Why is this Beatles song so rhythmically confusing? | Q+A

Why is “Drive My Car” is so disorienting? Let’s find out!
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Paul McCartney / George Michael - Drive My Car (Live 8 2005)
• Paul McCartney / Georg...
#musictheory
0:00 Intro
0:17 Why is the intro riff from Drive my Car so rhythmically disorienting?
4:47 How can I use rubato effectively without making it seem like overkill?
5:49 What’s up with musicians and coffee addiction?
5:57 Am7 F#m7 Fmaj7 Em7
6:57 How do I come up with a good counter melody?
8:00 How would you resolve G#m11(b13)?
8:51 Any tips for call-and-response that work well?
10:19 What’s the most common problem you see new improvisers have?
11:17 Why haven’t more people imitated Jaco’s tone?
12:13 What are your thoughts on “white people don’t swing as much as black people?”
(⌐■_■)
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Peace,
Adam

[@AdamNeely]

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[@nickm.1552]

Hey Adam, what do you think about polyphia?

[@scandalousbeans2591]

Hey Adam can you talk about Devos cover of satisfaction? The rhythmic properties of the vocals are so confusing

[@AmishChildren]

Here is a fun post-facto rhythmic ambiguity, let yourself feel from @1:46 as a pick-up then your perception WILL flip abruptly @2:07! kzbin.info/www/bejne/eHmylqmOaamffc0

[@mariellenschreffler3823]

You'd g8 tx f

[@samarsa.]

Always brilliant content, you inspired me to play the bass myself (my first intrument, started at the age of 36). I bought Curiosity Stream and Nebula about a year ago because of your transfer there, but your content does't seem available to me, i get redirected to the main page from your link, and you don't appear in search. Would you know why it is that? Could it be a location thing? I'm in Serbia

[@Eggman4444]

The Beatles always LOVED to do things not by the book. That's why I love them so much!

[@vktrs56]

Years ago, I read a book about how music affects our brain and how some songs deviate from where we anticipate the song will go and how that throws us off balance a bit. One example he cited was The Beatles "For No One" (from Revolver) and how it doesn't end on the note that we expect it to, but that note begins the very next song "Dr. Robert"

[@skinovtheperineum1208]

Go listen to Revolution 9 by the Analogues.

[@cathyopthof8136]

So Right! That’s why the Beatles were sooooo great!!! They did what ever they wanted to!♥️♥️♥️♥️

[@kongmik]

The made very little kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZSomaCHZbJnfLs

[@mentallychallenged5764]

That’s why girls were showing them their breasts 😂

[@eerbrev]

On 'Rubato' - IIRC, the Italian term literally means "Robbed", or "stolen". To discuss that fluidity, push and pull, my teacher always used to say that you steal the time in some places, and that means that in other places you must give it back!

[@bacicinvatteneaca]

Stolen, as in "my X has been stolen from me". Robbed, as in "I've been robbed of my X", would be "DErubato".

[@spencerthomas4087]

Yeah my first experience with tempo rubato was playing Chopin waltzes, which is actually a really good place to learn because it's dance music - the time has to feel loose, but be tight enough to dance to.

[@archibald-yc5le]

Actually, the English translation "borrowed time" seems even more accurate than the original Italian "robbed, stolen", because a good rubato is indeed not just stealing time but giving it back to the listener. Strictly speaking, the resulting timeline in average should appear linear, i.e. if you took too much before you must pay back in bulk. Otherwise they'll notice the robbery

[@kyleandcarriehoger6050]

My piano teacher described rubato as being like a rubber band which can be pulled tight and then loosened again. That understanding has served me well for many years.

[@GizzyDillespee]

UFO conspiracists talk about "missing time". Now I'll call it a rubato ufo encounter.

[@wallypoly563]

The Beatles didn't read music. They just arranged the music as it sounded and felt right to them. That off beat flare for music is, what I think, makes their music so intriguing. It really catches the ear.

[@bluebellbeatnik4945]

I think any good musician does this

[@Tarpunyaf]

It’s so called Lay back feel.

[@wallypoly563]

@@Tarpunyaf I don't know why people are compelled to label, count the bars, define the Key, know whether it's 4:4 or 3:4. It doesn't matter. Knowing the number of molecules of vapor in a rainbow doesn't matter much to me. Just enjoy.

[@shihyuchu6753]

@@wallypoly563 You are WRONG. they DID read music

[@Adyman182]

It's like the 21/32 in Master of Puppets

[@marciocintra2988]

George said that John's rythm was weird but amazing at the same time, and he didn't use to notice it at first. They were very very talented guys.

[@kongmik]

No they were not. Good singers and charming kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZSomaCHZbJnfLs

[@josephangelastro473]

In the get back documentary George actually tells Paul that he can’t play rhythm like John

[@docsavage8640]

That's because John played it different every time. His rhythm was terrible if you wanted something played the same way twice.

[@AlanBoddy-fl2qp]

You noticed 😅😅😅😅

[@nationaltrevor255]

John wasn’t constrained by keeping everything even. If a phrase or a melody appealed to him he wouldn’t try to change it to fit rhythmically with the music around it. He was happy to allow it to be what it was. Happiness is a warm gun, All you need is love, Don’t let me down and She said She said are a few examples of dropped or added beats. Personally, I love the quirkiness of it, and very in keeping with John’s personality I think.

[@riverw4721]

I always felt Drive My Car as just two independent musical elements that line up in time for the song to start. Guitar starts, the drummer plays to their own time, and then they crash into each other for the first verse.

[@mattfrischman2508]

This is absolutely correct. Maybe Paul counts it off that way now to make it work live but you are almost certainly right about what was happening when they recorded it. They didn’t read music and wouldn’t have conceived it that way.

[@bassyey]

Yep it wasn't hard. In fact several guitar books I've read teaches how to read scores written like how Adam corrected it with that lonely note on the first bar. Basic stuff on those books actually.

[@mymasmith7848]

Yeah, my take is that one or more of them messed it up but fixed it and they all got it together just in time for the main downbeat. And now they have to do more complicated counting to match the recorded mistake.

[@DerangedHousewife]

@@mattfrischman2508 Exactly

[@mattbrownsvideothing]

But it's actually not messed up at all. Once you hear the riff correctly, the drums make perfect sense.

