# Rational Gaze by Messhugah Time Signature



## Estilo (Aug 9, 2011)

Can someone tell me the time signature of the song? I know the drum plays 4/4 but the guitars play something else over it? And it seems to me there are more than one time signature for the guitars? It'd be cool if someone can tell me which parts of the song are in what time sig. And I apologise if this sounds noob even in the Beginner's section, I only found out what the top and bottom numerals of time signatures mean lol. 

As an aside, how on earth do you count 15/16 or 23/16 or shit like that while playing along to 4/4 drums??


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## Pooluke41 (Aug 9, 2011)

Meshuggah Have Gone over the Need for a Time signature.

They Use the Omniverse and Time to Count their songs.

Seriously


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## Hemi-Powered Drone (Aug 9, 2011)

4
4

/thread


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## nostealbucket (Aug 9, 2011)

Most Meshuggah songs are in 4/4. The notes are just grouped differently to sound like and odd time signature.... but, thanks to the Omniverse and Time they don't need to count. It was already counted 10,000 years ago when they cut down an ancient oak to create Fredrik's first 8 string.


anyway.... 4/4.


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## sunbasket (Aug 9, 2011)

Yeah... IMO it's a bit futile to take the intellectual route with their riffs. Just keep listening for the loop point of the riff, and then break it down. Bob your head. Slap your knee in 4/4 and try to a capella the notes. Try to feel it.

For time sigs: the top number is the number of pulses or beats per measure. The bottom number is the note value of the pulse. For the top number, you can put as many beats as you wanted per bar if you really wanted. 

There are simple meters and compound meters. 4/4 is a simple meter. That's when you can divide the measure into two even parts. Compound meters refer to when a measure is divided into 3 parts, or 2 uneven parts. 

so 5/4 would be: a compound meter. 5 beats per measure, and each beat is a quarter note. 

But for the bottom number it's basically always quarter or eighth note. I have no idea what the fuck 5/5 would be.


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## TomAwesome (Aug 9, 2011)

4/4. They're just really fond of syncopation.


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## simulclass83 (Aug 9, 2011)

I was pretty surprised the first time I realized most Meshuggah songs are 4/4. It makes the songs harder in a hard to explain way.


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## Ishan (Aug 10, 2011)

it makes their songs a pain to tab too, look at any guitar pro tabs, it's a good starting point but man... it's never accurate 
@OP try to find a good guitar pro file of Rational Gaze, I remember finding some pretty good ones a while back but be prepared to suffer


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## Estilo (Aug 10, 2011)

I'm even more mindfucked now. How did you guys get 4/4? I get that the drums are, but aren't the guitars something else? And isn't the part starting around 1:56 6/8?

Can anyone give me a clearer/ simpler example of what's an odd rhythm (7/8, 9/8, 15/16) over 4/4?


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## Estilo (Aug 10, 2011)

sunbasket said:


> For time sigs: the top number is the number of pulses or beats per measure. The bottom number is the note value of the pulse. For the top number, you can put as many beats as you wanted per bar if you really wanted.



I don't get the bottom number still. If it's /4 it means a quarter of ONE WHOLEnote, yes? Same goes for /8 being an eighth of A WHOLE note. I've been told ONE WHOLE note = a note that will stretch over one full bar. Now my question is, if it's 5/4, that means it's one count is a QUARTER of ONE bar, and you play it FIVE times in one bar? Isn't there contradiction??

And why is it futile to go the intellectual approach btw? 



Ishan said:


> @OP try to find a good guitar pro file of Rational Gaze, I remember finding some pretty good ones a while back but be prepared to suffer



I got one off UG, says it's 5 stars on there. Don't know how accurate it is though, havn't tried playing it.


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## simulclass83 (Aug 10, 2011)

Listen closely to what the snare is doing btw. 

And for time sigs. 

5/4 means 5 quarter notes in a bar. 
6/8 means 6 eighth notes in a bar.
23/16 means 23 sixteenth notes in a bar. 
etc.


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## ShreddingDragon (Aug 10, 2011)

simulclass83 said:


> I was pretty surprised the first time I realized most Meshuggah songs are 4/4. It makes the songs harder in a hard to explain way.



