I guess no one is saying that "The Dance of Eternity" by Dream Theater is throwing them off because it's not the intro of that song that throws you off, it's the entire song that throws you off.
Btw Never Gonna Give You Up also has a confusing intro: I used to hear it as starting beat 1, but it starts on the and of 2! I assumed this was the reason why @@YogevGabay rickroll’d us :)
I can't for the life of me feel Avishai Cohen in 4/4 even with you counting and playing it, my brain instantly locked into the 5 feel and refused to let go
Some of my favourite rhythmically ambiguous intros/tunes: 1. Disko - Komeda (the drums make the guitar shift from the down-beat of a swing groove, to dotted crotchets over a rock groove) 2. Glass - Total Control 3. Charmer - Kings of Leon 4. Kate - Ben Folds 5. Between Us and Them - Moving Units 6. Voice of Chunk - Lounge Lizards (the drums entering actually obscure the pulse in this one)
Oh Porcupine Tree! Yes! I play Shallow on guitar! The first note isn’t a slide really, or I don’t think of it that way. It’s an accented note and then you are immediately sliding down into the second note, sort of thing. Love your content sir!
Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" intro has a 3/8 pickup (starting on the & of 3). Bonham was probably inspired by Charles Connor's drum intro to Little Richard's "Keep A Knocking", which has a similar feel but with different accents. However, Jason Bonham related (in interview) how his father taught him the intro: to think of it like Chuck Berry's guitar intro to "Run Rudolph Run".
Looks like I got lucky the first time I heard Shallow because I always felt the 1 at the "correct" place. So seeing this song here surprises me actually :) Nice vid, as always.
Pamela by Toto is one that has kinda tricked me all these years. It's ingrained in my ears to hear the keys as upbeats and not downbeats. What's always threw me off is the rim shots Jeff plays, always heard those as 2 and 4. I had to put some serious time into relearning it when I played it once. Of course the pickup snare is genious.
Hi Yogev, great video as usual :) Talking about "Rock 'n' roll" intro, yeah, it's on the & of 3. To hear it, try to sing along the drums the iconic guitar intro of Chuck Berry's Johnny Be goode, and the guitar break of the same song as well, in the instrumental part after the second chorus. It's all about that, a sort of drum transposition of that riff. Bonham was a huge fan of Chuck Berry and this drum intro is a sort of his personal tribute to the father of (needless to say) Rock 'n' roll. Greetings from Italy :)
That one really threw me when I was first learning for cover gigs. I just learned “by rote” so I didn’t really count it, just did what was on the record as it was. I was young, I……needed the money…..I swear I’ve learned to count it out properly since then!🤘😁
My favorite is "Mile Zero" by Periphery. I believe the riff comes in on an upbeat that sounds like a downbeat. Later during the solo, it plays the riff the way you THINK it goes at first (on the downbeat), which is pretty amazing! The riff sounds so cool both ways. A close second from the same album is "Froggin' Bullfish." Sounds like 4/4, but it's actually 12/8 (or triplets in 4/4??)
I always found the intro to All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix really confusing, because I always hear it starting on beat 1 and then somewhere during the intro I feel it shift by an eighth note but I can't really tell where excatly this shift happens.
If you get around to breaking down more songs, I’m interested in yr breakdown of Panzerballet’s cover of I’ve Had the Time of My Life. Aside from being an unusual interpretation, there’s something about the changes in intensity that always makes me chuckle.
I love their take on "Take 5", how there's such a persistent polyrhythm, that it ends up being a polytempo - as a listener you can choose to lock into either tempo through the song
Hi man! Just for mess around, let me show you a list with my personal choices on this matter. I think that you'll love them!! Fickle Funk - Chick Corea Watch your step - Dave Weckl Band Emergency Exit - Greg Howe Distraction - Adam Nitti (!!!!) Absolve - The contortionist I robot - Alan Parsons Project Groove of Satan - Owane Miracles out of nowhere - Kansas just a few!