[@arothmanmusic]

As someone who has played “Drive My Car” on the drums with a band many times, the intro STILL busts my brain unless I’m really concentrating. Not only does the guitar come in with an unusual intro pattern, but the bass lick hits in an unexpected spot too. And I think Ringo’s rushed intro comes down to Ringo being a “feel” player and not a “precise” one.

[@BigBri550]

Exactly! I have always counted the "Drive My Car" intro as having an extra eighth note before coming in on the verse. This count works for me on guitar or bass, but the drums have to come in just right or else it all falls apart right there.

[@alexanderchance1049]

I heard somewhere recently that this was Ringo imitating the sound of a car starting up, which would go some way to explaining the imprecision

[@BigBri550]

@@alexanderchance1049 I saw on another thread where George Harrison was quoted as saying they were using Otis Redding's record of "Respect" as their blueprint. So if that is true, then it's actually Ringo imitating Booker T. & the M.G.'s drummer Al Jackson Jr.

[@michaelpurington9743]

The Song Starts With A Rest. The Vocal Comes In After A Rest...

[@tarnopol]

Agreed, Andrew.

[@happy-xi4kq]

That's one of the beauties of The Beatles is that they didn't know too much about music theory so they had these fresh ideas without overthinking things. They did lots of cool things like this, often without even realizing they did it

[@bezoekers]

And the album Drive My Car was on (Rubber Soul) was very rushed. I don't think they even had the time to realize what they did there.

[@markweaks2239]

Music Theory is irrelevant. Proof abounds.

[@ronaldharding3927]

That's the wonderful thing about theory. It's not something set in stone. Moving octaves are one of the biggest no nos in music theory (automatic F, no no), but classical greats employed moving octaves to great effect in their masterpieces.

[@gabbleratchet1890]

Not knowing music theory has nothing to do with being fresh and creative. You think Stravinsky didn’t have fresh ideas? Debussy? Berlioz? Knowing what you are doing is always helpful. Your creativity lives in a different sphere.

[@RockbertoRocks]

Another reason why Ringo was an incredible drummer. Casual listeners will always underestimate him, but Ringo was phenomenal 👍🤘

[@Smoove_J]

Ringo is the luckiest man that ever walked the face of the earth.

[@emmettmckenna4565]

@@Smoove_J used to think the same thing in the 70s, but if Ringo is not a good drummer, why do Beatles records always (and I mean ALWAYS) sound so great? Hang together so well? Everything he played complemented the songs and the records perfectly. If Ginger Baker or Bill Bruford or Billy Cobham had been the Beatles’ drummer, they would probably never have reached the heights they reached. With phenomenons like the Beatles, it’s always the ‘whole’ rather than the ‘sum of the parts.’

[@stephenross8463]

​@@Smoove_J That's what people who have absolutely no knowledge of the subject usually say.....

[@Smoove_J]

@@stephenross8463 that dude must’ve made a deal with the devil. He gets nothing but love despite his mediocrity. No surprises here seeing a couple more ass kissers.

[@jamesalexander5623]

@@Smoove_J Yes! He Married Barbara Bach! .... But the Beatles were Lucky to have him!

[@RJRonquillo]

Thank you for clarifying that intro. Can you do the drum intro to "96 Degrees In The Shade" by Third World? I can't figure it out for the life of me.

[@basswolf4749]

Yea I could never place the one on that song

[@theactorjohnlarroquette]

I find it hard to place the one for a lot of reggae. Sometimes it sounds like they play drum beats backwards, in the best possible way

[@calebfudrums]

yess also the drum intro to rick roll! all memes aside i cant figure that one out either :(

[@Android480]

REAL HOT!

[@dbweinhaus]

Fwiw, they didn't play the fill the same way live; in the 80s they treated the last shade like a 1/4 bar, so "...ade" lands on beat 1, fill starts on beat 2. In more recent videos, they treat the last shade as its own 2/4 bar, followed by a 4/4 drum fill that starts on beat 1. Either way, in live versions they put snare on the beat for that whole second bar.

[@hisham_hm]

Another detail in Drive My Car that tricks the listener is that the first doublestop in the guitar riff happens exactly where we _think_ the downbeat is, so it seems to really reaffirm that our initial entrainment was correct.

[@emanuelmota7217]

Yes.

[@heartseed478]

someone here watched Adam Neely

[@Fordham1969]

Actually, the first double stop is the downbeat, it's written incorrectly here. He's written the first double stop in the riff as being F# over D but if you listen closely to the eighth note just prior to that he plays E over C.

[@russellszabadosaka5-pindin849]

@@Fordham1969 all due respect, but now you’re dissecting minutiae that has no bearing on the video’s core message, or for 99.7 % of the populace. I understand why, I was the same way when I was fanatically learning & practicing guitar in high school. But as a music teacher myself, I never go that deep unless asked. I’m sure Adam is similar. EDIT: the core message comes down to “where is 1?”

[@Fordham1969]

​@@russellszabadosaka5-pindin849 With equal respect, I think you've misconstrued my comment as an attack or harsh criticism of the posters video, it wasn't. In fact I was delighted when I clicked on it and found it was this song he was discussing, since as a lifelong Beatle fan (and working musician for over 3 decades) I had suspected it might be this based on the title. My comment was really just an attempt to establish clarity as to the basic subject of the video that you mentioned: where the downbeat is. I was simply, in an attempt to avoid confusion among others that might read the comment that I replied to, clarifying that the one indeed fell on the first doublestop. And I would estimate far fewer than 99.7% of the general populace would be genuinely interested in not just the point I made, but the subject as a whole, it's really geared to a bit of a music nerd, someone that listens analytically.

[@GaryBeardsley]

BTW, Adam. Your Bass soloing during the rubato example is ... absolutely beautiful. I mean, really. Just SO inspiring. Pure loveliness. This is where ALL those years of practice, and learning, and understanding how to restrain yourself and allow space in phrasing, yields a creation of musical harmony that somehow tugs at the heart. Kudos to you, sir, for your persistence, with the result being something this gorgeous. Just love it.

