Odd Time

Hello again! In this tutorial we will be talking about "odd time". Whether it's odd note groupings in 4/4 or an odd time signature, it is a very useful skill to learn. We will mainly be focusing on the numbers 5 and 7.  Starting with 5 and 7 note groupings and then moving on to the time signatures of 5/8 and 7/8. So like I said, we will begin with an odd note grouping of 5 notes. In the video I may have mistakenly said that we were in a 5/8 time signature but I was meaning to talk about a 5 note grouping of 8th notes. We will use a very simple one octave C major scale shape played from the 3rd fret of the A string. Within that scale we will only be using the scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. (C-D-E-F-G) Please refer to the tab for guidance. If we play continuous 8th notes while only playing these notes in repetition we will notice that the down beat (1) of each measure will land on a different note every bar. This will take a total of 5 measures to cycle before it comes back to the beginning and our down beat in on a C note. We would then have the following: ||: CDEF | GCDE | FGCD | EFGC|  DEFG :||  You can see the beat one starts with C then moves to D in the next measure and then onto E then F then G for the proceeding measures. You can practice this with any grouping of 5 notes. It could be a minor scale, a 5 note arpeggio, or even just chromatics. Give it a whirl!