I remembered a few more songs: 1) Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire 2) Mastodon - Colony of Birchmen 3) System of a Down - Science 4) The Beatles - Drive My Car 5) The Beatles - Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
I also have a few. 1. Breaking Me Down by SOiL 2. Your Troubles Are Over by The Gathering 3. Heresy by Pantera 4. Locust by Machine Head 5. Ride The Lightning by Metallica 6. Holy Wars... The Punishment Due by Megadeth 7. The Trance Is The Motion by Static-X
Bent nails definitely starts on a 1. Just the way they head Bob when they play it live. Took me a few listens if it was the 3, 4, or 1, but everyone comes in on the 1 when you hear it as the first note. Super weird but fun.
This was actually my introduction to Cohen. Must've just fell under my radar. Thank you for brining it to my attention. One I still can't count is 323 by The Peter Evans Quintet.
I had trouble identifying the tempo and pulse from “Crimes” by A Perfect Circle until the drummer started playing quarter notes on the hihat. Same thing for “Ticks and Leeches” by Tool.
Fortunately for Crimes the very first note played is beat 1 (it's reinforced with all the crashes, other instrument entering, and the hi hat later), but it's a weird rhythm with the vocals (the counting) pulling you in another direction so I can see why it's confusing.
I had to go and listener to this again. I think, maybe, it's the grouping? The first phrase is 7, then it repeats those 7 beats plus some, so you think it's started again but actually, now you're behind. Fucking great album. Reminds me of being 18 and driving a shitty Mazda in a tropical climate with holes rusted right through it and no air conditioning. My brother bought me a car stereo which was for superior to the car itself and this album burried it's way into my heart like a parasite. And what the hell is that guitar tone when the package drops? Needs to be listened to a few times a year regardless. Actually, ticks and leeches is 7 too.
Great video! "Rock and Roll" (I've heard, and it makes sense) starts on the & of 3, and if you listen closely, it is played exactly like the guitar intro is played on "Johnny B Goode"...
Metallica sure likes to start a lot of songs on beat 4. I was kinda expecting "Fight Fire with Fire" to appear, but "Ain't My..." works too! Also, I'm also kinda sad that no discussion of Meshuggah pops up on discussion videos regarding Videotape's syncopation.
y'know i've never had a problem hearing Fight Fire With Fire correctly, the guitar comes in on beat 1, i guess the few initial drum hits can be disorienting but once it kicks into blastbeats it's fine again. Perhaps it's just the blistering speed that makes it a problem for some people
My understanding of "Rock and Roll" is that that opening drum part starts on the 'and' of 3, at least according to other videos I've seen on the matter. I just know pretty much every cover band up here in Alaska that tries to play this f***s the intro up every time, and it makes me laugh. Also; LOVE the content, I love the way you break things down. You've a new subscriber!
Brilliant video! Most of these examples as the ones in the comments come from acoustic music, but there are examples in electronic music as well. A very nice example is "Home" by Swedish House Mafia.
My list: 1. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Around The World. The pre verse part. If you are not a guitarist you will be one eighth late 2. Paloma Faith - Monster Even though the 1 is there still the melody sounds shifted until the bear comes in 3. Pakito- Living On Video The main melody. No matter how much you will try to convince me, I will hear the 4th beat as the downbeat
Fun to hear someone that amazing as you struggle with things that seemed intuitive to me on a first listen. Good example on how everyone has difficulties with completely different things I guess. An example of something that I kind of never got until I saw the sheet music, was the intro of pinzin kinzin of avishai cohen until the drums come in. I guessed there must be some crazy odd meter, but as always its just 4/4 and the right hand of the piano is actually just the main beats :D Another thing was the drum fill to no na madeira from djavan. I had to listen to it 10 times until I understood where it starts and how they get into the groove...
There is one song that every time gets me - It is "I'm ot of your mind" by De Staat (great dutch rock band).And true placement of "1" isn't revealed until chorus, which starts around 1 min 10 sec :D I guess title is adequate :D
You rarely hear Hadag Nahash referenced or talked about in Scandinavia. Such a bummer, great production and you always feel an incentive to groove along, mostly by dancing like a moron in the car :D Happy to see them here a couple of times now
I was thinking that "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins was going to be on here. My mind always thinks that the beat is an eighth note up from where it actually is until the vocals come in.
