#uncommon time

DAY 1850) Tron 2.0 - Credits Medley

Composer: Nathan Grigg, Wendy Carlos

Given that this is a medley; there’s lots of timesig changes but they’re more like unrelated sections from each other, often totally fading in/out or with ambiguous pauses, so I’ll just talk about each section separately.

0:00 - 1:29 is all just 4/4, frantic drums, crazy synth sound design, but no odd time really for this section.

1:29 - 1:44 i’m counting as triplets in mixed meter: 4/4, 4/4, 5/4, 5/4, 6/4, 5/4, 4/4. if you were to count those as 8ths instead of triplets it’d be more like 12/8, 12/8, 15/8, 15/8, 18/8, 15/8, 12/8 (replace the 8s with 16s if you’re going to be weird like me and count them as 16ths if you find x/16 more natural to think about for some reason) !

1:46 - 2:17 is polymetric! The syncopated bell-like synth ostinato is in 7/8, but the slower synth hits and most everything else behind it really are in 6/4. For a short bit before 2:17 I guess there’s some 5/8 polymeter in one of the synth layers also. Some other more ambiguous stuff you might be able to interpret as even further layers of polymeter but the point is like, yeah this part’s lots of layers looping in different loop lengths from each other on top of each other!

2:17 - 3:06′s at a bit faster a tempo than the previous section. Also polymetric but a lot simpler case of it. 4/4 in that metallic bell-like synth rhythm, and 6/4 polymeter in the beeps under it from 2:17 - 2:42

3:06 - 4:03, here it’s 6/4 through most of the parts of this that have enough of a rhythm to latch onto something, which only really happens starting with the echoy drums that come in at 3:31.

4:03 - 4:45 is interesting; this is taken from “FCon/The Root of the Problem (Combat)”, which is one of the tracks I have on my biiiiig queue of possible tracks to eventually post on here but never happened to ever post. I’d count this snippet of it as all 7+8, 15/16, but just being aware that there’s a constant four-on-the-floor “4/4″ kick acting “polymetric” to it from the bits at 4:15 - 4:21 / 4:27 - 4:34.

4:45 - end is all loose, but just 4/4 stuff whenever concretely countable

Hopefully I addressed everything important here! there’s a lot going on in all of these sections, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I missed an obvious polymeter layer or something and just didn’t realize it! Lots of these sections come from other tracks in the game too, so are in a bit different of a context musically from their amalgamation here. Obviously wild tempo changes between each section that i’m not bothering to write out lol

This is a great cross section of the crazy stuff present throughout this ost though, tron 2.0 is totally one of the most odd time/polymeter/etc filled game soundtracks out there. Part of that’s obvious influence from Wendy Carlos’s original score to the 1982 film being much like that (and this game borrowing a lot of the material she wrote), but Nathan Grigg’s style is always full of that kinda thing as well, and he only adds to that intricacy in his original additions to the mix!

For all those reasons I thought this would be a pretty good sort-of-sendoff for this blog i’ve been running for over 5 years...........

....so...

...!

...THE FINAL DAY sort of...! As I said many posts ago (https://vgm-in-irregular-time-of-the-day.tumblr.com/post/623135939348365312/day-1828-shining-force-cd-track-25-composer) [probably a better read than my post right now here today], this will be my final post that’s in the “1 song presented with a text post daily” format; I’ll take a break but I will eventually shift to talking about this again in (most likely) YT video vgm mixes, including other related content besides just the very specific odd timesig stuff in vgm too!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me all this time! ULTRA SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO CHz who has helped me out with this blog FAR more than anyone could possibly imagine, he’s done far more work than anyone ever needed to do, far beyond my expectations to help me along with this. And he doesn’t get enough credit for that, this blog would’ve probably died a long time ago without chz’s help. Thank you so much CHz for all your assistance! Sharing me things you remember when I’m in desperate need of a new track to post at the last minute, uploading so much music for me, helping me organize so much, writing out timesig charts for me so many times, sharing overwhelmingly huge amounts of odd time vgm with me, probably even more than anyone else. So many other things all these years you’ve helped me with on here, I can’t thank you enough!

That said, thank you to EVERYONE who has shared odd time vgm with me (and this is like, a LOT of people, far too many to list, and i’m sure plenty would be uncomfortable being listed too, so i won’t subject this post to that).

I’m very bad at responding to PMs and other messages sent to me; I apologize greatly if i’ve left you hanging for months...or years...or forever. I’m just bad at that form of communication lol, but I’ve read the majority of what’s been sent and still try to keep as much as possible in my big list backlog of stuff to eventually post. I get excited and happy when I see people linking me new odd time vgm i’ve never heard and stuff like that; so if i’ve never responded or never posted stuff you’ve linked me here, please know that I actually do appreciate it even if i might not show it haha. I’ve honestly mostly only maintained this blog pretty sporadically and rely heavily on queuing everything in advance on occasion, rather than constant observation of it.

