I'm so glad he's finally getting talked about more.... i've been listening to him for 6 years and I'm so glad it was you that covered him in depth!!

[@kukquakk4716]

Tigran makes amazing music, big fan. And yeah, his time signatures do get a bit wacky from time to time…

[@mintegral1719]

I love his music too! I really need more music that can be described as "math jazz"; it's so neat

[@maxblatter]

The 35/16 subdivision is what I heard immediately (of course without recognizing the exact number of beats). - I think the composer must fancy the powers of 2 (256 = 2^8; 16 = 2^4)! Well, there is a strong general relationship between mathematics and music.

[@solacedagony1234]

Id say it's more likely that it just happened to be 256 because it is a multiple of 4. I haven't seen much in 2/4

[@sharpphilip]

I was just blasting this in the car the other day and trying to recall something David Bruce had made about Tigran’s rhythms. I can’t follow it properly even as a mere listener (never mind as a performer!), but now with your video’s simplifying benefit, maybe I’ll get there. Cheers, David!

[@aijamberisabel]

That song is making my head hurt legit! Very interesting video and surprisingly not clickbated at all. I love your channel, you are one of the only music theory KZbinrs who actually make it interesting and fun to learn!!

[@FranzSchmidtYoutube]

Thanks David and Tigran, you've _Entertain(ed) Me_ 🤗

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

256/16? Don't be square. Just say it's in 16 and that's it.

[@Chigger]

You fool! 16 is still square. Just say it's in 4 and be done with it.

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

@@Chigger but 4 is still square too! This should never have been divided into sixteenths in the first place. It's all about the eighth power.

[@Chigger]

@@whycantiremainanonymous8091 XD

[@Ctacobell]

You clearly arent a musician

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

@@Ctacobell There's always that one commenter who takes your joke seriously...

[@TheMister123]

And finally, at 9:58, I can relax a little with Mr. Bennett's usual lighter melodies. Ahhh... relief from the freneticism. 🙂

[@The_RedVIII]

This is such an awesome song! Thanks for showing it to me, David!

[@sohamsengupta6470]

By far one of my favourite tracks off one of my favourite albums, so heavy but clean

[@VikoTheBassist]

Meshuggah has basically done the exact same thing on every song since 1998, Tigran is very much inspired by their rhythmic style in his music

[@anthonyrodriguez7950]

Yes! This is the Tigran analysis I've needed my whole life. Top notch content, as usual

[@MomLAU]

Your videos do exactly what this song title says! And your piece at the end sounds so soothing!

[@arieladriel8430]

Esto me recuerda a Politik de Coldplay. Es una canción que siempre se transcribe o la enseñan con la métrica de 4/4; sin embargo, la sensación de ritmo que te da la canción es muy diferente, se siente más a una métrica de 16/8. Este 16/8 puede contener pequeñas métricas amalgamas como 3/8+4/8, y al combinarlo con el 4/4 de la batería, al final, da una sensación de escuchar un polímetro. Una gran canción; pero, lástima que nadie habla de ella

[@bleedingrevenge12]

One of my favorite Tigran songs

[@kwichmann2777]

The Meshuggah calculator says hi! Using konnakol is really useful for stuff like this!

[@Louis-in3qu]

this is madness ! love it

[@oznymusic]

Now I have that kookie little pattern stuck in my head. Thanks David. Lol I was obsessed with this topic in 2006 and made a whole album exploring different time possibilities including ideas like pentuplets and septuplets, and anti-time, but I had very insensitive ears at that time, playing in the experimental sound design idm& industrial realms kinda had me musically seeing the forest for the trees, so that album isn't very easy to listen to.. Sounds like a primitive computer got loaded up with a futuristic ai script that can be interpreted by old machines which make them sentient but this computer had a virus and so now the computer lives in a consciously compromised state. This makes me want to get back into rhythm-centric experiments. Great videos. Keep up the great work David.

[@betteroffdeadd]

Tigran live was an amazing experience ❤

[@zimmejoc]

as I was getting motion sick watching the bar stagger along, I kept hoping you would zoom out so I could see the whole bar. It made the sinking feeling in my stomach worth it when you zoomed out and I could see the hole bar.

[@WannabeFruFru]

Don't matter how often you upload, keep making dope content. Liked and subbed

[@ekcrisp1]

i absolutely love this song (and everything tigran does) but always wondered what was going on. Great video, would have been nice to hear the whole thing slowed way down to help hear these patterns a bit better

[@michaelspencer-arscott]

That was a real eye-opener! Thanks for your good work!

