Mahavishnu Orchestra - Sanctuary

[Mook]

Can anyone explain the time signature of this song from 'Birds of Fire' to me? Been bugging me for years...

[Deltadrummer]

There are a couple that have baffled me from that album and esp this one; but I think this is in a nine: 9/8. then it has a 13/8 in there, too. There are also a few 6/8 measures.

[aydee]

If Ken is baffled, then my friend...... you're in serious trouble.

[Mook]

I see!

I'm usually good at working these things out, but that tune appears to have no beginning or end to the bars in it, John Mclaughlin is a genius!!!

[Muckster]

It's throwing you off becuase it is a super slow tune but the time signature is 9/4.

[dcrigger]

It's throwing you off becuase it is a super slow tune but the time signature is 9/4.

Exactly - thinking of it that way, the moving "1/8th notes" are actually 1/8th note triplets. And why 9/4 instead of just 3/4? Well, the chords change in a very odd way - and 9/4 basically encompasses one "whole bar" of chord movements. But you could think of it as a slow 3/4 in three bar phrases with the chords changing, again in odd places.

AND while it is primarily in this slow 9/4 (3/4+3/4+3/4), there are some extra beats here and there. Not random. They happen in same same place in the form both times during the melody - yet don't happen during the solo chorus.. For instance, right around 1:10 that 9/4 bar is a 10/4 bar. And at the end of the melody, at 1:39 there is a 6/4 bar followed by another 10/4 bar. So...

If you start from the melody - the first long guitar/violin note (@:32) there are:

5 bars of 9/4
a bar of 10/4
3 bars of 9/4
a bar of 6/4
a bar of 10/4
3 bars of 9/4

then the solo - which follows the same chords but just stays in 9/4

then the melody again following the form above.

What is both weird and familiar about the underlying rhythm - the bass and piano is that they are playing a very common jazz waltz pattern - just really slow. The bass playing on 1 and the last triplet of 2, while the piano plays the last triplet of 1 and right on 3 - this is then repeated twice for the remaining 6 beats of the 9/4.

Also there basically being two chords per bar a 9/4 - and the chords split the bar real close to perfectly in half certainly adds to the confusion as well. The chord basically move on 1 and on the "and" of 5 (more accurately, on the last triplet of 5).

Wonderful tune and great performance from one of the classic albums that defined fusion music.

Tying into the other threads on click tracks - clearly no click track here. And though it certainly picks up tempo-wise across the 5 minutes, would it have really been better, if it were "ruler flat"?

David

[Mook]

Click tracks are the Devil!

Thanks for your help man, much appreciated, I'm off to listen to it again & hopefully to understand it a whole lot more!!!

[Danalog]

if you sing the melody in your head while you play along you wont need to figure out the time signature.some of those fills you have to absolutely "feel" to get near the intesity that cobham plays on them.

[dcrigger]

if you sing the melody in your head while you play along you wont need to figure out the time signature.some of those fills you have to absolutely "feel" to get near the intesity that cobham plays on them.

Obviously, I absolutely disagree.

In all music, but even more so in odd meter playing (which is more unfamiliar territory for most of us) knowledge is power. You have to "own" that structure, in this case a pretty complex structure - the melody floats across the chords; the chords change in odd places in the bar; so much so that in some spots the only person making the 9/4 clear to both the audience and the band was the drums.

In all music, the band relies on the drummer not just for the pulse and the groove, but also for that "cue into the bridge" - or "the fill out of the solo section back into the chorus". And so often in odd meter playing, to occasionally answer "Where's 1?" These are all parts of a drummer's job in any ensemble.

To play with as much feeling and intensity as Cobham did on Sanctuary - and keep in mind he would have been making up those fills, not just re-creating them or playing them the same each time... Anyway to play that way, requires huge amounts of confidence... confidence in "where you are" and "what's coming next"; and control... the control to be able to play like that even if the bass player skips a beat...."Ah, ah, ah, no no, here's ONE"

Knowing Billy's level of musicianship, I have no doubt that he not only knew the count and bar structure of Sanctuary, but I'm sure the chord/harmony structure as well and could probably sit down at the piano and play a decent version of the tune himself.

All the great drummers I've had the pleasure of meeting have been like that. To the one, very savvy, perceptive people - having an intensity in how they look at and examine everything. In music, they have all had far broader interests than just drumming; and in drumming have had far broader interests than just the style for which they are known.

My point is the more you know about something, the better your position is to be able to play it like you own it; to be able to truly dig in and really FEEL it. Knowledge is not a distraction; knowledge is power.

David