If you're a musician, today's idea could possibly make sense ;)

However, if you're not a musician, you may not have any interest in today's idea that I had. :o

Just before my 1st coffee break at work today, for some reason my ol' noggin' remembered Frank Zappa being absolutely brilliant at doing different things with strings of notes (I'm trying to keep this as understandable as possible for the every day Joe / Janet, whether they be a musician or not. :) ) ... in non-standard ways, that we usually hear on popular radio every day.

Ol' Frank (RIP ... missing you greatly) became well known for slapping together 7 notes in a row, in a timing structure that's more commonly found used for strings of 4, 8, 3 or 6 notes.  7 notes? 
Come on!  I dare yah! ;)  Just try counting from 1 to 7, in the exact time period of 4 solid and steady drum beats.  It ain't natural, Harry! :o  What the heck were Frank doin'? Lol.

Not yet at that time being completely awake, (about 9:am) even though I'd been up since 4:20am ... my ol' bowl of jello on top of my shoulders started pondering what Mr. Zappa had worked on, perfectly, back in them thar good ol' daze. :)

See ... to try and explain a little background: 90% or so of the tunes that we hear on whatever common radio stations (underground and CBC radio stations after midnight are excluded from this - SOMEwhat) we listen to, are playing music in what is known as:

4/4

That means that a melody or chord progression that are playing, the length of the 'bar' (as we call it), contains 4 x quarter notes. As well, the drummer is sometimes alternating a:

1) Bass drum kick
2) Snare drum hit
3) Bass drum kick
4) Snare drum hit


At the same time, he might be doing something with his hihat, that's as simple as 1/8th notes, in that same time period of 4 x 1/4 note beats.

1) Hihat hit
1 and) Hihat hit
2) Hihat hit
2 and) Hihat hit
3) Hihat hit
3 and) Hihat hit
4) Hihat hit
4 and) Hihat hit

Notice when you're tapping your foot along to the music that you can count repeatedly:
"One, two, three, four" over and over and ...

(And a twist from a big big big Pink Floyd hit from the earlier 70's entitled 'Money' - MOST of it, is in 7/4!  You count from 1 to 7, before you repeat, for about 80% of the tune.  The break with solo in it later, is in 4/4.)

Now - 4/4, 3/4 (used for waltzes, blues (so is 6/8 and 12/8) and 2/4 have been used in the vast majority since the dawn of time basically.  Same-o, same-o. 

"What?  Why don't you musicians work with 5, or 9 or 11 1/4 notes?  Wait a minute ... why does everything have to be 1/2 (half), 1/4 (quarter) or 1/8 (eighth) note based?  Can't you divide up the # of notes in one bar by an ODD number?"

Exactly.  Mr. Zappa, being one of the few musical geniuses in the last 100 years or so, would do really strange things such as mixing DIFFERENT time signatures TOGETHER! :O  He and many others named those 'poly rhythms'.

Anyhoo ... that's not the angle I'm going for at the mo'.

MY idea was to go with what I mentioned further above ... dividing the 'bar' not into an EVEN # of notes, but an ODD number!

Yes yes yes ... this has been done many times before as in music that's in 5/4, 7/8, 13/8 yada yada yada ...

But that's still not completely what I'm speaking about.  (Hoping not to confuse anyone, as I'm quite famous for - lol. :D )

What I'm typing about, is the bottom # in the time signature!  What I'm going to start experimenting with, sooner than later is:

7 / 7 time signature.

"Hahn?"

;)

You betchya, Bill!  1 bar = 7 x 1/7th notes.  :)  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 2 3 4 5 6 7 3 2 3 ... etc.

What this means is:  every single instrument that is playing within a tune, will be playing in that time signature, with that set of note timing divisions.  There wont be any of this 1/4 note crap!  Lol.  The smallest note possible will be a 7th note! :D

Or will it?  Going to an odd # like this for the divisor, the smallest # for timing that can exist IS the divisor.  But in music, we can make things shorter, by taking a division OF the smallest divisor!  And what's smaller than a 1/7th note?  Why, a 1/49th note!  After all, across 7 x 1/7th notes in a bar, you can still divide your time up finer.  Each of those 1/7th notes can have 7 MORE divisions evenly within it!  Thereby, with 7 x 1/7th notes, times 7 for each of them, (or dividing each of them by 7), you come to a total of 49 notes! :)

Now - it's impossible to get much further with any description of this hear, without audio examples.  I don't yet KNOW though of any sequencer software that's out there, that ALLOWS you to change the divisor to an odd #.  I'm going to investigate my sequencer software that I bought last year as well as continuing my searching online that I did earlier today, for anyone else that may have explored this avenue.

Now - to get more technical for any DIY musicians that may be reading this:

I can do it right now (as soon as I hook up my modular again, and get my bread board out.)

All that I have to do is take a master clock and send it into a CD4017 (10 step counter) that's set up to repeat at 7 steps.  Every 7 clock counts, the 4017 will give me 1 count.
Now, I take the 1st 4017's output and feed it into a 2nd 4017 set up the same way.  At every 49 counts, the 2nd 4017 will spit out the 49th count!  Repeat again with a 3rd 4017 / etc. :)
(Note - the 4024 / 4040 / etc. dividers will NOT work for this, as they divide everything by 2.  2 doesn't evenly divide into 7.  So that's ruled out.)

The final results that I have form each of the 4017 'dividers' can then be used to run my sequencers which are set up to multiples of 7 counts, for playing back melodies / etc. :)

Can anyone out there in any way, imagine the almost innumerable amounts of 'feels' that could be created, just for 7th notes?  The possibilties with this man, are absutively STAGGERING! :O

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Hi to all of my newly joined readers!  (Wave wave to Mel, Droffset, Rosch and InLifeInDeath) :)  It's absolutely wunnerful to have you here! :D  I hope I haven't sent off anyone off to nutland or anything with my random babblings so far. :O

See what I have to live with in block at the top of my body?  It keeps coming up with more ideas, than I actually have time to play with!  Grrrrr.  Oh well. :D Lol.

K.  Off to read for awhile and play some World of Warcraft, before Liz get's home. :)
Knighty nite all! (Handshakes and pats on the back, all around. :) )