[@michaelrichardson2391]

David Bruce Composer introduced me to Tigran a couple of years ago, and now Im a big fan.

[@jcarty123]

The ending 11/16 bar is: another bar of 5/16, then 6/16. Or perhaps 2 bars of 5/16, then 1/16. Point is, even that bar should probably be subdivided a tad more.

[@ifer1280]

Thanks for covering one of Tigrans songs! I love his work

[@SPCooki34]

suggestion: video on 29/8 time signature

[@marioguarini]

the key of this song is that Tigran is a total genius

[@themc8769]

I thought it was f# minor

[@joelcaron8291]

Omg, this is a marvellous exposé !!! David, tu es le meilleur des professeurs. I perfectly know about all of this. But it is overwhelming fun to hear you getting us tru all this theorics. Parfois, after all these years of music, on devient amorphe et désintéressé... David, tu me redonnes le goût à la théorie musicale et c'est avec un plaisir immense que je consomme.chacune de tes vidéos ... 😎👍

[@silviomp]

10 minutes that passed by in 4 min. Hahaha. When the video is good, it's never long. Thank you for bringing this video.

[@TheGoose92]

Tigran is great. I discovered him last year. The album Mockroot that the track is on is worth a listen for anyone who likes prog jazz.

[@batotskie3744]

There's a song by French artist Kurokotei called \frac{\textup{sig}=\frac{821}{149}}{bpm\approx533} which is in 821/149 time signature

[@GregorBarclay]

That sounds….kinda silly.

[@BestMusicToolsOfficial]

Great video as always David!

[@lcpholman]

And that is where these mixed time signatures work so well - when juxtaposed with a constant to provide ebb and flow - in and out of sync, and seems to be a common thing. I think the alternate groups of 5/16 and 3/16 captures the feel of this section best - and that's the purpose right?, communicating music in written form.

[@dragasan]

That's a really great explanation. Thank you.

[@joermnyc]

The drums in 4/4 reminds me of a few Led Zeppelin songs where the song is in some odd time signature, but John Bonham couldn’t do the long division in his head, so he’s in 4/4 (Kashmir is an example, and several live versions of songs John switches the time signature to 4/4 because it’s too complex to play live.)

[@yvancluet8146]

Anyone who's listened to enough Meshuggah will hear the hi hat and snare going "tss tss pam tss" on repeat and go "Hey, that's 4/4 !" and they'd be right ;)

[@iau]

I think this style feels strange to us because of limitations in the western musical notation system. This is music based on repeating patterns and polyrhythms, not barlines. In music notation we WANT to put everything in a barline. You can _technically_ do it, but it ends up not working in a practical sense. I recommend Yogev Gabay's and Metal Music Theory's videos covering music by the metal band Meshuggah. This is the backbone of most of their music and it's also the core of many non-western styles. Those channels cover a lot about alternate ways of notating these rhythm styles, ways that make so much sense and make them easier to feel and internalize. It's fascinating!

[@shawnmurphy4757]

7:22 I love how this dissection of this time signature included a discussion of common denominators and least common multiples. #math

[@tesselllation]

i think possibly its in 35 personly becasue Tigran may have written it a bit slower and that melody and pattern fits perfrctly into 35 .However, the 5 16 and 3 / 16 was nice way to teach the peice theroetically considering we have 5 fingers its easy to learn the beats of such a rythm and thankfully the left hand falls on the one of each 12345 , the triplets are then super simple after that . thanks so much !!

[@DuyNguyen-ks8dc]

the moment i see the math and explanations coming up at 2:36 is the moment my brain explodes 🤯🤯

[@ultimamax]

#1 by Animal Collective is in 7/4 with the drums in 4/4. One of my favorite polymeters, it's very smooth

[@pedrob7066]

2 minutes into the video and i gotta say...... this song gave me HELLA UNDERTALE VIBES......

[@notdave7005]

Good stuff as always bro!

[@artrogers3985]

If I went to a tryout and they handed me sheet music in 256/16 time I would put on my hat and politely excuse myself.

[@michaelsophini6]

Laugh die. Keep up the good work David 💪🏻 Key signatures King

[@_rlb]

In see Tigran, I click. And listen ❤

[@maelreid6509]

Yeah I love Tigran Hamasyan

[@felipecardoza9967]

Um, the drummer is playing 2 different beats simultaneously? How in the hell.

