Songs That Skip a Beat

Most pop

songs

stay in the same time signature throughout the entire tune, and often that time signature is 4/4, but today I want to show you some

songs

that subvert that expectation by adding random bars of three for added value. Random 3/4

beat

s in a song that's in 4/4 basically has the effect of sounding like we've missed a

beat

because we were expecting to have four beats in the measure and suddenly we only have three, so this creates a fantastic effect but only one where we jump to the next measure one before and the first song I want to show you that does this is Heart of Glass by Blondie, however, the majority of Heart of Glass by Blondie is in 4/4 time. when we get to this bridge we get a subtle change, suddenly we get a 1 to 5 3 4 at the end of each phrase, this moves the song forward and helps add something interesting and eye-catching to this instrumental bridge and like all the examples, I'm going to show you today that it's not like we're actually moving into free fall, it's more like we've

skip

ped a beat at the end of the for to create the jump in the music, we don't hear the three fours come in here. where it's written in the score because as far as we know we're still on four four, it's only when the measure ends one early here that we suddenly realize that something happened in the second half of the bridge, now we get the full version of the same melody is not missing, it will just be a simple round of 4/4 because we just had this same melody but with a missing beat at the end of each phrase now that we have it with a full measure for four at the end it sounds much more logical and satisfactory, it seems that we have resolved the tension we had before.

Another example of this effect is I Love Rock and Roll Just Like Blondie. I Love Rock and Roll is also largely in 4/4, although occasionally we do have some two four bars like here, but the interesting thing I want to talk about is the sudden change to three four that we have here. Now this example of a missing B, at least to me, doesn't feel particularly notable. it doesn't feel very discordant, it actually fits quite well with the cadence of the chorus, when we listen to this hook again later, at the beginning we lost that free measure four and everything is in 4/4 and this sets up our expectations because immediately after this we go to the original version that was missing the beat, so we get a version without the missing beat, immediately followed by a version that was missing the beat, so it sets up the contrast very clearly, this missing beat, this 3/4.

The trick definitely adds a certain kind of tension to the music that we want the final beat to resolve, but we don't get it at the end of I Love Rock and Roll, we actually resolve this beat because the last time we get this hook. we get the 4/4 version which resolves it quickly with that final beat. All You Need is Love by The Beatles also uses the same technique but uses it much more thoroughly than the other two examples in my first two examples of this 3/ Trick 4 was used sparingly only at certain moments in the song, but in all you need is love is used as the basis of the first section, the verse constantly jumps back and forth from four four four three four so, like I said, I like our four examples: this combination of 4 4 ​​and 3/4 occurs so regularly in this song that perhaps it would be better to write it as 7/4 with an occasional time signature or being fooled by it could certainly make the page look less cluttered if I did it this way, though Seeing 7/4 written at the beginning of the song might give the performer the wrong idea about how to conceptualize the rhythm of the song, but to try to show you what this 4/4 3/4 combo is doing. for all who need this love here is an example of what it would sound like if it were just in 4/4 time one thing that happens in this song when you replace the 3/4 time signatures with 4/4 time is that these pauses in the vocal line it becomes a longer beat and yeah that doesn't really matter much but it just keeps the melody from moving forward as these

skip

ped beats make this song move forward, they create a forward momentum because we keep stumbling.

Fast forward to the next bar, now an anticipated song that I have wanted to talk about on this channel for a long time is Burt Bacharach and the song I am going to talk about today is I Say a Little Prayer Like I Say in my other examples. one small sentence is predominantly in 4/4, however the verse features this regular change to 2 for the time being. We're kind of like I love rock and roll. This song actually uses three different time signatures for four to four and three for 3/4. ice bar a little sentence appears in the chorus, not me, each line of the chorus says 4 4 3 4 4 4 before we repeat that same line again, so this is almost duplicating this trick of skipping a beat because we are getting our 3/4 time signature that breaks the flow of 4 to skip the beat and push us forward in the rhythm, but also the phrase just has free bars.

Usually in most songs we have a 4-bar phrase before it is repeated, but here we repeat only after. 3 bars All of the examples I've talked about so far have used this trick multiple times during the song, but the last example I want to talk about saves it for a real highlight for the final chorus of Bon Jovi's classic Livin On . One sentence, we get a key change, a very famous key change and this, as I mentioned before, is a pretty standard key change for their last chorus, but what does Bon Jovi do to make this even more exciting to maximize the impact? of this key?

The change is that they skip a beat when we change keys, so not only are they putting us in a new key without warning, they are putting us in a new key without warning. 1b before, so we fought, the bar was even going to end, so there you have it, there are five different songs that use what I call the 3/4 trick and many thanks again to all the sponsors who make these videos possible for those in the screen right now and a special thanks to Andrés signs the asha. andrew brown bob McKinstry Chris Lorentz Darrell David defender Ferg David eyford David Spalding George Taylor Nancy Gillard Peter Dunphy and Roger Ian every day I listen to your drums and I grew up listening to it and I always hear these sequences you were just doing it and I'm sure you didn't even do it you were working on it beforehand, you just did it and now it's immortalized, yeah I never worked it out so I never got to work on it or complete it, it comes in the emotion of the song.