 Hi everyone, this is Jason here from the Nathaniel School of Music and in this lesson We are going to look at a simple five-note exercise A B C D E D C B basically five notes and All you're going to do with these five notes is play them up and down and While playing them up and down We are going to learn some of the other time signatures Which you may encounter or which you're looking forward towards Encountering the time signatures which are not very common what we usually call as odd time signatures things like seven Seven by eight five by eight and those sort of things which are not common time or four by four as we popularly know it right so the exercise is basically a B C D E D C B Basically these notes are all part of the A minor scale the first five notes if you will and I think the minor scale sounds a lot nicer for some reason so The first thing you want to do is to just play the exercise Over four four even though this lesson is about understanding the odd timings Try to get the even one or the common one first so try to play it in four four Counting eighth notes. So in order to count eighth notes, what you're going to do is play the exercise First of all on the piano try to use all your fingers thumb index middle ring and the pinky and Basically play two notes for every beat. That's when you're playing eighth notes. So you go one and two and three and four and try to avoid counting one two three four five six Seven eight, so you don't feel the difference between the on beat and the subbeat, right? So let me show it again and try to count one and two and three and four and right You could also play the pulse in your left hand maybe with a single a or the root like If you're new to this exercise just try to make sure that the weaker fingers of the piano like the ring finger and the pinky Don't slip while you play The ring finger is a bit weaker, right? So you don't want it to slip And play something very random. So if you're if you still need some time with the four by four version, which is Try to also play it maybe a little faster And try to get some nice control into yourself while you're playing the exercise So you may want to pause the video now do the four by four version really well and then Unpause it and then I'm going to start talking about the odd time signatures like the sevens and the fives and so on, right? So anyway, so let's now look at the odd timings seven by eight and so on So as you know, seven by eight has eight be seven beats to the bar or seven quavers Seven eighth notes as we say so when you count it it feels a little odd because it's not one two three four We don't move very normally. We move in a very odd way because it's an odd number I guess so a good way I found to kind of understand this seven by eight is to take the same exercise with eight eight notes and Make the same eight notes somehow squeeze themselves Into seven beats. So beat is nothing but a time container for sounds So you can have eight sounds in seven beats, right? So the way you could look at it Visualize it could be to make one beat contain two notes So in the diagram as well, which you guys could download in the description Which we've also put out with notation. You'll find that beat number seven Sorry beat number six is what I've divided into two. So that'll be one two three four five six and seven So beat number six gets divided into two and that allows you to squeeze in eight notes into seven beats And that's exactly what's happening. So let me try and show that to you one three four five six seven one You see what happened at six? I hope where the beat number six was as long as all the other beats I was playing at a constant tempo, but It got two notes and those two notes were not given to it randomly the beat six got divided exactly into two and You could squeeze in two notes into that you could call those as 16th notes or semi quavers, right? So let's see how that sounds again one two three four five six seven one two three four If you see our old version This is on even time This is on the odd time. So you can use your left hand again And Theoretically you could perhaps make any beats any of the seven beats quicker or The quicker is the wrong word. You can make any of the seven beats accommodate more than one note as I said earlier So in the description or in the picture which you're seeing You will be dividing beat six into two However, you can divide other beats as well and that's going to be the next part of this Tutorial. So if I divide six again Five six six gets divided, right? Right and if you just see my left hand while I'm playing this exercise I'm trying to divide it between the root and the octave. So maybe the root a Could be played at beat one and Maybe the next octave a could be played at beat number five That sounds again You could also mean the way I look at it is whenever you get whenever you're trying to get more and more Confident or more and more comfortable with one hand in this case the right hand you should try To move the left hand as well. It's not about only focusing and obsessing over this one hand You don't really improve yourself in my opinion You need to have another challenge or another goal and the pianos are an incredible instrument that way the other goal To distract your main goal will be the other hand which is playing some awesome stuff as well Right, so in the left hand perhaps you as you're practicing the right hand You could bring in the left hand to go a and the high a octave And you could also change these notes around you could also play other stuff like maybe F or D If you look at my right hand the right hand is very very It's the same isn't it it's earlier. We did A, B, C, D, E, D, C, B the same motion is Basically repeated on seven as well, but to make it seven Two notes just got faster Right, so let's look at a few other time signatures as well and There's a download available So you could download this with notation and if you guys don't know notation I think that's also fine. You could follow what I'm playing by year and you can always leave a comment if you have doubts Okay, so now looking at six. So the way I've done six here is with six you have six beats to fill Eight notes. We are still trying to do eight notes, right? So six beats to fill eight notes So what do we do two beats have to hold two notes, right? It's just you just have to do the math So in this case, I'm keeping beat two and beat five to carry two notes. Let's see how that sounds one two three four five six one two three four five six And again as always bring in your left hand for some fun So the left hand's basically playing the a as well as the next day at the four of the bar Now bringing in our right hand Change it so try and move the left hand as well So now what about something like five Right, we could actually do it on any any kind of time signature, but I'm just choosing Four by four and then lesser of that because if we go more than four by four If we go to something like nine by eight, then you perhaps have to add a note So I'm trying to ignore that in the video But you