[@j0zzie]

Congratulations, Adam! These intricate details in music sound so simple, yet so entertaining in your videos. Nicely embedded in philosophical and intellectual thumps. A high five from the Netherlands!

[@GameyRaccoon]

WOOO NEDERLANDS

[@emdiar6588]

'Post Facto Metric Ambiguity' (as I now have a name for it) is one of my favourite tricks in music. I used to play certain songs to my daughter when she was very young and she would clearly react when it happened. Then, when she was 5, listening to It Bites in the car, a typical intro where apparent eighth notes suddenly reveal themselves as triplet notes, she told her mother, "Daddy's music always tries to trip us up!" I could not have been prouder. "She gets it!!!" My wife (who has long suffered my Jazz/Prog leanings which she calls 'Pesky-Kids-broke-into-a-music-store" music) just rolled her eyes.

[@OhGodWhatIsThisAah]

My kids are the same way lol brains are wild

[@niloo_atribecalledlove]

Is the name of your band “individual totem”?

[@LieuweBuik]

regarding rhythmic confusion and downbeat, Nirvana's "Swap Meet" is a track that manages to confuse me ever time I listen to it. I have to hear (or remember) the riff before I'm able to discern it from the intro, otherwise I'm totally lost untill the groove kicks in. really funky stuff

[@jesseraiden4505]

Oh man there's many more songs that do that, listen to Styx's Too Much Time On My Hands, the whole intro is a confusing piece until the the rest of the band comes in

[@Electrk]

oh god same

[@tmjohnson12051989]

Kate - Ben Folds Five Hotwax - Beck Top Secret - Yellowjackets Some more examples I can think of off the top of my head 😊

[@yoosh9034]

The first chug of the guitar riff is the 1 if that helps

[@dbweinhaus]

Same, another one I have to tap along with is "Yours Is No Disgrace" by Yes

[@TenThumbsProductions]

The Am7-F#m7-Fmaj7-Em7. Seeing as the E is the pedal tone, could you treat this as E Phygrian? With that E tone ringing out throughout it sure makes the Em7 feel like the tonic. Which leads me to my next question. Can you borrow chords from any parallel minor in a chord progression? Let’s say the progression is G-Bm-D-G. I have always borrowed chords from Gm, but is B major in the table too as a parallel major of one of the minor chords used?

[@careydyer--musicandmore]

Adam, I've long watched your videos but never commented. I just wanted to thank you for your thought-provoking, well-done content. I'm an old music major from back in the day (graduated college in 1993), and I find your channel really satisfying. Keep up the great work!🙂

[@oscargill423]

4:50 I heard in a Sideways video that rubato (especially in musical theatre) essentially means "stolen time", often interpreted as "borrowed time". If you slow down a certain amount, you have to speed up equally at some point, and vice versa.

[@ale14zoppi]

"Rubato" is the italian for "stolen" "My pocket has been stolen" "Il mio portafoglio è stato *RUBATO*"

[@prarobinson]

Yes, exactly! Gotta give it back later ;)

[@DMLand]

That's how I learned it. In choral music, directors will tell you it means "I own the time. Try something new: Actually watch me."

[@oscargill423]

@@DMLand Oof subtle

[@deantodd5042]

Not always. If you are part of a group and attempting to maintain a constant beat then yes. But if you are playing solo, you can use all the rubato you like. Compare ritardando.

[@BigDaddyWes]

I really enjoy that moment when you start playing a recording somewhere in the middle, or you turn the radio on and the first note you hear isn't the downbeat of 1. It's really strange when it's a song you're familiar with, but it sounds totally messed up because your brain is automatically locked into a different pulse.

[@maggiecorrigan2705]

This is such a good video, Adam! I love your channel 📽💕. You make me feel like I could play music, when a lot of what I was told growing up made me feel like I couldn’t. The reason for that is bc I wasn’t very good at math! Music is both mathematical and emotional. I always had the emotion. But not the right math! You make it so simple and easy to count down. Gives me the power to say “hey I could do this!” Thanks for all you do! 💞💕

[@jsullivan2112]

Ahhhhh the fact that Ringo comes into that song with one of his "funny fills" as he calls them because he's leading left-handed on a right-handed kit makes that whole intro even more amazing! So good! Great video overall too, I've just subscribed!

[@tsnide34]

With, dare I say, just the right amount of cowbell!

[@jsullivan2112]

@@tsnide34 Ha!

[@DorianDeLuca]

If there's one thing I've learned by watching Adam's videos, it's that EVERYTHING is ALWAYS "more complicated than that."

[@Neal_Schier]

True. As someone with zero musical ability or gifts I have this eternal question of musicians just, however rarely, just play and not think about where all the notes and timing falls. It seems to be one of those fields in which the participants delight in making it way more complicated than it should be day to day. ...and yes, I do understand that musicians need a language in which to communicate.

[@ampthebassplayer]

Only a Sith deals in absolutes!

[@onepartyroule]

Exciting stuff!

[@ajconstantine3593]

This was SO well exemplified (every single Q), I had to sub. Hoping for a lot more of this ungodly insightful … stuff! 😄

[@TomLumPerson]

If I got that shade from Miles Davis at 9:55 I would literally evaporate on the spot, I would cease to exist on this mortal plane hahahaha

[@UmamiPapi]

If you think that's bad check out this one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/f6XUmZV_pK6YntU&lc=UgwRojtHOARdPF4afrh4AaABAg.9XtPYazmyjp9XwkMpdfCAl

[@youmothershouldknow4905]

Miles was pissed!

[@AutPen38]

If he gave that look to a genius like Herbie Hancock, imagine how Miles felt when he heard novices play!

[@youmothershouldknow4905]

@@AutPen38 He’d actually feel better about novices, at least those who could somehow do something outside of formulas in which experts are otherwise trapped.

[@hamfranky]

Miles 'don't @ me' Davis.

[@AppliedScience]

I really enjoy your video style, and depth of content. Thanks so much for your videos!

[@jacekkiestrzyn2772]

didn't expect to see you here as heavy science chanel. big fan of your content 😃

[@michaeltagor4238]

@@jacekkiestrzyn2772 wdym, jazz is the highest form of science that could ever exist in this world

[@peterkindred4984]

Adam, I loved what you did ,This 16 Minutes and 2 Seconds was very Refreshing. I will be back, I have a few inportant task to cover now.

