 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, we are going to do something rather strange and rather unconventional. But hopefully it will help develop your musical skills, your sense of timing, your sense of composition and arrangement. We are going to take a song, a rather famous song as you heard in the intro video and play it in all possible time signatures, every last one of them. And I am going to equip you to build it up with even more, maybe some a weird prime number you've heard about, which I have no clue about, like 37? Is it a prime number? Maybe. One of those long prime numbers or even a short prime number like maybe 9, 11, 13. Well, basically any time signature or even something as simple as, oh, the song's on three. I want to make it four or the song's on four and I want to make it three. Three by four and four by four are pretty conventional. But in the world of three, are there some variants we can figure out? In the world of five, can we do a couple of different things in terms of phrasing? Three by four versus six, eight, a debate which we have a lot. Let's sort that debate out as well in this lesson to show you how it can sound. How can you play the song straight versus swing? So all of these time manipulations and meter manipulations, accent changes are going to be done in this one lesson. So you'll have to be a bit patient with me. Stay tuned till the very end. Get your keyboards out. And a point I'd like to make before starting the lesson is, I'm not going to stick with the same chords or a structured melody because I want to open this out to be any song, any melody, any section or any time signature. So the whole idea is to give you an approach to move it around and change it around. We've done one more lesson where I took a conventional piano exercise and then changed it to all sorts of different time signatures. You should probably watch that either after this or pause this, watch that and come back. We'll leave it in the description. And don't forget to head over to our Patreon page for just $5 a month. You'll get my handwritten notes, the staff notation, backing tracks, MIDI files, not just for this lesson, but for all the stuff we have been doing on YouTube. So Patreon also has upper tiers which you could consider that will enable you to interact with me, do some of our lessons in person. So you can consider going to Patreon and supporting us. So as you heard in the intro video, I'm going to put a nice tune for us to dive into and unfortunately kind of destroy, so to speak. We are going to take the great song from the sound of music called My Favorite Things. So originally it's on E flat minor, but then it goes up a tone in the original. We are not going to get into that complication here. We'll just do it on E minor. So let me first start by playing the song on a simple three by four originally with just an E minor chord. Do it slowly and just so that we get the feel of the song. I'm sure you already know it. It's a great song. If you haven't already, make sure you watch the movie. It has a bunch of other incredible songs. Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Bright copper kettles and wong wool and mittens. Groundpaper packages tied up with strings. These are a few of my favorite things. So as you can see, the chords change especially in line three. Paper packages tied up with strings. C major maybe. These are a G major. Few of my C major. Favorite things do a dominant which is a B. Anyway, if I have to get into chords, this lesson will be much longer. So just get the melody. That's a tune, no? So it's a very waltz-like song, isn't it? Three by four. Now in the three by four itself, the way three by four is traditionally designed one, two, three, one, two, three. It's designed in this environment which has three strong beats. One, two, three. But it doesn't ever tell you how you want to divide and how if you ever want, you can swing it as well after division. So it can be one and two and three and one and two and three. And so at the very least, you can now have a mindset where it's a three by four, but the beats are being divided into two equal units. One E and a two. Now one and two and three. This is what I like more. Just to delay. Raindrops and and what she sings in the song is in any case, Julie Andrews is dividing the beat by two when she says the word kittens. You can take it a little bit extra by doing it. You can do all sorts of things by dividing by two. You can also start saying to yourself, okay, I'm dividing by two. I can also swing it. So I'm singing it and super imposing the swing feel as I reimagine the song, so to speak. Let's swing. So what happens is when you're in that world of swing, some of the notes can just gradually drift. They can go either later or ahead of the beat. Later we call it as delaying. You could say before we can say anticipation. So one and two and this is the normal melody. So you're in that world of swing. Even though you're hearing a traditional waltz, you're not feeling this as one and two and three. You can get some very interesting like jazzy swing rhythm. So it's still three, four, though. One, two. I can inspire you to do something else. That's what I tend to do. It's almost a hack I have for myself when I compose music. Start with something you know, mess it up a bit and then