#tuplets

DAY 1200) Charge Cycles - No One Cares About the Letter L

Composer: me (Chimeratio)

DAY 1200!!!! To celebrate, posting music to a soundtrack I wrote myself AGAIN of course. As I’ve said before it’s to a quirky puzzle game by my cool friend CHz (who has helped out a ton with this blog! thank you CHz!) You can play it here!: https://chz.itch.io/charge-cycles

As I’ve stated every time, I write music without actually paying attention to or writing in the time signature changes, just writing in 4/4 or 1/4 or whatever and ignoring barlines (though definitely consciously making sure my writing is free enough for odd time/polyrhythms/polymeter to form itself). So these timesig changes I had to spend a lot of time figuring out on my own just now as much as I would with any other song pretty much.

This soundtrack has music where the drums are only playing when triggered by your actions in the game, so for these soundtrack uploads I just played one version first and the other version second. In this case the version without drums plays first and then the version with drums plays second, but the loop point is still 1:49 really.

This song is ridiculously polymetric to the point I’m going to have to write the timesig chart out multiple times for different layers and in general am going to have to talk about a bunch of parts separately. Here I go!

1) Focusing mainly on whatever I personally consider the ‘base’ groove at a given moment (ie what i’d actually write on sheet music):

(0:00 - 0:15) 6 bars of 4/4, 1 bar of 7/8

(0:15 - 0:24) 3 bars of 4/4, 1 bar of 5/4

(0:24 - 0:33) 4 bars of 4/4

(0:33 - 1:05) [4/4, 4/4, 11/8, 4 bars of 4/4]x2

(1:05 - 1:12) 4/4, 4/4, 24/20*

(1:12 - 1:21) 3 bars of 4/4, 2 bars of 5/8

(1:21 - 1:26) 2 bars of 9/8

(1:26 - 1:44) [3 bars of 4/4, 1 bar of 17/16]x2

(1:44 - 1:49) 4/4, 4/4, 2/4

(1:49 - end) [same as 0:00 - 1:49 except with drums]

*Yes that is a bar of 24/20, it’s very concretely interpreted as irrational time to me personally, rather than a sudden tempo shift with metric modulation. The bass is doing constant quintuplets, but it does 24 in one bar instead of an even group of 5 so you can’t count it as 5/4 or 4/4 or anything. Some might argue this would be easier to read as a tempo change where the quintuplet becomes the 16th note temporarily, but I feel it’s best thought of as just quintuplets at the same tempo as everything else. If someone wrote it out as metric modulation where the quintuplets become the 16th note though it would still be a perfectly valid way to write it!

As another note, the drums from 3:11 to the end are all just a constant quarter note pulse, but I still wrote x/8 and x/16 time signatures over it because I felt those were a more dominant feel at those points, and instead interpret that hi-hat click as beat displacement layered on top of non-4/4 timesig changes until it finally lines up toward the end.

Also yeah the 4/4 at the VERY start here for the first 15 seconds mostly only makes sense in the with-drums version of the tune. Otherwise your only real feel to go by is the part I have listed below. If you were writing an arrangement for people to play this where you didn’t have drums come in the first time, the way this does, you’d be better off writing the first 15 seconds the way I have it below.

2) Focusing on the main mixed meter synth figure

(0:00 - 0:15) 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 11/16, 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 6/8, 5/16

(0:15 - 0:33) 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 11/16, [the rest of this section is random notes from the 7/8 + 13/16 + 7/8 + 11/16 groove being randomly chosen (based on the random hard L vs hard R panning) and the L layer and R layer going out of phase with each other at different rates. This is barely audible in the final mix but here’s :15 - :33 with this layer isolated to make it easier to hear. https://instaud.io/2P1Y ]

(0:33 - 1:05) [7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 11/16, 6/8]x2 (note: this section has two layers of that bass synth, one offset to play 1 16th note later and 1 octave higher. Both layers have completely different random panning as well, so this makes it challenging to feel this mixed meter pattern clearly because more likely you’ll be paying attention to the high note that’s a 16th note late, or accidentally alternate what part you’re hearing)