Once i shift to the new format of presentation i’ll still include the suggestions that’ve been linked to me, and stuff. I’ll maybe try to be more communicative in the future now that i’m not going to be bogged down by the load of keeping a constant daily stream of these posts. (though i probably won’t be paying too much attention to tumblr for a while during my break from doing this stuff)

thank you to everyone for every positive comment, every intent to help by sharing, and just...general inquisitiveness and enthusiasm about this THING i’m doing for no reason! This is all literally just me nerding out about my favorite combination of niche subjects together “proggy/mathy/etc music” and “video game music” at the same time as each other. I never expected this would get anything close to the following it’s gotten, but now occasionally it’ll get pointed out that this blog is me in some group i’m in or something and 5 people will be like “WAIT...that’s YOU?! I’ve been watching that blog for years!” or something; like i’m really startled by how many people follow this sometimes lol.

Really thankful for everyone showing interest in me just being me, having fun talking about things i like in music. I hope that can continue even if i’ll be changing what I talk about and how I talk about it!

It might be quite a while before I return to doing this kind of thing again, and it’ll definitely be a much less constant pace, but I think that trade-off be worth it. I’ll return to making posts here again when I finally have new stuff to post, big video mixes with animated visual transcriptions or WHATever i wind up doing (probably a new dedicated youtube channel for the new stuff too) and stuff! I’ll find out what that will be when I get there

Thank you all for everything!

THank you!

WOW

THANKJ YOU for all 5 years of this website being a fun place to post music i like inside of

BYE

OH WAIt here’s my twitter/soundcloud/etc links and stuff if you want to contact me in a place i’ll be far more attentive to than tumblr, since i won’t be paying attention to here for a while:

https://twitter.com/chimeratio_

https://soundcloud.com/chimeratio

ok now ACTUALLY BYE

THANK YOUI

DAY 1844) Shining Force II - Final Battle

Composer: Motoaki Takenouchi

this is mostly 4/4 really, BUT there’s one crazy element that makes me consider it more than “odd time enough” to post on the blog-- the fast constant 16ths psg beeps from :28 - :53. Those are polymetric actually, one layers looping in 11/16, while the other layer is looping in 15/16. It’s so fast that it’s extremely difficult to count or feel it that way unless you slow it down, but that is technically what’s happening there.

During that section, the hits are technically in 4/4 atop them, but it’s definitely hard to feel that, since there’s nothing to latch onto except for two unrelated layers of polymetric constant 16th beeps! not made any easier by the fact that the delay echo on this harsh hits is timed super weird, means lots of things layered on top of each other all doing completely different things! the “actual 4/4 container”, 15/16 beep layer, 11/16 beep layer, and the weirdly timed delay echo (doesn’t actually line up with 16ths in timing at all because it’s so weird)

DAY 1828) Shining Force CD - Track 25

Composer: Motoaki Takenouchi

celebrating 3 simultaneous things today as is usual for month/day "7/8"

1) Happy FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY to this blog. I have posted one vgm track with some form of odd time in it every day for 5 years now! That is half a decade!

2) Happy birthday Motoaki Takenouchi! I started this blog off with a post of a song of his from Jewel Master, chosen specifically because 7/8 is his birthday! Takenouchi is one of the proggiest vgm composers with a ton of odd time throughout his work, so I've always felt that worth celebrating every year.

3) Happy 7/8 time day!! There is actually not any VGM I’m aware of by Takenouchi left to post that I'd call explicitly 7/8 time, but I hope this heavily "7/4" (not that there's much difference beyond semantics) track will do!

anyways, the way I’d interpret this track is 7/4 from 0:03 - 0:29 / 0:47 - 1:10, and 4/4 for the rest!

---

Also I am finally making this announcement, possibly a sad one, but also possibly a hopeful and optimistic one:

I am going to be ending the "one vgm track posted on tumblr a day" format, on day 1850

..........BUT replacing it with more sparsely shared seamless mixes I'll post on YouTube of 50 odd time VGM tunes, breaking it down in the video if I can. In addition to other YT videos about various theory/production/etc topics in relation to vgm or maybe even other music! The irregular-time-of-the-day mixes just being one of many things I post to share and talk about music I find interesting!

The reason for this desire to switch format is partly that posting/writing about VGM often enough to post an example daily is overwhelming and cutting into other life things I’d rather do, but that’s not quite the main reason. I don’t actually want to stop talking about vgm in odd time, it’s my favorite subject! it’s more that...I’d like to talk about other interesting things music does besides just odd time signatures too! So my goal (whenever I can get around to doing it anyway) is to transition into having this account be for posting analysis of other forms: talking about things i like in chords, synth sound design, Other Rhythm Stuff Besides Just Odd Time Signatures. even just sharing vgm I find interesting or cool in some way and talking about it!

