Re:Microtiming in Metallica's “Master of Puppets”
by padjo on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @01:16PM
(#36047498)
I dunno I clearly hear a four beat in the drums! Feels really natural to count 4 anyway until you run into that bar of 2.
The map’s not the territory though
Re:Microtiming in Metallica's “Master of Puppets”
by chubot on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @02:42PM
(#36048895)
Yeah I was focusing on the snare, which seems to give the song a lot of its feel
But there is a reptition of 4 in the kick, a very common beat of o . ! o . o ! .
Agreed, I would guess the concept of having a time signature is to make musical notation easy to write, and convenient for performers
But it's not necessarily reality
To me the drums have no cycle of 4, it's a "double time" beat, a cycle of 2
But I can see where people are getting the 4 from in the vocals -- there is 4-beat repetition in the vocals
But I would still say the song has a cycle of 22. That's the salient feel.
---
Also a cool thing is that the "Hey Ya" background goes in 12 beats and then 10 beats. That actually supports my point. It's 22
- Drums are 11 repetitions of 2
- Background vocals are 12 + 10 -- I hear the 10 as shortened
- Main Vocals are something like 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 6 -- I actually hear the last one as lengthened, not shortened
So yeah it definitely has a polyrhythmic feel to me; calling it 4/4 and then 2/4 is imposing too much theory on reality :)
---
I hear the vocals as a variation on
- 2 cycles of 12 = 24
- 6 cycles of 4 = 24
These ratios are very common for "12/8" or "12/4" polyrhythms.
But the second cycle of 12 is shortened; the last cycle of 4 is lengthened. Great song!