it tends to become your own and you lose track of the song you began and began within the first place. Okay, so that's your default setup. You're three by four. We messed with it a bit by displacing after dividing and we swung it. So now let's move to our first challenge of making my favorite things traditionally three, four waltz into four, four. So what I like to do now to change the signature especially to four, four is play an arpeggio or play any rhythm pattern which is very idiomatic and very obviously four, four. So you know, what's the most common four, four rhythm you would ever do on the piano? You know, this is an arpeggio, maybe a maybe this sort of a pattern, just a broken what we call is oompa oompa oompa. So I'm going to do one of these which I know or and now you have to find a way to play raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens in this environment. So the way I'd like to start a good start would be the thresio rhythm because it's a three beat phrase. It has some off beats. It has some on beats and it has a lot of variations. So it goes something like tang tang tang tang tang tang tang tang tang tang tang tang tang tang tang one eight and two so one and two and three and four two and three if you count sixteen e and a two e and a thing pump pump so it's a good start I think to take it to four four so one e versus maybe do that oompa with some swing. Let's say you like this rhythm which is swung but four four maybe you're kind of moving it into a bluesy version of the song so to speak. So you can do that ballad arpeggio which can give you a more soulful or swing it with some bluesy with some bluesy chords and four and one. So that's a good start the thresio and after you take those hits one e and a two and a two this is very salsa the backbone of it you can mess with it maybe one e and a two or two one e and a two e the one e and a two e of the two instead of the and of the two one e and a two e sorry one e and a two the e of the two the and of the two and the uh of the two are all waiting for you so one e and a two e one e and a two and one e and a two let's see one I quite like this maybe okay so thresio has a lot of modifications let's do a couple more before we move on so that you could do uh instead of one e and a two e and a one e and a two e and a you can do one e and a two e and a that can give you a little bit of reggae feel okay so things like that can work and last but not least you can get a maybe a bit more ambitious with four four by super imposing the original time signature the original song no changes with four four somehow by doing what we call in music as a poly rhythm so i do one and two three four so i do this and try out some triplets so you can start dividing by three this is your pulse i'm not dividing every left hand hit exactly by three that would be too far that would be like a sixteenth note i just want a simple eighth note triplet but if you count this in the right hand it's going one two three one two three one two three one two three one so you can play the original song but with a four by four vision you can also dive into that triplet world which is used a lot in india at least three four but the feel it seems to be four by four we're dividing by takita takita takita takita triplets triplets okay so that's a fair bit of changes so even with four by four there are a lot of variations for you to consider to put a stamp on the song and play it with your own personality but we are not going to stop here there are a few more things to do five by eight after four comes five no so let's do five so five by eight you can count it as one two three four five one two three four five one two three four five one two three four five but phrase it in a couple of ways phrase it either as one two one two three one two one two three one two one two three takita takita takita or takita takita takita takita so if you get takita takita takita or takita takita takita takita takita this should now inspire you to re-change the melody so if I do takita takita it'll be or one two three one two one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two three one two one so playing on five by eight will imply two accented phrases three meets two or else two meets three isn't it so let's put that to the piano I'll do three I'll do two meets three one two one two three one two one two three one two three four one two three four five one kind of very natural for the song come to think of it if I do three meets two interesting but maybe not be something you'd go for immediately because you have to squeeze in those two notes very fast but it can inspire you to do something else you know I would probably use it there at the turn at the end these are a few of my favorite things versus the rest of the song if I'm doing on five could be two beats three one two one two three and then these are a few of my so even with five by eight you can have a lot of variety it won't sound too math like in nature if you have all if you have more maths ironically so let's move forward what about six eight and you may be thinking why are you teaching six eight you've already done three four aunties are the same well not really three by four has three down beats one two three one and two and three and so irrespective of how you divide three by four one and two and