could practice that in your house by just adding one more beat in this case We are subtracting beats, right? So the last time signature I want to talk about before we then focus exclusively on one of the time signatures for the lesson is five eight five by eight of five beats per bar So if you're doing five beats per bar And now you have eight notes three out of those five beats have to store Two notes each, right? So two threes are six and then two more remaining So what I have done for the demonstration is to have beat one beat two and beat four to divide So that'll sound like One and two and three four and five one and two and three four five Four five one two three four five so if you see beat three and beat five are not divided And you could keep the entire piece of music interesting by getting your left hand to To to create some grooves on five. So a good way to just look at grooves is Is just divide that five into two parts and take Maybe three of those hits three of those hit points and maybe play play those hits in the left So So far the entire exercise has remained pretty much the same it's a b c d e d c b So let's just recap what we've done so far and then move on to the next Lesson or the next sub lesson if you will we took a b c d e d c b divided each beat by two playing eighth notes one and two and three and four and practice that Then we tried some odd time signatures like seven Well six was not odd, but we did six as well. So the concept behind it is you have eight notes And x amount of beats which is less than eight in this case seven So if you're doing seven beats What you could do then is one beat which is a time container Could have more than one sound right in this case two Right and so on and so forth. So now moving on to lesson number two Where in we are going to use sub beats Right and play them only over seven by eight. So the entire lesson number two is going to be on the seven eight time signature So again, if you want to revise what I've done, perhaps pause the video try out all the different time signatures Especially seven by eight, which is going to be the topic of our tutorial And and come back and hit play right, so moving on so if you look at the Sheet here which which I would recommend you guys to download You will find I've written a lot of permutations on seven by eight Right using staff notation and all I've done there Is to take different beats of the seven Basically, you could take beat number eight. Sorry, there are not eight beats. There are only seven beats You could take the seventh beat and divide it into two Or you could take the sixth beat and divide that into two Or take the fifth beat divide that into two. So basically you have Seven exercises because there are seven beats and each of the seven beats could divide themselves into two Right, so I'm going to show you how to play this exercise from the back Division till the front beat getting divided. So the back last beat will be seven Let's see how it sounds shall we so you go one two three four five six seven seven right, so Seven will have a faster set of notes Two three four five six seven Try to play it at different speeds Right, and then I guess in the last part we again use seven But we divided the beat six into two so that'll sound like how we did earlier five six Six right so six Got divided by two Then you could divide the fifth beat of the seven by two that'll be one two three four five six seven two three four five six seven one And just to keep things interesting you could play either a root and its octave in some rhythm here Or you could even play things like chords Maybe a minor and f major F major D sus Right, and if you observe I made a I'm also finding it a little tricky because I guess my conscious brain is trying to figure out which chords to go to next While I needed to have converted this right hand of mine Into I guess the subconscious brain where you're not really thinking of it So I guess practice makes perfect. You need to keep doing it over and over in the right hand Keep your left hand simple and then bring it up. So now if you have to Maybe divide beat number four out of the seven It'll be One two three four Five six seven right and I'd advise you also from time to time Try to also perform the exercise without your main instrument, which is a piano in this case So try to perform it with just your voice try to sing it or maybe just use the left hand Then once you get a grip of the exercise And I guess a grip will be try to sing it and then try to play it Two three four five six seven And then what's left? We have to then divide beat number three of the seven. So that'll be one two three four five six seven But if you observe it's still eight notes. So the exercise remains the same, doesn't it a b c d e d c b a b c d e d c b Then you guys could perhaps Divide the beat number two, which will be And so on And I also think that this exercise also brings out the creative side in you Along with the technical side and I usually like to make my exercises like that So you're not just looking at it as technique and getting to be a better pianist You should try to also get to become a becoming a better musician And what happens when you displace these sub beats? Like practice them by dividing the beat seven then divide the beat six then five is your ear will Feel completely different music, won't it like something like Feels very different when as opposed to Something like that, which is a completely different phrase or I guess you could say a completely different melody so Maybe this melody will sit better in your composition as opposed to the other one So it's good to have as many options as possible And it will also motivate your left hand to do different things with every different seven by eight Permutation as I've showed you it will allow your left hand to also be very very creative or Another way to look at the left hand is it's trying to survive more First of all, right it's trying to cope up with what's new in the right hand So it will automatically do some different stuff With the right hand changing as well. Okay, and the last permutation. I guess will be to divide the beat one One two three four five six seven one two three four five six seven one two three four five six seven Try to also count it as you play. It's a little tricky, but I'd advise that You see one gets divided And then if you get good at all these rhythms you could perhaps try and combine them that's also a lot of fun so maybe So I I have no idea what I was currently doing But I guess a good way to start would be to take two rhythms May not be all the seven which I did now and completely got lost So you may not want to do too many things otherwise you lose track of what you're playing And you should always be in track of what you're playing because that will help the technical side The technical side Will will check or will will figure out whether you're playing it right or wrong in the first place And the creative side is always thinking. Oh, I want to make a song out of this or I want this to become a melody So you need to