Three to the Floor: Dance Music Not in 4/4 Time

Call me late to the party, but I'm digging dOP a lot right now. "I'm Just A Man" in particular is just wonderful, partly because it's in 3/4, and yet doesn't waltz the fuck out of the beat, and really would not be out of place in a club setting -- albeit if a DJ could find a way to mix it in and out of 4/4.

How much electronic dance music is there which isn't in 4/4 time? And how would you go about playing it out?

And yes, this thread mentions a bunch of IDM-y tracks, but I'm talking more music produced for dancing than home listening...

i love micronost "got mad love" (5/4)

Oops. Forgot all about schaffel. But to me, it's more of a triplet feel, like a filigree wrapped onto a distinctly 4/4 structure.

"i love micronost "got mad love" (5/4)"

Hm! Yes, I quite like it too.

the waltz

i'm just a man is alternating 4/4 and 2/4. its got the stresses on the 2 and 4 and then the 2 again. like hey ya. stuff in 3/4 tends to have one stressed beat per bar, usually on the one. boom pah pah boom pah pah.

im sure there was an ame track that had a pretty strict 3/4 feel, can't remember what its called right now, it might not be ame actually, it has these interweaving sax lines.

someone should steal the groove from manic depression and use it as the basis for a deep house tribal type tune, that would sound sweet.

Stereolab's "Parsec" -- drum'n'bass in 5/4 -- comes to mind.

I'm sure some folks will correct me before I even type this, but I've always listened to "Hey Ya" as 3 measures of 4/4, one measure 2/4, and then two measures of 4/4.

Whereas "I'm Just a Man" is consistently six quarter notes a measure, so 6/4 no?

There's also "Comeback" by Rising High Collective.

Blame '360 Clic' - lol jazz

music theory is dead under the gamalan of hospital biofeedback devices

faaaaaaaags

i know i've heard at least one dance track in 7/4, can't think of what it was though.

(and every venetian snares track is in 7, wouldn't call that dance music though)

Crackle: "i'm just a man is alternating 4/4 and 2/4. its got the stresses on the 2 and 4 and then the 2 again. like hey ya. stuff in 3/4 tends to have one stressed beat per bar, usually on the one. boom pah pah boom pah pah."

Chesney: "Whereas "I'm Just a Man" is consistently six quarter notes a measure, so 6/4 no?"

Hah! Yes, I think Crackle's quite right. The syncopated hi-hat repeatedly appears in the 2/4 measure. So much for my GCSE in music, and my thread title.

Yeah, it's tough to come up with a rubric here. There's stuff that's not in 4 but where the count still lines up easily (e.g., schaffel, usually in 6/8, but just feeling shuffly), and then there's stuff that is in four but makes a big break in the feel: two-step is like this to me, having shifted the kick on the 3 one sixteenth-note sooner, so that you dance ... off of the 4.

"im sure there was an ame track that had a pretty strict 3/4 feel, can't remember what its called right now, it might not be ame actually, it has these interweaving sax lines."

etienne jaumet "repeat again after me"

i'm gonna lay down the and say schaffel counts as 4/4, syncopated 4/4 stuff counts as 4/4, and songs that toss in bars of 6/4 or 2/4 count as 4/4.

^^ I would get into the 6/8-is-not-4/4 argument but for the purposes of this thread I think you're right that schaffel isn't really doing it

schaffel feels like 12/8 to me, and anyway you can superimpose that triplet feel on top of anything

btw i meant lay down the "law" obv.

etienne jaumet "repeat again after me"

That's exactly what I'm talking about. *Goes to look for a mix with this track.*

it's very difficult to mix with!

6/8 is definitely not 4/4 (it's 3/4), but 6/4 is a different question. something like "electric feel," which is another song with a 4/4+2/4 beat, i can see calling it a 4/4 variant instead of saying it's not a 4/4 beat. schaffel i'd say is not really in 6/8 time, it's just a swung 4/4. (which of course edges back toward the whole question of swing time signatures, but anyway.)

i hear "electric feel" as straight 3/4 (although obv the drums play in 4/4 across the phrases). it's a good one for this thread though.

the chorus maybe, tho i'd call it 6/4 because it's really a 6-beat phrase. the verses are much more 4/4+2/4.

listen to it again and count in 3/4, everything lines up way better than way. but yeah, it's made up of two bar phrases so we're talking about the same thing, but it's seems a lot simpler to think of it in 3 (the drums state the straight 3/4 in the intro too).

there's that Roots track on Illadelph Halflife ("Ital" i think) that drops a beat at the end of the phrase, so it ends up being three bars of 4/4 and a bar of 3/4 (or two bars of 4/4 and a bar of 7/4 if you prefer)

or one bar of 15/4!

ewan pearson mix which puts the amazing ame mix of 'repeat again after me' to good use

Hehe. Those transitions were very, very nicely done by Ewan Pearson. What a great DJ. I guess the key is to cut rather than fade.

And here I was trying to figure out the password to a RAR file of X-Press 2's Coast 2 Coast mix.

6/8 is definitely not 4/4 (it's 3/4)

6/8 is not 3/4. 6/8 is like 2/4 with constant 8th note triplets. 6/8 goes ONE and uh TWO and uh, 3/4 goes ONE and TWO and THREE and.

Electric Feel is definitely not in three -- I'd say it's in 2/4 and is made of three-bar phrases.

6/8 is a compound form of 3/4 time. (at a certain level this is just math.) you count it differently and it has a different feel, that's why you call it 6/8 instead of 3/4. i was just saying 6/8 isn't a derivative of 4/4.

and you can say "electric feel" is 2/4, but the pattern extends over 6 beats and that's what gives the song its rhythmic structure. no matter how you chop it up -- 3 bars of 2/4 is still 6 beats.

(and there are lots of different ways to play in all these time signatures, it's not like there's just one count for any of them.)

I'd just consider "Electric Feel" to be in 6/4, except for the brief part that's in 4/4.

There's a song on the first Basement Jaxx album in 7/8 and a couple songs on the U.S.E. album that are in 6/4.

"Cherchez la Femme" by Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band I guess is 4/4 with 2/4 bars mixed in. It generally never goes where you think it will. I've been hearing that song for 30 years and I still could probably not sing it as it's played.

6/8 is a compound form of 3/4 time.

No it isn't. 9/8 is a compound form of 3/4 time. 3/4 has three beats two a measure, 6/8 has two.

and you can say "electric feel" is 2/4, but the pattern extends over 6 beats and that's what gives the song its rhythmic structure. no matter how you chop it up -- 3 bars of 2/4 is still 6 beats.

Yes, the phrase has 6 beats, but the rhythmic accents go one two one two. You could write it as 6/4 or 2/4 or 4/4 + 2/4, but it's not in three.

The problem is the idea that "at a certain level this is just math," which is not really correct. If this were math 3/4 and 6/8 would indeed be the same, but they aren't.

That should say "3/4 has three beats to a measure"

St3ve OTM here. The whole point of 6/8 is that it's counted in 2, not 3.

i agree with that.

Yes, the phrase has 6 beats, but the rhythmic accents go one two one two.

i still hear "electric feel" as one two three, one two three, with the drums playing in four over the phrase (bonham-style!).

not like it matters, it's funny how you can have a whole band of musicians thinking of a song differently, however it makes sense to them, and it works just fine.