three and one and two and it'll still have three down beats or one and two and three and one and still dividing by whatever but three down beats while six eight will tend to always have two down beats one two three four five six one and two right four four tends to slow down the music a bit more otherwise you'll tend to call them as triplets in a beat over so if you play six by eight slow enough a good option to start would be the arpeggio a famous six eight arpeggio if you want to learn it in detail we have a video we'll link that up in the description check it out later so it's like the nothing else matters rhythm so so one you need to accentuate or emphasize the ones and the fours you can also phrase six eight in some irregular ways like twos and fours let's do four meets two one two three four one two one two three four one two three four one two one two three four one two one two three four sounds very different doesn't it or maybe two meets four one two three four one two one two it sounds very much now like three by four so one two three four one two one two three four one two three four one two one two one two three four so i would go with four plus two rather than two plus four in the six eight anyway a couple more before we pack up this lesson so hopefully you can see that it's these accents or these small mini phrases that we create which allows us to understand the time signature and more importantly feel the time signature so after six comes seven let's try that out so seven can be phrased maybe as three meets four or four meets three why not so let's try three meets four one two three four you can voice this out better with some conical symbols like okay you'll not lose time so three would be so one two three one two three four one two three one two three four And the phrase, the music will sound very different, 3 plus 4 versus 4 plus 3. So that will be 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 2, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4, 2, 3, 4, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. Then the D2, then the Dc, then the Dc, then the Dc, etc., etc. Maybe chord hits will strengthen the concept more, strengthen the pattern in your head, You can also do different combinations of 2 meets, 2 meets, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, that's 2 meets, 3, you can also move the 3 in the beginning, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, put the 3 in the middle, the song, you almost have different songs for every permutation of the 7 which is 3, 4, 4, 3, 2, 2, 3, 3, 2, 2 or 2, 3, 3, now you can go on and on so I leave that to you but I just give one more interesting time signature, 8 by 8 is not so interesting because that's pretty much 4, 4, so we'll conclude our lesson with 9 by 8 where you can kind of combine and conquer any time signature by just taking the earlier one which you already know, so 9 by 8 I can do so many things, I can make it as 5 plus 4, 4 plus 5 can I not or I can do 3 groups of 3, I can maybe do 7 and 2, I am gonna prefer a 4 meets 5 for some reason or a 5 meets 4, so let's try 5 meets 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4 so that 4 feels very relaxing and the 5 feels very chaotic, so if I try to superimpose 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4 sounds a bit weird while singing but it should sound better on the piano let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4... It also becomes easier to count a 9 by 8 signature when you've already played one of your favorite songs on 9 by 8, 4 meets 5, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4... Quite like that phrasing already I am probably gonna use that in another song or a riff possibly right guys so you can do this with I mean I would encourage you to explore this with pretty much any song you know if you if you take well our favorite song or most favorite song of all time so what I showed you was twinkle little star from 4 4 converted to 3 4 let's be a bit more ambitious 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 5 by 8 another goal could be I like to mess with this song from 10 to 10 what about what signature just pick one 7 by 8 for at least 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 so home so there's a lot you can do if you have a grip of all the time signatures I hope you got the idea behind the lesson it is in no ways to to have any disrespect to the song which we kind of destroyed unfortunately do make sure you watch the musical the sound of music it's an incredible song maybe we can do a breakdown later and I've done one huge breakdown of a sound of music song I just remembered it Doremi the most famous one of them all probably in the movie we leave we link that up for you in the description check that out as well that will cover the song explainer and also a nice way to play it on the piano okay guys so this whole lesson was aimed at you being able to play any song under the sun on any time signature I hope we got the concept covered and I hope you can use this in your music in your compositions and change the vibe of what you're trying to do and give yourself more options if not anything thanks a ton for watching the lesson do consider a patreon page and don't forget to hit that subscribe button and turn on the bell icon for regular notifications cheers