So, Iced Ink is in the process of auditioning drummers at this point and in case you haven't heard, the music is a little on the weird side. Non-musicians reading this: sorry to bore you with a bunch of musical quantum physics.
After an inquiry about our song "There's A Bee In Here" from a phenomenal drummer we're trying out named Barry, I took it upon myself yesterday to actually map out a rather complex 10 second long clusterfuck of notes that is the intro of the tune.. figuring that riff out by ear has been known to make musicians spontaneously combust. Not wanting Barry to burst into flames like that, I sat down and called my good friend Steven Hawking - we put our 2.5 heads together and came up with this explanation:
Recipe for "There's A Bee In Here" main riff:
Intro: "OW" sample, 4 beat countoff, pickup notes on the "4" and "&" of the countoff. Then this:
12/8, 11/8, 12/8, 6/8, 11/8 (repeat 2X)
For those of you with no experience in music theory (bless your little hearts), when you turn on your radios and listen to whatever they're playing, chances are it's in 4/4 time. This means you can count along to the beat of it like this: "1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4, 1,2,3,4" etc. You know how before every Ramones song starts it usually begins with someone yelling "1! 2! 3! 4!"? That's a 4 beat countoff. 4/4 time. And it's safe to assume the rest of the song is in 4/4. The "Bee" riff explained above is only 10 seconds of the song... there's a whole extra 3 minutes to it that have yet to be mapped out and who knows if it ever will.. I certainly don't have the patience for it!
I've asked myself time and time again why it feels so natural for my brain to manufacture music like this. I by no means set out with the intention of writing a 10 second guitar riff with 5 different time signatures, it just sort of happened that way.
Some day I hope to start cranking out "normal" 4/4 ideas that are a little more digestible and marketable. I tried as best as I could with guitar parts for She Might Be A Spy.. and sort of succeeded, I guess - but now that I think of it a lot of those parts are in 7/8 yet they still feel natural... and people seemed to dig 'em.
One thing's fo sho: if I keep this weird time signature thing up, I probably won't have any chance of ever having my music played in regular rotation on the radio. And hearing what kind of poot is in regular rotation on the radio around here (minus our new station The Current which RULES!), I can only say thank Gawd for that.