[@fasteddie4145]

I played this song for years in a Beatles cover band and you just have to feel it.....

[@kathyratino962]

The Beatles' "I've Got a Feeling" has a fantastic countermelody.

[@mj7den]

It also has Paul using his Janis Joplin voice, Oh yaa.

[@QueenEstherMovie]

Great video Adam! Thanks man!

[@DerangedHousewife]

As much as I really appreciate these videos and find the concepts behind them fascinating, I think if the Beatles themselves saw this video they'd laugh and scratch their heads because really none of them knew music theory, it just flowed that way as a group. Truly amazing when you think about it.

[@charliewest1221]

@@4wdthinking Absolutely.

[@jimbo92107]

Well, they may not have taken a bunch of formal music theory classes, but remember they crossed the Atlantic Ocean to learn how to do Western country folk music. Later, they went to India to learn stuff there. They had their own way of learning.

[@ocsplc]

Maybe not music theory or sight writers or readers but their chord voicings were very advanced for most kids their age and on and on. Punk rockers knew under ten chords and no voicings or inversions etc.. Clearly just picking up a tab book will show how much texture is overlaid on their guitar and bass playing.

[@stevenpranger3754]

I think you mean "none of them knew the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians".

[@ADoveTailJoint]

@stevenpranger, Haha great reference! What the actual fart was the “18 century” explanation all about? Honestly it seemed like he was accusing early composers and modern of intensionally hijacking the method of defining music. “Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were elitist whites that didn’t play nice whaaaaa!”

[@MikeKoss]

Imagine if music appreciation classes in schools were this good! Thanks, Adam.

[@twochaudiomg2578]

Easy.

[@davidloveday8473]

The disorienting effect of Drive My Car is heightened by the bass. The way it lands so strongly on the low D (simultaneously with the guitar playing its first chord of the song) seems to confirm that that beat is the downbeat. Which of course it turns out not to be.

[@RAISEPLACE777]

What great info and expert musicality. Thanks Adam!

[@Scottjazz55]

Very beautiful playing Adam

[@Dorlys42]

On the rubato thing: I'm a classically trained musician but I had a teacher that had a very interesting explanation for rubato. He just said that you need to think of it as communicating vases, as in, when you take a little bit of time (e.g slow down) you have to play a little faster later to compensate. I don't know if this applies to jazz as I'm a cellist and have never played any jazz but I think it's a really cool way to think of it practically.

[@magohipnosis]

Of course it is applied in jazz! It's the way singers interpret the melody more expressively

[@joshcharlat850]

I suppose you know "rubato" means stolen in Italian, so I guess you can't always steal.

[@joshcharlat850]

I suppose you know "rubato" means stolen in Italian, so I guess you can't always steal.

[@Banduryst]

Would have been good to get John or George’s take on the intro - Paul probably counted that way to get started on the melody with his bass later. Ringo on the other hand hand has many unconventional intros which make him one of the most amazing and underrated drummers in r&r

[@gbmaccafan]

Paul actuallly played that intro

[@mikekimmel9744]

Right, Paul played and wrote that opening lick. Source: the book Beatlesongs (1989 by Dowlding), which itself cites the original source of that info.

[@MJWPub]

One of them said, intro was added after the fact, it was basically a botched recording we wouldn't get today.

[@frankskynyrd]

@@MJWPub Same with Her Majesty. I can’t remember if it was George Martin or their recording engineer (can’t believe I’m blanking on his name) but one of them just found some tape in a bin in the studio. They took it out, listened to it, and then were able to (literally) tape that piece of tape at the end.

[@lanilindsey7693]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I thought I was losing my mind with DRIVE MY CAR (for all these decades since I bought the original album). Honestly, I'm still disoriented with that song, but your explanation with the upbeat (which was not the complete explanation, as you explained because of the drum ) I think I can now hang on to the intro and stop angsting over it. Bless you. (My old solution was an extra beat - or something like a 5/4 bar...) Please keep on with your wonderful teaching. Will check in often!

[@s.s.4820]

I've determined that the first notes of many riffs were pickups due to this same rhythmic disorientation. And even once I know it, my ear still sometimes wants to hear the rhythm wrong until the accompaniment comes in and sets me straight. The mind is such a weird thing. Also, I remember my mind being blown once when I watched someone explaining that the famous theme from "The Twilight Zone" begins on a pickup on the "and" of beat 4, rather than on beat one.

[@ChristopherRoss.]

I often embrace this phenomenon, because it creates cool recontextualizations of the music in my mind. For me, the biggest example is Meshuggah's _Combustion_ . I feel the song a full quarter note off from the "written" downbeat just because of clever drum parts, a pickup in the beginning of the main riff, and accents on the offbeat. Its really cool.

[@kodowdus]

In the traditional music of the Gold Coast region of West Africa, there is a concept of "hidden beat", which (unlike the more well-known djembe sound of Senegal), completely de-emphasizes the downbeat (to the point where sometimes it sounds to the untrained ear like the upbeat is the downbeat), yet non-musicians familiar with the music seem to have no problem dancing along. (Glnger Baker spent a lot of time in this region for a good reason!)

[@cumbertiger8503]

what a seamless transition between musical questions/answers, I was blown away!

[@macronencer]

One memorable call and response happened during a live gig when I was playing keyboards with a blues band - we had two sax players alternating in a battle of four-bar phrases. One of them happened to quote Dixie, and the other guy had the presence of mind to quote Yankee Doodle back at him just afterwards. It was quite a moment :)

[@MazAmeli]

This channel is so good, man.

[@norieh1216]

Liked your content & delivery.

[@reine4420]

you are such a great creator! everything you do is soo interesting and full of suprises. you explain things so good and the things you add just make everything better!

[@ToddintheShadows]

It took me years to hear the intro to "Ocean Avenue" correctly, and I still cannot handle "Enter Sandman"

[@fullmetalfury987]

Ocean avenue is just starting the strum on the offbeat of "1&" it's still in 4/4 just the strumming pattern gives the illusion of an anacrusis. The first chord you hear because there is no other reference point you are deducting that this is beat 1 which is why when the drums stab on what sounds like the offbeat (but it actually on beat) it seems to throw the song around in your head.