have both those things going on for you as you play, right? So What have we done in this second? Chapter you could say is we've taken the time signature seven. We've taken our The same old exercise a b c d e d c b And to make eight notes into seven obviously one out of the seven beats would need to have two notes And in this Chapter we've looked at all the possible permutations where beat seven could be divided into two beats six could be divided into two And have two notes then beat five beat four beat three beat two and beat one for some reason We started with seven then we moved all the way back to one But if you want you can start from one Dividing that or having two and then going all the way to seven So the last part of this lesson Well, the last chapter will be again to keep the same Seven thing going and you could look at this in maybe the third picture Which has been attached and in this particular version of the exercise you take the same seven beats with one permutation Perhaps you divide beat number six. So that will sound like Which you've practiced earlier, right? three four five six six six got divided into two, right? Right the only task for this less exercise is don't start with a at beat one all the time But follow the same linear order or going up and coming down. So what's the note after a well b So you need to keep your same finger shape Where b is still played by the index and start The rhythmic phrase from b. So you go So b c d e d c b a b c d e d c b a So you see c and b get a bit more hurried or that will be played faster. Why did that happen because we started on b so Right and this is clearly creating a completely new melody or a completely different phrase However, you still have to keep the drill Up and down, right? This may confuse you a bit. So I would first of all suggest you to play it slowly Until you start digesting the melody. You need to understand it as a tune. So You should be able to sing that back not just play the drill mechanically, okay, so we've done it on a now we've done it on b And now you can start on c as as mentioned earlier. I'm trying to keep the same finger Which you used to have for that respective note So c will be played with the middle finger and you're going to start the phrase with that finger Right the entire feeling changes of the melody It's like a completely new melody and all obviously the chords will also change because you're stressing on different notes there, right Moving on. So now where do we start a b c d? We start with our ring finger. So it'll be a nice workout So d e d c b three four five six seven one two three four Right, so there we started with our ring Then on the way up the last note is the e So you're not you don't really have any more up Notes to play right so you'll have to just start down and then up Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da Then you could start on d Now why d? Because you've already done d before right? But this is a different kind of d because you're starting on d and then going down to c earlier You played d and went up to e right so now it's d c b a b c d e So starting with ring, but going down instead of up. So you get another permutation. Then you could start with C, but not going up. You start the cycle going down. So that will be C, B, A, B, C, B, A, B, C, D, E, D, C, B, A, B, C, D, E, D. Remember that the rhythm pattern has stayed the same throughout this lesson, right? You're doing one, two, three, four, five, six. So six got divided into two. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, one, two. So that pattern continues. Last note will be B or the last permutation. That'll be, oh, sorry, B is here. Ha, B, A, B, C, D, E, D, C, right? So you will be stressing on B. So all of this will give you a different harmonic set. You'll be probably choosing different chords than what you would have chosen had you started with the thumb, which is usually a very traditional thing to do on the piano, right? Start with the thumb and move forward. So let's recap this version or this exercise again. Basically you take one rhythm pattern wherein in this case we are dividing beat number six and accommodating two notes. And after taking that one rhythm pattern, what you will do is you squeeze in eight notes, but you start with different starting notes. So instead of starting with A all the time, you could start with B, C, D, E, then D on the way down, C on the way down, B on the way down, and finally A, right guys? So in this lesson, we've looked at three exercises. The first exercise was to just take A, B, C, D, E, D, C, B and just try to understand different time signatures along with the one you already know, which is 4, 4. Then we looked at having different rhythmic patterns through the same note combination. So taking a time signature like seven, which we've taken for most of this lesson, you take seven and then you have different rhythmic permutations. By accommodating eight notes in seven beats with all the different ways as each beat can be changed. You could have beat one divided by two, beat two divided by two, beat three and so on and so forth, right? And the last version or the last chapter of this lesson of this whole exercise would be you'd keep one rhythmic phrase consistent of the seven, which is dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun and start with different notes. So you could start with A, you could start with B, you could start with C, you could start with D, you could start with E and then D and then C and then B and then A, right? So this lesson will hopefully give you control over the odd time signatures while playing a finger exercise. So my argument is you should always do a lot of things when you want to learn something like an odd time signature. So just counting seven one way, which we traditionally do as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or maybe 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Counting that is not enough. You need to make music on this. So usually when we play an instrument, we play covers or we try to play our own stuff, or we just jam with our friends or fellow bandmates. But we tend to forget that there are time signatures other than four available, right? You have 7, you have 9, you have 11, maybe in another lesson, I could talk about some of the other time signatures like 9, 11, 13, right? So if you want to use these time signatures creatively or at the spur of the moment, it's very important to first of all practice them. So I hope this exercise will be something which you could look at to jumpstart your journey into all these odd time signatures, right? Thanks for watching. Thanks for your patience. Hope you guys found the lesson useful. If you did, please give it a thumbs up. Also leave us a comment if you have any doubts and more importantly, if you have not subscribed to our channel, please subscribe right now. And if you have subscribed, please share the video with someone else, with your fellow musician friends and get them to subscribe. It will be awesome for us. Cheers and catch you in the next one.