I learned something rather cool today

[Outcast (Carlton)]

I am unashamedly a fan of heavy metal & heavy rock.
Amongst the many bands I love listening to is Tool, there frontman, Maynard Keaning is an artistic genius; a bit of a pratt!! However, an artistic genius & gifted singer nonetheless....
Anyways, whilst cruising through useless YouTube clips, I stumbled across the information that the song Lateralus is built upon the concept of the Fibonacci sequence. Firstly it's time signature... 9/9, 8/9 & 7/9 results in 987, a Fibonnaci number!! Then, Keanings lyrics start at precisely 1.618 minutes into the track, the Fibonacci ratio & finally, the construction of the lyrics follows the Fibonacci sequence in a syllabalistic sense per line & verse....
Ie: fist line 1 syllable, line two 1 syllable, line 3 2 syllables, line four 3 syllables, line 5 5 syllables, line 6 8 syllables & then winds back down following the Fibonacci sequence backwards...

How friggin cool is that!! As a very average musician, with an interest in space & nature... mind officially blown!!

Oh, & it's a fantastic track as well.... which if you listen to the lyrics, is about lateral thinking & living in harmony with nature

For any music/math geeks out there... enjoy!!

http://https://youtu.be/uOHkeH2VaE0

http://https://youtu.be/epkG-xSYaHA

[Granada]

That is pretty cool actually, thanks for sharing. Maynard really is a very talented musician and quite an accomplished wine maker actually.

[vlazg (George)]

Love Tool, have you also listened Puscifer and A Perfect Circle, Maynard Keaning is also associated with them

[mynameiscd (Andy)]

Yeah me too,
Love tool!!!
Saw them years ago at Thebarton theater in Adelaide and Maynard was coloured blue.
One of best concerts ive been to.
Cheers
Andy

[Outcast (Carlton)]

Originally Posted by vlazg

Love Tool, have you also listened Puscifer and A Perfect Circle, Maynard Keaning is also associated with them

I have listened to Perfect Circle a bit, Puscifer, not so much. As a bass player I love the heavily bass driven riffs of Tool, the deep meaning of the lyrics are just a bonus...

[xelasnave]

That's neat.
Does anyone know why we expect a certain musical progression which is satisfied by the 12 bar progression.
Alex

[Wavytone]

Johann Sebastian Bach established the convention and it has stuck.

It was pleasing, with enough variety to be non-trivial, yet clearly not random, and easily learnt.

Another thing in the pre-computer age is that patterns involving 12, 30 or 60 were often favoured because of the numerous ways they could be subdivided equally ( ie they have several small prime factors).

This also simplifies dance composition (ie choreography) for everything from popsongs, folk dances, ballroom, Latin etc. Musical sequences that don’t follow the pattern are very difficult to dance to (often impossible).

You may have noticed this also affects the success of the top-selling popsongs.

[DavidU (Dave)]

An old friend Virgil wrote and played this..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie2DKEh46zI

see if you can work out the time signatures on this one !

[Sunfish (Ray)]

Interesting posts thanks.

Too true. Most of the patterns in music seem to come from dancers in the country , from Bach to Blues and Jazz. They are all rhythm. As long as there is a recognisable pattern , so we want hear more, it works. The blues chords resolve from the 5th to 1st in Blues because we expect it , following the rhythm pattern after a little colour from a 4th or a 7th. You can hear what is coming next.

Fibonacci spirals are as good a pattern as any. Now what about a prime pattern.?1357. Maybe a little inaccessible.

Your Brain on Music or David Byrne’s How Music Works get into a lot of that along with the importance of venue , sound and expectation.

Originally Posted by Wavytone

Johann Sebastian Bach established the convention and it has stuck.

It was pleasing, with enough variety to be non-trivial, yet clearly not random, and easily learnt.

Another thing in the pre-computer age is that patterns involving 12, 30 or 60 were often favoured because of the numerous ways they could be subdivided equally ( ie they have several small prime factors).

This also simplifies dance composition (ie choreography) for everything from popsongs, folk dances, ballroom, Latin etc. Musical sequences that don’t follow the pattern are very difficult to dance to (often impossible).

You may have noticed this also affects the success of the top-selling popsongs.

[xelasnave]

It's funny how a certain rythem can dictate a lead.
I remember years ago I had I little four track recorder and laid down a drum track bass track and an improvisd lead.. simple blues (of course) but a friend who played way better than me played an improvised lead only hearing the rythem tracks and although much better basically it was the same as my improvisation...I don't xpect such would be a one off.
Alex

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

That's neat.
Does anyone know why we expect a certain musical progression which is satisfied by the 12 bar progression.
Alex

I imagine that you have heard 12 bar progressions so often they feel natural - it happens to me too. Often I expect a chord change at a certain time without even noticing that the tune is a 12 bar. However 12 bar is not the only convention. I play old fiddle tunes on my mando and those tunes are normally 2 lots of 16 bars. The tunes generally have an A part and a B part, each of 16 bars, and you play AABB (you play each part twice so you can get it right once ). Once you are in that world then 16 bars sounds natural.


On a related note (yuk, what a bad pun) I also recall listening to an interview with Dave Brubeck, who of course used uncommon time signatures. He spoke of going to the Balkans and meeting old fiddlers who naturally jammed in 9/8 - because that is what they had grown up hearing. I am however pretty much stuck in 4/4. I can play a few tunes in 3/4, one in 6/8 and the bass line from Money (7/4 with a bit of 8/4 and 6/4) but that's it. If you are a blues player it's pretty likely that you too are stuck in 4/4.

[xelasnave]

Yes 4/4 time but when I was about eleven I played a b flat Baritone in a brass band and I seem to recall we played a lot of 3/4.
I could site read for it because it was not very complicated.
Saturday morning , mostly, we would term up and you would be handed your music on a card and that went on a holder ...You stuck it on and had to read it and play your part as you marched. And yes I had a neat uniform and a magic looking hat..like a sea captain.
Alex