[@anyoutubeaccount]

Hi Todd

[@EddieG1888]

Todd, I'm like that with Fight Fire With Fire, I've absolutely no idea where the 1 is. And Blackened just dispenses with a 1 altogether! 😄

[@TheAngelsHaveThePhoneBox]

All Along The Watchtower (Hendrix' version) for me. I cannot for the life of me hear the second note as downbeat. But that's apparently what it is if you don't want to insert odd time signature bars between the intro and the verse.

[@ledog9674]

So funny that you mention enter sandman, because when I was a child I just thought the hi-hat was a downbeat and was so confused! Nowadays it makes total sense to me, though.

[@heatherfyffe3618]

that revoicing trick is astonishing and enlightening! Thanks!

[@smokefireing]

Brilliant video. Thank you

[@randyhochuli4540]

great video as always! the ability to recall an improvised line right after you play it is soooooooooo important. Intent is key

[@CenterofLightRadio]

Bro ... your knowledge, delivery, cadence, word usage, clarity, editing ... top-notch!

[@littleo353]

Very entraining. :) Imagine what it was like (I was teenager in the 1960's - to experience such rhythmically challenging music in the 1960's when previously we had VERY little exposure to ANY music at all. So "Drive my Car" was quite a challenge and a treat to listen to. This added to the uniqueness of the Beatles. We were Neanderthals musically back then.

[@georgerose8727]

The Beatles did everything by ear and didn't have the common rudiments controlling or guiding what they did. That is the reason Yesterday only is written in 7 bar phrases. They couldn't write down what they played, it was all from memory and the sound they had in their head. I'm sure many of their tunes evolved with time, from their original version to what became their performance version. That is one of the things that made the Beatles different and helped create much of the appeal, as it was a fresh sound lacking the restraints of the music we had become accustomed to. If you do things a certain way long enough, it starts to feel normal. Lennon and McCartney were brilliant song writers with lots of great ideas, but little or no training, and had they had training, they probably would have never created the unique sounds that they did.

[@charliewest1221]

Yes, musical training would have ruined them. It was chemistry that made them.

[@JohnSmith-pn4it]

How were they brilliant song 'writers'? They all admitted they couldn't read or write music. Initially, George Martin didn't even want to sign them up with EMI Records. Martin called their playing and whatever songs that they brought along in their lunch pails with them 'rubbish'. The Beatles STORY is loaded with many pesky 'devil in the details' inconsistencies.

[@JohnSmith-pn4it]

​@@charliewest1221 It was the Tavistock Institute that made them.

[@stickman1742]

@@JohnSmith-pn4it Seems to me they got a lot better. I don't care much for early Beatles and can see why Martin wouldn't think much either. They seemed to grow pretty fast and became very interesting.

[@Yash42189]

I want to see more of adam soloing on bass :( i wish their albums had more of that. Would love to see adam playing in a jazz trio

[@whatskraken3886]

he did with charles cornell

[@Yash42189]

@@whatskraken3886 Where? Is it an album, single, youtube video?

[@whatskraken3886]

@@Yash42189 yt video, not sure which one

[@whatskraken3886]

@@Yash42189 here you go: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJaxh2edeLOWiac

[@rockawayb1tch]

The Beatles loved to start songs with ambiguous downbeats; check out the intro to She’s A Woman where John’s backbeat guitar starts the song, making it feel almost as if the song skips an eighth note when the other instruments come in

[@johnpaulsmajda]

I saw a video a while back breaking down the intro to “don’t let me down”. Can’t find it anymore.

[@jacobseager4897]

And Taxman

[@spencerschoening5355]

Ah yes, Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey is good one too!

[@Jordy666sic]

I love it when I drop into a song I know very well on the downbeat like in this example. Makes the song sound completely different until your brain reconnects to it.

[@JonahNelson7]

@@spencerschoening5355 oh yeah that one trips me out rhythmically when they all come in

[@familymed1]

awesome post. thanks for breaking things down and making them understandable. and the "please don't cancel me" joke was priceless too!

[@We_Seek_Truth]

Wow! Love your channel and music analyses. I'm certainly not as schooled as you but i pick up in most of what you say. Thanks for the video! I enjoyed it very much.

[@davidgustavsson4000]

Entrainment effects are so cool. I'm a classically trained violinist and a Swedish folk musician-in-law. I keep being thrown by the rythmic traditions of folkmusik. I'll hear added and skipped beats where my girlfriend will swear there are none, and it makes it really difficult for me to learn those tunes by ear (doesn't help that they never write their music down).

[@leftaroundabout]

Norwegian Springar dances are extreme in this. They're nominally 3/4, but I never have much of a clue where the *1* is. It doesn't help that the beats have uneven lengths, and are played very different depending on which part of the country you're from.

[@juliusvilfredhartung5150]

Some Danish folkmusic has music in double-meter (2/4) and dance in triple-meter (3/4)

[@davidgustavsson4000]

One thing that gets me every time is that folk waltz is genuinely in 3/4. Wiener waltz is notated in 3/4, but the dance is in 6/4 - if you skip a bar there'll be collisions. In folk music you find songs with odd numbers of bars all the time. Confusing as frick.

[@meadish]

@@davidgustavsson4000 Bara du hamnar rätt på varje faderallanlallanfafallerallefallanallanrallerej så kan du fuska dig igenom resten. ;-)

[@RedStinger_0]

One of my favorite examples of metric ambiguity is Heliosphan by Aphex Twin. The drum programming on the hihats seems to go in one particularly obvious beat, but when the kick and snare start, the hihats were actually moved one sixteenth beat the whole time. I can never listen to it correctly from the start, thus the metric ambiguity never leaves.

[@robtheimpure]

i feel this with Meshuggah's "Combustion." it starts with just guitar and it seems like it starts on the beat, but then the cymbal hits start a 16th later than i expect. this persists throughout the entire song, after however many years i cannot make myself hear it as starting on a pickup. it is maddening. i love it

[@alexquittner3466]

The intro of Karnivool’s Shutter Speed comes to mind, too

[@ddrreeaamm_brother]

Really? So strange, because I cannot hear it any way other than the way it fits when the kick and snare come in. Crazy how we hear different things in the same piece of music, I love it

[@somaticjet2717]

Heliosphan is crazy. Also spiral staircase

[@patricksimpson1725]

@@somaticjet2717 Yeah, was just gonna bring Spiral Staircase up! There's another very similar metric ambiguity trick in there - the whole thing shifts when the acid loop comes in at 0:30 and then again with the drums at 0:46. There's a great comment breaking it all down on the video for the Orphans EP, I'd recommend checking it out.

