The SECRET To Make Odd Time Signatures FLOW (And Not Sound Choppy)

Tommaso Zillio

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On reading the title of this article you’ll think: " ‘The secret’? Ah, this is obvious clickbait. There are no more secrets…"

Really? Ok here’s the challenge, then.

I bet that you can’t find what I say in this video in any other YouTube video to date :-)

What am I doing in this video that is so ground-breaking?

Well, let’s say that you want to write a song using odd time signatures (5/4, 7/8, and the like).

And maybe you want to have the whole song in a single time signature… or maybe you want to go full Dream Theater and change time signatures often.

And let’s say that you want some help to make these odd time signatures ‘flow’ and not sound all stilted and choppy.

If you search from some help out there on the ’net, you will find only things along these lines:

• “This is the 7/8 time signature, you just need to count up to seven” (duh…).
• “You can divide 7/8 in accents of 3+2+2 or 2+3+2 or 2+2+3 or other numbers that add up to 7” (double duh…)
• “Use a lot of trial and error to make it work” (oh dear…)

Seriously? That’s the best we can do? Trial and error?

(More like “trial and horror” lol…)

Music theory has gone well beyond that!

So in this video I go well beyond all that bllsht of “trial and error” and I show you a specific guideline that makes your odd time signatures flow better.

Or you can apply it in reverse and make your odd time signatures sound more choppy and less flow-y.

It’s YOUR choice - but with this you can make this choice purposefully in your songs without wasting time in trial and error.

And NOW that you have the key to understand odd time signatures…

… let’s apply it in practice. For instance, you could have a look at the video below. Forget about tverything I explain and just look at the examples…

Can you see the principle in action?

See how these ‘complex’ songs now make much more sense?

And for more examples where you can see the same principle in action, see this one too:

P.S. Now that I posted the first video, soon other guitar teachers will pick up on this… so when these ideas becomes widespread on YouTube… remember where you’ve heard them first! ;-)

P.P.S. Feel free to copy all the ideas in the video for your songs.

P.P.P.S And of course, if you’re into progressive music, then you also want to shape up your knowledge of “cool” chords and advanced harmony. Check out the Complete Chord Mastery guitar course