It’s been a crazy ride going with this concept for 5 years. Originally I did it all in response to someone I knew who said something like “you’ll run out of music to talk about after one page” when i brought up the idea of making a thread about vgm in odd time sigs on a forum once. I wanted to prove a point that there was A LOT of vgm with odd time, and that it’d take forever to run out of examples of it to discuss. I’ve more than proved my point at this point! So now I’m interested in just talking about other cool niche things VGM has to offer, theory-wise, or even just...anything! Anything interesting I feel worth sharing or talking about

Hopefully it won’t be too long after day 1850 that I can start to post that sorta thing, most likely it’ll be YT videos like I said (have not decided what i want a channel for this to be called or anything yet, i’ll link the channel when i have one lol, and will still link everything on this tumblr account). but i may post text here too. There’s already plenty of other yt channels talking about vgm or music theory or both at once, so I’m not intending to copy what they do at all, not even sure how “educational” I want to be. Just want an outlet to talk about the things that interest me in VGM/music, usually that’s “music theory stuff” but other times it’s just “this is a cool sound it comes from this keyboard from the 1989 here’s 29 other vgm tracks that use the same cool sound i like” or even just very abstract responses, emotions, imagery the music paints to me. More personal and subjective things rather than necessarily technical or educational or whatever; abstract things that I think deserve just as much respect in when it comes to talking about music!

I’m not going anywhere, just changing the format on how I run this, and broadening the scope of other things you’ll see me post on here too!

DAY 1841) Taiko no Tatsujin - Mata Saitama 2000

Composer: Akihiko Ishikawa (LindaAI-CUE)

This is fast enough (~240bpm) that, at least interpreting it at this tempo, there’s not very much of “real odd time signatures” here since it’s better described by alternating between ‘common’ ones, but it’s undeniably pretty complex crazy mixed meter! Perfect hard rhythm game music! LindaAI-CUE‘s music is always consistently full of this kind of rhythmic zaniness and crazy sounds all around

(0:00 - 0:12) [6/8, 6/8, 6/8, 2/4, 6/8, 6/8, 6/8, 6/8]x2

(0:12 - 0:20) meterless section ending in 1 bar of 2/4

(0:20 - 0:52) [6/8, 6/8, 3/4]x7, 6/8, 6/8, 7/8, [6/8, 6/8, 3/4]x6

(0:52 - 0:57) 6/8, 6/8, 6/8, 2/4, 6/8, 6/8, 6/8, 6/8

(0:57 - 1:17) 6 bars of 6/4, 11 bars of 4/4

(1:17 - 1:27) 11 bars of 3/4, 1 bar of 4/4

(1:27 - 1:45) [6/8, 6/8, 3/4]x8

(1:45 - 1:50) 4 bars of 5/4

DAY 1794) Pikmin 3 - Plasm Wraith

Composer: Asuka Hayazaki, Atsuko Asahi, Hajime Wakai

Regardless of what potentially simple numbers you’d write here to describe it on sheet music, this is a musically very hard to follow song, and that reason was the main reason I never posted this one until now. Finally decided at least on SOME way to interpret and explain this, but there’s absolutely ambiguity and other just as logical interpretations-

I interpret:

0:00 - 0:09 as all 4/4

0:09 - 0:39 as all 6/4

0:39 - 0:42 as 2 bars of 5/8

Starting at 0:42, here’s where there’s a lot to talk about. The basis, like the actual barlines I’d write on sheet music probably here are:

(0:42 - 1:14) 12 bars of 4/4, 1 bar of 2/4

(1:14 - 1:43) 2 bars of 6/4, 1 bar of 2/4, 5 bars of 6/4, [hold]

[loop]

BUT the timing of the hits is felt more like a loop of “2/4 + 3/8 + 2/8 + 3/8 + 2/4“ throughout this whole section, which ADDS UP to 2 bars 4/4, but certainly tests your perception of the feel.

On top of that, you obviously have the fact that the “2/4 bars” and “6/4 bars” don’t line up with the whole [4+3+2+3+4]/8 pattern, which creates some pretty cool rhythm comparisons. You’re hearing different “beat 1s”, different possible start points for that looping accent pattern even if it’s constant all the way through.

On top of ALL That there’s still all these other layers that aren’t timed to either of those things, the strings at 1:06 or references to the tuned percussion stuff earlier on. 

Lots of other ways to interpret all of this, so many little details I didn’t even touch on that could change how one perceives the rhythms, but hopefully I explained what’s going on well enough!