[@alonzogarbanzo]

Adam, I've been playing Beatles songs since 1964, pretty competently I guess, but I have never got the hang of this one, ever. Thanks for breaking it down so nicely, and what happens at 1:40 is the most useful thing I've ever heard. --------No wait, 3:40 is even more so. Well heck, it's all really good. Thanks again.

[@martinleavitt6094]

Ringo had the chops to pull it off.....and he did!!..thank you Richard Starkey for all your drumming expertise with The Beats...amazing....👍🇬🇧

[@heidipaul242]

Wow, Adam. Excellent explanation!

[@Nofxthepirate]

One of my favorite things about music is when it takes me several seconds to really understand what is going on with the rhythm. It's like a little adventure!

[@lucyferabyss1886]

Trout Mask Replica will be an odyssey of epic proportions for you then

[@mattedjon-veryaccuratetabs]

Check out the Drive My Car bass cover with tabs on my channel !

[@mattedjon-veryaccuratetabs]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/aqfHqKalftSDkKs

[@tommy--k]

That is crazy. Nice explanation. Learn something everyday!!!

[@bobsaget832]

Fantastic video

[@PittoKun]

The Beatles analysis is fascinating as a DJ. I play/mix lots of 70s/80s club music and come across the occasional song with a weird intro like this. It’s always a fun exercise to “learn” a new song and figure out how to drop it into a mix without missing a beat.

[@ksqmusic]

One of my favorite “audio hallucinations”: Tuning into a song at a random spot and hearing the 1 beat in a different spot. Only ever happened a few times in my life and corrects quickly. But so cool to experience my brain being tricked when it does happen.

[@RedPillRecording]

Try the piano solo halfway through Supertramp's 'Crime of the Century'. Took me a while to figure out what they were doing there.

[@kodowdus]

Traditional African music from the Gold Coast region has a very strong "hidden beat" element to the point where sometimes you have to stare at the dancers' feet for a while to figure out where the down beat is if you're not already familiar with the music.

[@Chris.Tustain]

I have no idea of what you're explaining, however you make it so interesting I have to watch the whole clip and I have subscribed; but I don't think I will ever be able to understand music. Thank you for brightening my days

[@johnd.4536]

That is a very nice chord movement. Substitute F# half-dim for F#-7 and it really sounds good with that counter-melody.

[@duffman18]

Yeah Drive My Car has always confused me. I can't ever tell where the beat is meant to start. What part of the bar the first few notes are in. It always bugged me. That, and Jimi Hendrix's cover of All Along The Watchtower. I really wish someone would make a video about that song too, explaining why the intro is so confusing. I can't ever work out where the beat is meant to begin in that song. I've seen some explanations before where they say Hendrix added an extra beat to the last bar before the drums and bass start. So it's like a few bars of 4/4 and then one single bar of 5/4. But I don't know if that's really the case. But yeah I always listen to All Along The Watchtower and think that the 3rd note is the first beat of the new bar of 4/4. And so the first two notes of the song are in the 4th beat of the previous bar of 4/4. But then by the time the rest of the band comes in, it shows that that's wrong. I think I'd need to transcribe the song to some music scoring program to he able to work out what the hell is going on But at least I now have an explanation for Drive My Car, which is something that's been bugging me for like 20 years now

[@girejorenh]

comment written by paul mccartney

[@wingracer1614]

For All Along the Watchtower, if you count it in 8th notes, it starts on 4.... Count 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1. For quarters it starts on 3... Count three four One two three four. At least for me. Admittedly there is a bit of a weird pause in the first bar where the rest of the band comes in this way but it doesn't feel like a whole beat to me to justify changing up the time.

[@aidenhall8593]

yeah the interviewer asked “where’s the first beat in drive my car” and he responds “ooh i should know that one, the fans will tell you”

[@stephanbernardes9081]

It's so interesting to me that All Along the Watchtower feels like that for some people. Even though I get tripped up a lot by stuff like this (including Drive My Car), AATW never felt weird to me. To my ears, the song begins at the 3-and (like Rock'n Roll by Led Zeppelin). So the 2 Bb chords and the first Cm chord hits are at the end of a 4/4 bar. The second Cm starts the first full 4/4 bar. One thing that I would love to learn is some method to help "re-hear" a part once my brain logically knows where the downbeat is, but after my brain has already established where it thinks the downbeat is. With "Drive My Car", for example, it is so hard for me to hear this lick a new way, having heard 1000 times another way. "Cuatro Caminos" by the Mexican band Cafe Tacvba is another one that absolutely trips my brain.

[@yzatnews1124]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/jqO7hKimn9Cbjdk I don't agree with how he feels the intro, as the way I've always heard the intro matches up with where the 1 lands. He does a good job though.

[@leolovsen1448]

4:47 as a classical musician, I've learned to practice rubato with a metronome: that way you know where the beat is but can flex the time between two given places

[@spydelet1699]

Quite revealing!!! And helpful! I also had the same experience with the intro from ''Yours is no disgrace'' by Yes. It took me ages to comprehend its measure.

[@sejrec56]

Very cool episode

[@mac5565]

What really does it for me is the fact that there's literally _nothing_ on the first beat of the second bar. You can't tell something is syncopated if there's nothing happening on the on-beat to contextualise things. I never noticed the drums coming in early like that; the hard panning makes it a lot less obvious.