True. When you begin to listen for the 4/4 loop, you start to hear the riffs in a very different mood. They may sound amazing even if you don't "keep up" with the 4/4 beat, but usually tapping along to the pulse makes them seem even more insane.
I agree that it's easier to play the riffs if you break them down in your mind into smaller pieces and don't think too much about the 4/4 loop. But to get the groove right, I think one should indeed pay much attention to the loop 

Edit
Also, Estilo:

If your time signature is 5/4, then you have space worth five quarter notes in one bar (the bar's space is extended, it isn't left to 4). You can also fill the space with a whole note + 1 quarter. Or whichever combo you want to think about. The same goes with every time signature.

Further edit, sorry 

This _"if it's 5/4, that means it's one count is a QUARTER of ONE bar"_ is not the case - it's not "25% of the bar" if that's what you meant. In 4/4 time, you fill the bar with four quarter notes. In 5/4 time, you fill it with five quarter notes. You just count to five instead of four, and that's it.


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## AwakenNoMore (Aug 10, 2011)

in interviews they have said they only use basic 4/4 time, they just have raging hard-ons for syncopation that make you go "WTF!"


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## Estilo (Aug 11, 2011)

ShreddingDragon: thanks for that man, cleared a lot of things up for me. But I'm still perplexed over what makes it a quarter, eighth, sixteenth, etc..


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## Stealthdjentstic (Aug 11, 2011)

4/4 = four quarter notes
6/8 = six eighth notes
9/8 = nine eighth notes

etc...


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## ShreddingDragon (Aug 11, 2011)

Yeah, ^

In any x/4 time,

If you play one note per beat, they're quarter notes.
If you play two notes per beat, they're eighths.
Four notes per beat means sixteenths.

Respectively, one note per TWO beats is a half note, and one note per FOUR beats is a whole note.


Edit: Corrected something weird


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## Estilo (Aug 11, 2011)

But how do you tell whether each count is /4?


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Aug 11, 2011)

sunbasket said:


> Yeah... IMO it's a bit futile to take the intellectual route with their riffs. Just keep listening for the loop point of the riff, and then break it down. Bob your head. Slap your knee in 4/4 and try to a capella the notes. Try to feel it.
> 
> For time sigs: the top number is the number of pulses or beats per measure. The bottom number is the note value of the pulse. For the top number, you can put as many beats as you wanted per bar if you really wanted.
> 
> ...



First, 5/5 is five fifth notes in a measure, but that's just ridiculous and nobody would ever do that. Second, you seem to have a bit of a terminology error here.

Simple meters are meters that have two equal divisions to each beat, like 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &...



Compound meters have three equal divisions to the beat, like 1 & a 2 & a 3 & a 4 & a...



Odd meters have both simple and compound divisions. 1 & 2 & 3 & a


(About the first 25 seconds here, then it changes around a bit before getting back to 7)

Or here's one in 5:


1 & a 2 &, *1* 2 3 *1* 2



Estilo said:


> But how do you tell whether each count is /4?



Only the top number matters, unless you're writing it down. 4/1, 4/2, 4/4, 4/8, 4/16, 4/32, all of them sound the same. Tempo is not a function of the time signature.


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## ShreddingDragon (Aug 17, 2011)

Here's another view at it: You always have to decide the tempo through which you view the note lengths. When you know the tempo you're at, you'll know if note X is a quarter note or what.

In Rational Gaze, you can decide that the tempo is 135. That's probably what the guys were thinking, because in that case the hi-hats are doing quarter notes (standard Meshuggah procedure) and the snare falls always on beat 3 of each bar.

You COULD also decide that the tempo you're using to view the song is doubled, 270, and in that case the hi-hats would play half notes and the snare would fall on beat 1 of every second bar, which sounds like a really confusing idea.

So take a tempo and use it to divide the notes you hear into appropriate note lengths. Usually some part of the drumkit shows the tempo that the players "are in", most often it's the hi-hat.


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## Dayn (Aug 17, 2011)

It's just one of those things you have to practice. Listen, memorise, internalise. Try tapping a 4/4 beat and whistling the riff over it. If you listen to it enough (too much in my case) you just develop a sixth sense for this type of groove.


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