[@lilytwinklenoodle]

I love how the 4/4 on the drums was supposed to be this big plot twist but my silly little percussionist self immediately locked onto the hi-hat during the initial playthrough and went "Hey, isn't this just 4/4 with extra math?"

[@arnetrautmann9783]

Tigran is crazy. You are crazy. And I love it.

[@gehteuchnichtsan7911]

I saw this thumbnail last night and I actually dreamed of a song that has this one bar in the song where it's like 15/16 and I was like, aaah I rembere this song although I never heard it. Now I see the video and just understood that 256/16 is perfectly dividable and there is no reason to count like this. It's just a polyrhythm.

[@eriksatieofficiel]

I removed bar lines from my piano sheets 150 years ago

[@noscrubbubblez6515]

It rocks. Totally viable. Sounds like a scene of tension in a South American movie.

[@robertwilloughby8050]

Or a Greek one, if you know your late Costa-Gravas!

[@tinch716]

Me walking to a jazz rehearsal with new people: I hope we play nice and easy standards The band leader: so this next one is in 256/16…

[@esosique5]

...and it follows the Giant Steps chord changes. Ready?

[@enricobuoso5171]

You can tell he's a big fan of Meshuggah

[@hamzailarzeg]

He actually said he is, and tool also

[@player12gaming89]

I don't know if you've done that already, but I'd love to see you analyze the intro of The Art Of Dying

The expectations to entertain this guy are just unmetable...

[@Cyred_Akaao]

I'm one for odd time signatures, but this is ridiculous! Though, I'm very impressed with how they were able to make it work!

[@joelcaron8291]

If you want to hear a simpler version of polymeter... Try Led Zep's Kashmir. It merges 4/4 and 3/4 in 3 bars of 4/4 on drums and 4 bars of 3/4 on guitar...

[@lonesucculentradio6225]

I still think they should’ve kept the naming scheme and went with Pianoeo

[@corundum1966]

This is some straight up meshuggah stuff and I love it

[@shadowclaw878]

I saw the thumbnail and my jaw fell to the floor

[@CACOaugus1o]

Could you do a Brazillian song, if possible? But NOT Girl from Ipanema, please. Theres this song from Milton Nascinento called Maria Maria that has some very interesting chord progressions. Or you could do Águas de Março, wich is a classic full of beautiful chords. Tbh honest, any brazillian song you chose would make my day.

[@ZackSussmanMusic]

256 is what it takes for it to repeat but I think it’s absurd to represent that at the level of meter!!! Plenty of music repeats in longer intervals and we don’t just claim that that’s the meter. I hear this in 4/4.

[@DCJayhawk57]

Next video need you to break down pretty much every Messhugah song lol.

[@pazzy768]

But where is the 256/16 David Bennett original by at the end? :(

[@jaydensydes3478]

don't forget that the kick to hi-rat relationship is also two separate polyrhythms fitting inside the polymeter

[@lp-xl9ld]

Me: So Brubeck did a song in 5/4 and Pink Floyd did one in 7/4... David Bennett: Brother, you ain't heard nothin' yet

[@P1OOD]

OH MY GOD YOU DID TIGRAN YES

[@misterlizard]

Arthur Hnatek, so good

[@Repton0]

Of course its by tigran hamasyan

[@nathanlowry3764]

I click on the video - “oh, it’s Tigran.” 😂

[@Mrbeahz1]

What a drummer! Makes John Bonham look like Dave Clark.

[@jrpipik]

During the first half of the video I was saying to myself, "This is only looking at the piano score. It would be interesting to look at the drums." And the second half of the video started.

[@Piktor201]

As a regular viewer of "Make Weird Music", and someone who listened to King Crimson at the age of 12, I don't feel this music absurd at all.😉 In fact I love listening to such challeging exiting compositions. Thank you David for giving Tigran Hamasyan a place and for your excellent analysis of the meter of "Entertain Me". 👍

[@rickchartrand4475]

Check out Don Ellis Bulgarian Bulge. It's in 33/16 but also has a smaller breakdown

[@yarlodek5842]

“Kinda disappointed it’s only in 4/4”

[@Whitestripe71]

Idea for a future video: What if 'Love Me Do' was in 256/16 time?

[@lordwilksy]

9:26 We just gonna let the beautiful texture of cymbal colour just slide ;)

[@atn_holdings]

something liked that happened to me when I started counting Generation by Liturgy lol. sounds complicated by it's really just best to conceptualize it as a 4/4 drum with a guitar riff that has an extra bit and moves around