three, two, one!
I'm Jay
and I'm James from the band TesseracT
and welcome to the two part series on TesseracT time signatures
on the Hack Music Theory show
Nailed it!
We're changing things up this week for two reasons. Firstly, our good old chums
and prog rock legends, TesseracT, were in Vancouver last night, so we got to hang
out and catch up! And secondly, we reached 80,000 subscribers this week!
[Cheering]
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to each and every one of you for joining our
Hack Music Theory revolution. Yeah, we only started a YouTube channel last year
and this time last year, we had about 80 subscribers!
So to celebrate this milestone, and the revolution that we're all creating here together,
we're making you a special series on TesseracT time signatures.
TesseracT has a truly refreshing approach to time signatures,
so in these videos, you'll learn their hacks to
liberate your chord progressions and riffs from 4/4!
And by the way, if you're new to our channel, I'm Kate Harmony, this is Ray Harmony,
and you're watching the Hack Music Theory show, where you are empowered
with notation free theory for making great music!
Alright let's get cracking, so we're gonna focus on the
theory behind their lead single "Luminary" from the new masterpiece of an album, "Sonder".
If you haven't heard "Luminary" yet, do yourself a favour and pause this
video right now, and go have a listen at: ​TesseractBand.co.uk,
and while you're there, check out
the cities and dates of their world tour, cos you do not want to miss this band live,
they're one of the tightest bands we've ever seen! Right, back to the theory.
​TesseracT are renowned for perfectly balancing the artistic with the
accessible, resulting in incredibly intelligent and creative songs, that are
also super catchy! And this is why they appeal to music lovers of all genres and
why the theory in this series can be used in all genres, too.
Right, without further ado, it's time to reveal the theory hacks
behind ​TesseracT's wizardry.
But first...
TEA!
[music]
This hack is what ​TesseracT geniously use in their "Luminary" chorus,
which is in the key of D minor ​(AKA D Aeolian).
And that is what you're seeing on your screen right now.
So if you want an epic course, like "Luminary", start by writing a chord progression in a minor key.
But, here's the problem, there's already a zillion other songs with minor key choruses,
so how do you make yours unique?
Easy, you just use this hack!
Before we reveal it though, if you're a beginner ​(or if you just want a little refresher),
then please read our free book
​“12 Music Theory Hacks to Learn Scales & Chords”,
the link is below.
​Right, here’s how the “Wrong Time, Right Place” hack works.
There's only seven triads in a minor key and those are on your screen now.
So, obviously your chord options are extremely limited.
However, there are literally an infinite amount of harmonic rhythms and
time signatures you can use for your chord progression.
So, the “right place” part of this hack
is all about choosing the right chords ​(in other words, any of these seven),
​and the “wrong time” part is this hack is all about playing those chords
in an unpredictable harmonic rhythm within an unpredictable time signature,
or two, like in the "Luminary" chorus.
Now here's how you can use this hack in your own music in three simple steps:
Step one. To get that powerful "Luminary" feel,
set your tempo 78 BPM and your grid to two bars of​ 12/8.
​Yeah and 12/8 is in the family of time signatures known as “compound time”,
​and they divide music into groups of three 1/8-notes,
​which is more drawn out so it feels more dramatic than time signatures in the “simple time” family, like 4/4,
​which use groups of two 1/8 notes.
Step two. Decide what chords you want to use
from the key of D minor,
​and draw each chords’ root note on your grid
(you can fill the rest of the notes in later).
So here's the chord progression that we wrote.
In our first bar we chose four chords, we started with Dm then we went up to ​B♭maj
and then down to Cmaj and then up to Am.
Then we wanted to kick things up in the second bar, so we chose six chords.
We started with ​B♭maj, then we went up to Gm, and up to Am,
and then we went down to Cmaj, and then up to Am, and ​finishing with B♭maj.
And finally, Step 3.
​Apply the “wrong time” part of this hack to your chord progression.
​TesseracT masterfully twists two bars of 12/8 into one bar of 11/8 and one bar of 13/8,
​resulting in two odd time signatures replacing one even time signature, it doesn’t get better than that!
​To pull off this magic trick, all you need to do is steal one 1/8 note from bar 2, and donate it to bar 1.
​The easiest way to do this, is to choose a chord in bar 1 that you wanna shorten,
​and a chord in bar 2 that you wanna lengthen.
​So in bar 1 we decided to shorten the B♭maj, and in bar 2 we decided to lengthen the Am.
​Now, select all the chords in between those two chords you just changed,
and move all that MIDI an 1/8 note earlier.
​Tada, your chorus just got the TesseracT “wrong time, right place” makeover!
​And you’ll notice we now have an unpredictable pattern of groups of three 1/8 notes
and groups of two 1/8 notes,
​and that’s exactly what transforms this chord progression from ordinary, to extraordinary!
And just a little bonus step for you, to make the most of your new and improved harmonic rhythm,
be sure to accent the chord changes with your drums.
Yeah, so for example when you
write your drum part for this chord progression, start by putting a kick drum here,
a snare drum here, the kick drum here, a snare drum here, and so on.
​And just before the final playthrough,
remember to stay tuned for part 2 of our “TesseracT time signature” series.
​And if you like these hacks, then please subscribe and hit the bell to get notifications.
​Thanks for joining the Hack Music Theory revolution, and we’ll see you next week!