 We're about to find out if this is one of the craziest time signatures ever, or just 4-4. The answer is... kind of both. Check it out. This is a tune called Vardivar written by Tigran Hamaseyan, who is an Armenian jazz pianist easily one of the most incredible and prolific players and composers in the game today. I discovered Tigran a few years ago and I was absolutely blown away by the inventiveness and the creativity with which he wrote these incredible melodies and chord structures but possibly the most exciting thing that I find about Tigran's music is rhythm. There's a pretty big downside that you can run into with jazz every once in a while and that is complexity for the sake of complexity without any reason for it to really be there. Like just because you can play a 7-11 polyrhythm inside a 7-11 on July 11th at 7-11 p.m. for 7 minutes and 11 seconds doesn't mean that you should, well actually no you definitely should do that because that's hilarious, but there is this issue of composers writing things, typically younger composers or especially students that are complicated for no other reason than to be complicated. I know because this was me but every once in a while we run into something that is complex but it feels like it fits. I find that Tigran is somebody who has pushed this to the limits while still creating things that fit, that feel like they're called for, that feel like they just work but they're incredibly complex yet maintain their groove. So let's break down what's actually going on here in this particular tune and how Tigran manipulates 4-4 to make you feel like you're listening to some crazy complex time signature. Vardivar is characterized by a consistent line in the piano that kind of barrels through underneath the melody and all the other things that are going on in the tune. And that line is literally a wall of 16th notes broken up into different sized groupings so to create accents in weird parts of the measure. This is ultimately what's going to make it feel like it's not in 4-4, like it's a different time signature. There's one very easy way that we can show exactly what's going on here and we can show exactly how it's in 4-4 and that process is really simple. Slow it down and add a metronome. In other words, the one thing that I should do every time I practice anything and literally never do. Now we're going to do something else here that's going to help make it even more clear. We're going to add in the drums but in a 4-4 backbeat. Now what that's going to do is it's really going to help illustrate exactly where these accents fall in the measure. Once you start to hear the accents slot into that 4-4 backbeat, you're going to start to piece together the rest of the measure in a way that allows you to hear it more clearly and more consistently in 4-4. Only is it in 4-4 but those 4-4 measures create normal groupings of 2, 4, and 8 bars. It fits perfectly into what we're used to with western music and how it's typically written. In terms of form and like number of measures, it's really not even that much different from a pop song. The moment this becomes really difficult to grasp is when you add the drums back in playing along with the accents instead of just playing straight through the 4-4 time signature. Because then once the drums are also participating on this weird placement of accents, it becomes very difficult to hear that 4-4. This is the area where some people tend to disagree. Some people think that it's as simple as calling it 4-4 but other people will tell you, well no it's it's not really that simple because really you're gonna count it like this. Divide up the 16th notes by how many there are in each line between the accents and they'll say, no you really need to count it this way in order to keep track of it. Sometimes people just be like, don't even count just feel it. And I might consider myself in that group because once I'm playing the whole thing I can think about the 4-4 but I don't think about the 4-4. I just kind of play it if that makes any sense. It's in the way that the accents fall into that 4-4 measure that throws your brain for a loop and makes you really think about what's actually going on. But once you get it and you feel it, it opens up this whole different world of groove and it completely redefines what groove can be in your mind. Basically like a gateway drug. The next thing you know you're gonna be tweaking out in the middle of the street to something in like 13-8 and nobody's gonna have any idea what the hell you're doing but in your head you're gonna be like, this hits different. But the bottom line is you should count it however it makes the most sense to you. Some people will prefer to do those more complicated subdivisions and actually think about each phrase in between the accents and that just works for some people and that's totally fine. Other people can count straight through it in 4-4 and totally here where everything falls and that works for them and that's fine too. With music like this you should definitely stick with what you prefer and what helps you keep track of where you are and that could potentially be different for everybody. And this has been happening for such a long time in music. I would say in jazz specifically the first like ultra popular thing was Dave Brubeck's Take 5. If you've listened to that tune for any amount of time at all, all of a sudden you'll realize, hey this actually really swings even though it's in 5. Kind of strange. Theoretically it shouldn't but once you get used to it, it sounds just as normal as 4-4. Tigran's music is a great challenge in figuring a lot of this stuff out and learning to identify time signatures in complicated rhythmic patterns. He has a ton of incredible compositions that use this exact concept and they all do it in a little bit of a different way so it's really cool to just kind of like listen to the music and start to find, okay where is is this actually odd time or is it just 4-4 disguised really cleverly? Cleverly? Yeah cleverly right? I don't know. I'm dumb it is cleverly that's not that complicated. Ask me anything you want to know about music and harmony and rhythm just don't ask me anything about the English language. Moral of the story it's just 4-4 it sounds ridiculously cool the accents are super weird and it's really hard to hear but if you try really hard and you really slow it down and put it with a click track or whatever you gotta do you can figure it out and once you do good lord does it groove. I'm gonna put a link to Tigran's channel down below he has some unbelievable music on his channel please go check it out. He's been a huge inspiration for me and I can only dream of one day maybe coming remotely close to being able to play as good as he does. Anyways that's it thanks so much for watching please be sure to like the video and consider subscribing before you go check out one of these videos here or here or click on my face if you want to subscribe.