(1:05 - 1:37) [same as the version 1 of the timesig chart since that synth line isn’t present here]

(1:37 - 1:44) 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 11/16

(1:44 - 1:49) 7/8, 13/16, 13/16

Additionally at :20 there’s a layer that’s playing this same figure added on top except it’s playing in dotted 16th notes relative to everything else. It’s a solid loop of 7/8 played at the tempo of “if those dotted 16ths were 8th notes”, rather than the tempo of everything else (this was inspired heavily by Fez - Knowledge, which does a similar thing). I guess you could interpret them as being played in 21/32 time too, but that’s a weird way to think of it since it’s all groups of 3 32 note beats.

3) The organ and piano stabs

These are basically RANDOM, there’s not really a convenient way to write a time signature chart around them even if they exist in a “polymetric” state to everything else, it’s really just random rhythmic stabs to convolute this even more hahaha. I just picked a random feeling rhythmic feeling that I thought sounded cool. There is methodology to their layering against each other however:

In the first use of them from :06 - :15 though the piano rhythm is exactly the same as the organ rhythm except delayed to play 15 16th note beats later.

The 2nd instance from :28 - :33 is just hocketing (one instrument playing in the gaps of the other).

In final instance at 1:30 - 1:44 the piano rhythm’s exactly the same as the organ rhythm except the piano rhythm is delayed to play exactly 7 quarter note beats later.

4) The polyrhythms in the drums!!

Starting at 2:56 the drum loops start stretching/squashing an amount of beats into one bar that isn’t the same tempo as everything else.

2:56 - 2:59 is 6/4 squashed to the space of 4/4

2:59 - 3:01 I already addressed far above, it’s an irrational time bar where there’s 24 quintuplets, but you could interpret the drums there as 5+5+5+9 6/4 squashed into the space of 24/20 but that obviously makes little sense.

3:01 - 3:04 is “10.6666.../16″ stretched to the space of 4/4 (this is really just dotted 16th notes in 4/4 except since that doesn’t line up nicely with 4/4 evenly the last beat has 1/3 cut off of it)

3:04 - 3:05 is just normal 16ths/32nds in 2/4

3:05 - 3:06 is 11/16 stretched to the space of 2/4

3:06 - 3:08 is just normal 16ths in 4/4

3:08 - 3:09 is 4/4 stretched to the length of a 5/8 bar

Then after that it’s back to normal 16ths in 4/4 for the rest

In sheet music you’d most likely just write these as tuplets, but I’m describing them the way I am here because they’re drum loops originally at different tempos, so this should make the sound easier to understand exactly how I stretch/squashed their speed.

I really thought it would be fun to play with the feel being entirely different with drums vs. without drums so that’s why I did a ton of playing around with that. In the drumless version of that section obviously it all just feels like normal 16ths in 4/4 (or 5/8 for 2 bars) but once the drums come in that feeling entirely changes.

- - - - -

HOPEFULLY THAT ADDresses everything and hopefully I explained it all articulately enough for it to all make sense! This track has possibly the most rhythmic eccentricity going on in this entire soundtrack, despite arguably being the most conventionally pleasant one to listen to and technically being mostly written in 4/4 in typical sheet music. You wouldn’t think it’s this difficult to write out but it definitely is.

Oh yeah also this has my voice from when I was like 15 years old in it hahaha.

This tune is in general a tribute to what my taste in music (and life) was like when I was that age so it borrows a lot of traits from it.

That was when I first got into steve reich and that sort of polymetric minimalist music (it is probably very obvious that this is inspired by steve reich and similar minimalism stuff haha).

Was also when I first got interested in tracker music (some patches from this are the same as ones in tracker module files I was really into at the time and stylistically this is vaguely similar to some of the tracker musicians I listened to a ton back then).

I also was just very enamored by electronic music with this type of sound to it.

