My Secret to Making 5/4 and 7/8 Time Signatures Groove!

[00:00:00]I'll I'll I'll give you one bar in 33.

[00:00:09][laughter] Well, it didn't help me as far as going from odd times to 44. That it really didn't help me. But what I learned was how to groove in those time signatures.

[00:00:28]There is a clip of the Don Ellis band on the Ed Sullivan show. It was in October of 1969. I think I had just turned 20 and were on the show. And you'll notice the songs in 54. And I learned something real when I first got in the band. I quickly figured something out for the guitar part to groove. And for any part to groove, if you don't have to play on beat one and you, let's take a bar five.

[00:00:56]Let's say we're in 54. If you don't have to play on one or five, beats one and beat five. If you don't have to play in those beats, you'll notice that I put the rhythm guitar part in the middle of the bar. That way it doesn't sound jerky. If you accent beat five, it's going to sound jerky. If you accent beat one after beat five, it may sound jerky, but especially the last beat. If we're in seven and we accent seven, it's going to be jerky coming around. So, I just learned to find guitar parts that grooved inside of the bar without playing on beat one or the last beat.

[00:01:36]Now there's exceptions uh in 78 like one two one two one two three one two one two one two three one two one two one two three in 7 eight I would accent those figures so like dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot if I wanted to define the time and keep it pushing forward that's an exception because it the the two the two twos and the three need to be outlined that's when I would actually accentuate accent all those beats. So beat one, beat three, and beat five. There would be the accents to group. 1 2 1 2 1 2 3 1 2. So we GOT There's one tune that was in 33 that alternated between 36. I I'll I'll give you one bar and 33.

[00:02:29]Uh uh uh uh uh uh. That's a bar of 33.

[00:02:33][laughter] It's a Bulgarian folk song and there's a dance that goes with it that Miltchure used to do on the gig for fun.

[00:02:47][laughter] Oh yeah, Miltcha was great, man. What a great player and a great human being.

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