[@lydiai.3658]

Not to mention, Paul's bass lands on a low D that most of the time we would expect to indicate a down beat, I think that's the real reason so many people think of that as beat 1

[@phoneticalballsack]

I think you're missing the point though. The drums do not sound syncopated. I hear syncopation in the overall time signature (4/4 + 2/4) whatever it's supposed to sound like! Plus I hear beat 1 and 4 as being offset at the end of the bar, a kind of preparatory thing. As for the durational separation, that happens later, but a drum fill doesn't do a rift what it's talking about! There are no pitched elements to tell her more about it. I guess that this is all because we're talking about a fill which is not used harmonically for its content. The acoustic properties have exactly the same importance. Is this background accompaniment? Distracted? Part of the 'superstructure'? Whatever it is, it has to convey this plain attitude, this neutrality towards the americanized 'kick-2-and-a-poor-girlfriend' formula; an absence of any musical obsession. I can live with the bar-wide contour because it's a convention throughout the whole album to marshall the listener, to set out the mood; she can trash it.

[@peev2]

Check out the intro of AC/DC shake your foundations.

[@phoneticalballsack]

@@peev2 SORRY THAT WAS MY DOG LOOLLLLLLLLLZZZZZZZZZ

[@uomodibassamorale]

Funnily enough, the anthem of my native country (Italy) has the downbeat exactly where i feel the upbeat (during the verse). Having been exposed to it since my infancy, i am now totally unable to listen to it 'correctly'. I only realized this when i saw the score engraved on a memorabilia for tourists in a train station.

[@digitaljanus]

My parents are Italian immigrants and I used to play in a marching band with my dad and some of his paesani, and that pickup note at the beginning of the anthem threw everybody off. Especially when most of those guys never had any formal music training.

[@sweetstonegypsy6673]

what an excellent job of explaining this! before I heard the mccartney band version (with the count-off), I had to count backwards to figure it out. I was gonna do a video of this one + D’yer Maker, Stairway to Heaven (D sus4 part), and Rock and Roll). now I’m inspired to do it. also this whole video is amazing. great work man.

[@jmg8888]

Been a Beatles fan since I was 16 and "drive my car" was among my favorites. Never heard of the term post facto metric ambiguity before till I saw your video now. Your deep dive analysis of PFMA (and "entrainment", another new term which I learned) was crisp, deep and delightfully entertaining. I've subscribed to your channel and can't wait for next video Cheers!

[@kevinmccarthy4088]

Cool clarification about the opening to Drive My Car. Have you ever analyzed Rufus' Tell Me Something Good? I played it in a cover band years ago and that really was a tremendous exercise for improving my sense of time on bass.

[@DrikusRoor]

Aside from the "grounding", I also think that g-f#-f-e movement work great in the Am7 - F#m7 - Fmaj7 - Em7 progression

[@palmereldrich]

I am learning in a very unorhodox manner just playing 'structures' that sound pleasant and makes you move and eventually trying to incorporate everything that what makes music 'music' but the first time i play it does not sound great at all, okish good, but when listened back again more closely it is SO much better than that first go around assessment and those components that are creating that great moving musical experience i am finding are exactly what you are describing as the essential parts of a song, explaining it clearly, so its really giving me hope that at mid 50s i can still be a rockstar, eventually !!! New subscriber, i think i will learn alot here !! To paraphrase a Beatles song; I am a sponge !!

[@warrenstrong4618]

You are great, you and a few others that I learn from given me hope at learning piano. Thanks - WS

[@LonkinPork]

I find that one of the best "beginner-friendly" pieces to play around with _rubato_ and figure out how to utilize it is Chopin's Prelude in E Minor. On the page it has such a straightforward rhythm to it, but there's so much room for expression in how you choose to time the pulses of the chords and the slowly descending melody.

[@jedinxf7]

agreed

[@cisium1184]

Liked bc you said "beginner-friendly" instead of "easy."

[@CinemaSynesthesia]

Great example of intentionally wrong-footing the listener about the downbeat is Herbie Hancock's "Hang Up Your Hang Ups" from the underrated Man Child album. Listen to the opening and tap your foot along with it. Everything about the track is confusing you about the downbeat, even going so far as having that nasty analog synth just playing the same note "on the beat", which then turns out to be the off-beat once the main theme kicks in.

[@CinemaSynesthesia]

Weird, David Bruce's latest video just pointed out exactly this example.

[@kpoche]

The percussion opening to the Indigo Girls’ “Galileo” has messed with my head for years! Feels like it starts on the downbeat but you don’t realize it’s an upbeat til later. Glad to have a name for this phenomenon now!

[@markkermode4018]

Wonderful!

[@musicofforester]

I was obsessed with Post Facto Metric Ambiguity when I was first getting into music. I could never figure out how to do it very well, but I love that it has a name now.

[@hannabaal150]

I love the opening to Drive My Car. I also love that the girl in the song talks the singer into driving a car she doesn't have yet.

[@James-cheese]

Nice. I always play everything Rubato! Really interesting to dive into these things.

[@chipwinfrey5585]

Fantastic. I also get caught off guard, meter-wise, with the acoustic guitar intro to A Day in the Life following the Sgt Pepper reprise. I hear the first strum as a downbeat, but then I get confused when the piano chords come in, followed by the downbeat preceding the first lyric.

[@danno1111]

"Tell me something good" by Chaka Khan and Rufus has always been hard for me to parse properly. It's exhausting sometimes for me to try to get on the right side of the rhythm until the chorus.

[@willdavies687]

Did a gig where me (bass) and the drummer knew where One was, but the guitarist wasn't sure. It was... hairy.

[@MichaelPKelly-hg5jo]

This one came to mind very fast. The verses make clear where the 1 is, but start the track from the zero mark and I simply cannot find the correct count.

[@ilikemusak]

@@willdavies687 I've watched the singer lose the beat on that song, and the ensuing terror in everyone's eyes haha. I'm the sax player so I was off the hook

[@thenotsoguitarguy9429]

The trick to parsing Tell Me Something Good is in the guitar chick. It's nailing the downbeats. The bass line lands on the upbeat before one. The guitar chick lands on one. You almost always hear that relationship the other way around, with the bass on the downbeats and the chicks on the upbeats. It's a dope ass groove flipped on its head like that because it runs counter to intuition until it resolves in the pre chorus/chorus. The feel is quite literally, "one, two, three, four AND one AND two AND three AND four AND one AND two AND three, four AND... I fucking love that song. So much interest - and seemingly so much chaos is created by displacing the emphasis by one eighth note.

[@joemaddock5387]

Thank you! I never understood what was happening until this explanation.