It’s also when I first started using fl studio so i intentionally used a few fairly blunt fl studio sytrus/etc presets here haha.

DAY 706) Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland - Uncle Rupee (Final Form)

Composer: Masanori Adachi

Masanori Adachi has an incredibly distinct (and very weird) style that I love and I really wish I could find everything possible he’s ever written in one place but it’s pretty scattered. The more I listen the more he becomes one of my favorite VGM composers. Anyways this soundtrack of his is great!

This one is pretty crazy so there’s a lot of ways you could interpret what’s going on, but I’d personally write this as mostly very fast 9/4.

Interpreted that way, the beginning is 2 bars of 9/4, 1 bar of 12/8, and then 9/4 for the rest of the track.

In some parts that “9/4″ is felt more like 9/8 + 9/8 (the flute ostinato especially), and in other places that “9/4″ is felt more like 3/4 + 3/4 + 3/4 like at 0:15.

On top of all of that you have that crazy tuplet vibraphone layer going over the whole thing and distort your perception of the rhythms of this amazing piece of music that’s already difficult to get a handle on!

The drums are pretty hard to follow too and seem more meant for accenting and keeping it feeling fast paced, rather than keeping a pulse (which is something I adore when I see music do!). There’s always something else keeping the pulse in the music instead of the drums anyways, so it works out pretty well I think.

DAY 600) Groove Coaster 3 - Got hive of Ra

Composer: E.G.G. (Hirokazu Koshio)

So I think I literally consider this my #1 favorite piece of VGM now.

It comes from the alias of Hirokazu Koshio, known as “E.G.G.”, which stands for Everything’s Got Groove. This alias of his describes itself as being about “express as it is”, which he considers to mean that the biggest element of the music is the freedom that comes from the lack of binding itself to the constraints of meter that normal music has. These tracks are basically the “final boss” tracks of Groove Coaster, so are the most rhythmically challenging ones to follow in the series, which to me is what I always want from rhythm game music~! Perfect example of musical complexity in rhythm being the actual source of difficulty for the game, something I always crave from rhythm games.

Thanks so much to nitrox72 for sending an ask introducing me to this series of Groove Coaster tracks. I was already familiar with the game and knew it had a lot of complex timesig music, but I didn’t know it had stuff THIS aligned with my tastes, wow. It’s spot on to being exactly the kind of stuff I want to hear.

This track in particular is the newest one of the set and didn’t exist when the E.G.G. music was recommended to me, released December 14, 2016 (technically had a limited pre-release Sept. 28). I’m doing it first though because it’s probably my favorite one of them.

As with most things this complex, there’s a number of different ways one could write this out that would be considered just as correct as each other. I’m personally choosing to write it at a different tempo than marked (134 instead of 268) because I find it more intuitive to think of it with the 16th note as the primary driving force here. I’m also using a bit longer bar lengths, but many people (including myself) might consider it more readable to write it out with shorter bar lengths to break it up. I normally don’t do it this way but I decided to put some “[OR]” markings to indicate a few alternate ways I’d consider using to write out each section (which I’ll talk about in more detail later down in the post after the timesig changes list).

Time for the actual timesig change list (counted at quarter note = 134):

(0:02 - 0:29) 10 bars of 6/4 [OR] [5/8 + 7/8]x10 [OR] 20 bars of 3/4

(0:29 - 0:32) 1 bar of 5/4

(0:32 - 0:50) [6/4, 7/4, 15/8]x2 [OR] ([4/4, 2/4] + [4/4, 3/4] + [4/4, 7/8])x2

(0:50 - 0:55) 3 bars of 15/16

(0:55 - 0:57) 1 bar of 5/4

(0:57 - 1:03) 3 bars of quintuplet-based 4/4 [OR] 3 bars of 5/8 at quarter note = 83.75 (aka quarter note = quintuplet) [OR] 3 bars of 10/10*