One intro that always throws me off is "Severed" by Distorted Harmony (fitting since Yogev plays on it). The guitar always makes me think that it's constantly shifting between triplets and eighth notes until the drums reveal that it's actually all 16th notes.
The way I think about the Rock N Roll intro is thinking about the Johnny Be Goode guitar intro, it's the same concept applied to a similar context (introducing a rock song with an isolated instrument, thing that makes it harder to know where the downbeat is). The same thing happens in AC/DC's classic Highway to Hell, where the guitar starts playing in the "and" of beat 3, but many times people count 4 and then start playing the riff (which destroys me completely hahahaha)
A few examples off the top of my head: 3's and 7's - QotSA (Offbeat cymbal accents in the intro and no kick on the first beat of the verse; I find it hard to hear the correct beat until the vocals accent it.) Bugg'n - TNGHT (This is kind of the opposite; the intro's fine, but when the drums come in, there's no kick on the one, and the and of one is accented so hard by the kick and sub that it completely shifts my perception of the beat.) Give It To Me - Timbaland (The pickup of four 16th notes sounds like it's on the four, but it's actually on the and of two, then the first verse's melody accents the offbeats throughout, and then the beat cuts out in a really weird place that reinforces feeling the and of three as the downbeat, before the chorus comes in and reveals where the one actually is for the rest of the song.)
Mastodon - Oblivion! I will always hear it as starting on the off beat. Brann even starts his hi hat on the actual off beat. I can never not hear it that way.
Awesome video man, super interesting! Definitely reassuring that I'm not the only one who just CANNOT hear some songs in the "right" way even after finding out how they actually work... Also a great one that throws me off is the intro riff in Dream Theater's Honor Thy Father. The guitars hammer away at the offbeat for 30 seconds, with the drums accenting what appear to be offbeats, until it finally gets recontexualised, super cool.
With garage metal I've heard so much of it that the types of riffs used in that Metallica intro are a dead giveaway. It just sounds so much like the end of a metal phrase I don't think about it not having started on the 1.
Rock N' Roll intro starts on the "and" of 3! Another great one is The Police, Spirits in the Material World. The illusion lasts until the first chorus.
FUN FACT! Rock and roll has the 3 note pick up cos they took the intro riff from Johnny B Good and put it on drums, creating the rock n roll Intro. So both start with a 3 note pick up
I thought you were going to say 'Bodysnatchers' instead of 'Videotape' when you started writing Radiohead. I can't hear the opening riff in time until the drums kick in.
For me, until I listened to it with sheets in front of me, The prodigy's - Invaders must die always threw me off. The opening Bassline seems to start on the one, but as soon as the other instruments kick in, it starts with an upbeat. I was always wondering if I'm being tricked into hearing a different rhythm or if it's just an upbeat shifted and actually the same Bassline. Give it a go for yourself and find out. Go without sheet for a start and make your own decision before looking at the sheets. It's weird first, but incredibly tension building. Until the heavy drumbeat kicks in, which gets much more satisfying than without the intro.
Ocean by IQ is definitely my biggest nemesis when it comes to this. It takes a while for the drums to come in, but once they do, I am ALWAYS thrown for a complete loop in a song that's otherwise pretty simple by prog standards.
I have a few but one that jumps to mind is Around the World by the Chili Peppers. I always feel like the chorus guitar riff starts on 1, until the drums come in and you realise the guitar actually starts on the A of 4, like a 16th early or something and the second guitar note is 1. The intro to Paradigm Shift by Liquid Tension always seemed arbitrary to me too. Playable, but not countable, until I saw a video where Portnoy counted in the song in quarter note triplets.
Swap Meet by Nirvana was the first odd timed intro I ever came across. Hard to say for sure but I think it was that moment that sent me down the rabbit hole of odd rhythms.