[@CamJamROC]

Hey, he’s playing bass more in this video. 😁 I’ve been wanting to see him put his insights into action more regularly, and just to express through his instrument more often. 🎸🙏🏽

[@Gravitynaut]

the other thing that's really brutal about that drive my car intro is that "hearing it the right way" requires fighting two Very Strong musical instincts. the first is having to accept a tie over the barline. the riff has two measures to establish a strong downbeat and it essentially ignores both, the first by starting with a pickup on the + of four, and the second by nailing that + of four in the next measure and totally obscuring the most important beat in the measure. but what really clinches it is Paul's bass riff. It is four consecutive eighth notes, starting on 3, and landing on the + of 4 with the guitar. But further still, it lands on the tonic for the first time in the song. That's a POWERFUL musical statement, and Paul is basically saying "we land Here". It's the reason Videotape by Radiohead is so hard to hear correctly--our brains are wired to hear rhythmic pulses a certain way, and we receive musical/harmonic information from the bottom up. So with a root bass note, let alone the first tonic of the song, landing in synergy with the top voice on a beat we don't know is an offbeat, every single musical inclination we have is telling us that offbeat is where the pulse is.

[@havable]

There's an entire genre of music where the pulse is on the off-beat. Ska.

[@Shamoshio.]

@@havable That's different because chords in Ska are staccato. Its easy to feel out Ska rhythm without any help or concentration because of that, but Drive My Car sounds traditional in that it's not just a bunch of staccato chords, but instead a blues lick so it's disorienting.

[@eradicatorwarloc]

@@havableidk if you’re ready to hear about jazz

[@yuyiya]

😅@@eradicatorwarloc

[@jakollee]

The other one that gets me is the intro to Hendrix’s cover of All Along the Watchtower, always feels like there’s an extra beat at the end of the lead guitar part before the verse starts and the vocals come in. On the live Isle of White version, it’s more clear where the downbeat is, but even knowing that, the studio version still tricks me.

[@socialmeaslesinpartnership1252]

That's true - it's a real dog's dinner but I always think someone has "lost it" before his opening guitar comes in and recovers it a couple of beats in by skipping a beat. According to a film I've seen about Hendrix, this was the moment when Redding threw down his bass and quit after more than fifty takes of "Watchtower". That might be true - having to wait till Hendrix could finally "feel" how to bring that together with his intro would have been a massive pain in the butt and they couldn't just do it over because the rhythm was done by Dave Mason who wasn't around that day. The Stones Honky-tonk Women has something similar going on, there's a sort of "shuffle" in there to tie it together and Miles Davis was always doing it

[@ursulaplatt9092]

Brian Jones

[@ursulaplatt9092]

And it's intentional,

[@conorreedR2C]

Fun fact: the progression you discuss in the section starting at 5:59 is the progression of the A section of the Chrono Trigger opening/Crono's theme! I love this progression and use it all over the place, whether I'm arranging tunes from the game or writing original music. It's such a bold harmonic statement which I've fallen so deeply in love with.

I knew it felt familiar!

[@nikv7070]

hi, quick question. if am7 is the one, fmaj7 the six and em7 the five, what does that make the f#m7? is it also a six, just from another key? or how would i go about finding out what chord i could replace from which key?

@@nikv7070 yes, F#m7 is a borrowed chord (borrowed from the parallel major key, i.e. A major). It's the vi chord in A major. So it doesn't strictly belong in A minor. That's part of what makes it sound spicy

[@nikv7070]

@ thanks!

[@veritas41photo]

I played wind instruments, and then guitar, and then sang in choirs and quartets for much of my younger life. I possess good relative, but not quite absolute, vocal pitch. I thought I knew a lot about music, from reading to performing. This guy Adam Neely makes me embarrassed to say he is orders of magnitude ahead of me in musical theory and performing. I am learning so much now, too late to make it help in performing, but just in time to learn more and be vastly entertained. Thanks, Sir Neely!

[@Vito_Tuxedo]

For the record, Jaco's bass was a Jazz Bass body with a Precision Bass neck that he "ripped the frets out of." That's what he told me when he was playing with BS&T, and I was mixing stage monitors for the band. Actually, more precisely, he told me that one day while he was kicking my ayuss in racquetball. Jaco kicked ayuss in whatever he did. BTW, great video...my first time watching. I subscribed immediately. 😎

[@missyounorm33]

Wait what? You talking Jaco Pastorius? Nice name drop. 😅

[@difair8853]

Love the emphasis on the word SCHISM while talking about the rhythmic perception at 4:31, that's what happened to me when learning how to play that song and where the 1 was at.

[@krnkrp]

Similarly to Drive My Car, I have the same feeling / problem in I Want To Hold Your Hand. I know that this is basically the end of the middle 8 (I can't hide, I can't hide, I can't hiiiiiiiide), but for the life of me I can't synch with it until the first verse starts. Gets me every time and I love it for it (but also because it is a GREAT song).

[@JonahNelson7]

Yeah that one used to trip me out a lot too, got used to it over the years

[@alantrowbridge4931]

I agree!

[@AppleCorp3]

I was going to make the same comment about I Want to Hold Your Hand. They were so locked in as a band that they did they stuff live without even thinking about it.

[@williamj.sheehan2001]

Oh, yeah! I'd forgotten about that one too!! Always had me scratching my head! Hahahaha!

[@adamcole4623]

Great exposition, many thanks. One of my favourite post-facto metrically ambiguous openings is Marquee Moon by Television. I've heard it beyond countless times, yet it still tricks my brain.

[@Dragon20942]

“I Follow You” by Melody’s Echo Chamber is an excellent example that definitely does this on purpose. The drums don’t come in until after the first guitar line. The first note is actually the second eighth note, but the start of the song is clipped so close to the first note that you’re almost forced to hear it as the first pulse in the bar. Then the last bar of that motif seems to suddenly change to 3/8 and then the drums come in and recontextualize the entire line as entire 4/4 with a “reverse pickup” of an eight note. It’s really disorienting until you learn to start the count on 2 at the beginning

[@theroguetomato5362]

Brahms was a genius at moving the perceived downbeat even at places in the middle of a piece. It was one of his favorite tricks. Steve Morse did it a lot in many of his songs, too.