(1:03 - 1:05) 1 bar of 5/4

(1:05 - 1:15) 4 bars of 11/8 [OR] [5/8 + 6/8]x4

(1:15 - 1:31) 5 bars of 6/4, 1 bar of 7/4 [OR] [5/8 + 7/8]x5, [5/8 + 9/8] [OR] 11 bars of 3/4, 1 bar of 4/4

(1:31 - 1:33) 1 bar of quintuplet-filled 9/8**

(1:33 - 1:52) [6/4, 7/4, 15/8]x2 [OR] ([4/4, 2/4] + [4/4, 3/4] + [4/4, 7/8])x2

(1:52 - 1:55) 2 bars of 13/16

(1:55 - 1:59) 3 bars of quintuplet-based 3/4 [OR] 3 bars of 15/16 at quarter note = 83.75 (aka quarter note = quintuplet) [OR] 3 bars of 15/20*

(1:59 - end) 1 bar of 4/4, [hold]

*it is extremely rare that someone would write non-4-8-16 in the denominator of a timesig (called “irrational time”) to transcribe that sort of thing out, most musicians will not know how to read that compared to the other alternatives (writing as tuplets or metric modulation), especially if it’s not being used as a transition between timesigs. However, I put it as an option because it really, in context, is felt as a number of quintuplets per bar more than anything else

**The section at 1:31 I tried to come up with a way to break down into a smaller bar between the quintuplet first part and 16th-based 2nd part, but there isn’t really a way that works mathematically at all, so I’d just keep it as 9/8. I imagine that in software that’s how it was written anyways (I’m pretty sure there are no actual tempo changes in the way he wrote this in his head, and that all “irrational time” or “metric modulation” is actually just written as quintuplets at the normal tempo with whatever time signature fills up the right amount of space). You could also, rather than counting the last bar of the 1:15 - 1:31 section differently than the rest of it, consider those 2 8th note beats to be part of this bar, which would make it 11/8 instead. Really this is just a weird transitionary bar so it’s pretty ambiguous the best way to count it.

1:55 - 1:59 is the rhythmically weirdest sounding part of the track to most people probably. For a while I thought it was just tempo speeding up every time the phrase played, but it’s more rhythmically precise than that. It’s understandable as 15 quintuplet beats being played in the space of a 3/4 bar, however, since that doesn’t align evenly the way it would with a 4/4 bar like at :57, it has to be written differently. This chooses to make the last quarter note beat be normal triplets (if still counting at 134), which sounds weird being so rapidly juxtaposed with the quintuplets.

Some might consider it a bit weird to write alternating 5/8 + 7/8 rather than thinking of it as anticipation rhythm in 3/4 (or 6/4 like I have it), but because of other parts of the track (like the clearly alternating 5/8 + 6/8), and how stark some of the downbeats are, I feel like it makes sense to think of it that way most of the time. NORMALLY I would never advocate writing alternating timesigs in place of syncopation like that, but in a context like this I feel it makes sense (at least if you’re using smaller bar lengths and not counting it as 6/4), or maybe I’m just crazy! Of course writing that all as anticipation rhythm-based 3/4 is perfectly acceptable (and probably even more likely to be how someone writes it than what I did)

Beyond all of that, everything is ultra syncopated pretty much the whole time so of course there’s FAR more rhythmic complexity than just crazy meter. There’s still tons of acceptable ways to write this out that I didn’t address as well (especially given that I wrote it out at 134 instead of 268). I didn’t even address breaking down individual meters and the rhythmic groupings within them! (maybe some other time haha)

This was definitely the most challenging piece to write out for this blog that I’ve done so far, so hopefully you appreciate it! (and hopefully I got everything right and there’s not some lingering far better way to write out certain parts that I didn’t notice)

Here are some Tuplets fills! (look up definition on Wiki!)

Play the fill in the 1st bar, accenting every 3rd note in 1/16s.

Now split the non accented notes into doubles, EVENLY! NOT like the classic 5 stroke roll where you get gaps!

You now have a Tuplet fill! Very cool and modern and SMOOTH if u warm up first! [I'm afraid I didn't, but u get the idea!]