String Theory
Using a half-time 16ths feel
by Jimmy Brown
LAST MONTH, I introduced 32nd notes,
which may be thought of as “double-time 16ths.” I’d now like to offer an alternative way to approach this complex subdivision that's easier to count. It involves tapping your foot in a “half-time feel,” or cut time.
The way it works is you use the half note as the basic beat and foot-tapping unit instead
4
4
of the quarter note. So, in meter, you would tap your foot only on beats 1 and 3.
Cut time meter may be indicated by the
2
2
time signature (signifying two half notes) or the letter “c” with a ve4rtical line through it.
4
Or you could just use and write “with halftime feel.” So, by making half notes feel like quarter notes, the quarter notes then feel like eighths, eighths feel like 16ths, and 16ths feel like 32nds. This offers us a way to harness the sound of 32nd notes while avoiding 32ndnote notation and having to switch to a different counting scheme, which can be tricky.
To illustrate, I’ll show an original variation on the verse riff from “Sad But True” by Metallica, written and counted two different ways (see FIGURES 1a and 1b). We’re in standard tuning and the key of A here, and we’re playing the last four notes twice as fast then repeating them. In FIGURE 1a, we’re using last month’s “double-time counting” for the 32nd notes. This works okay here, since it’s a straightforward, unsyncopated pattern, and the 32nd notes come at the end of the bar. But this counting approach can be potentially confusing. Be sure to proceed slowly and use the indicated pick strokes.
FIGURE 1b offers a more user-friendly transcription. Here we’re in cut time, and all the rhythmic values are doubled and thus simplified and spread out across two bars. The advantage here is we can stay with the standard 16th-note count for the last eight notes because they’re now 16ths. Repeat the figure several times, initially tapping your foot on all four beats, then only on beats 1 and 3, to achieve the desired half-time feel.
Our next example is a syncopated progmetal-style riff inspired by “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin but with a more complex, Tool-style rhythm. It’s based on a mathematical pattern that has you repeating a four-note motif and displacing it forward by one 16th note on each successive beat, which is a compositional approach we explored recently with my “Kashmir” spin-off riffs.
FIGURE 2a shows the riff, initially phrased with palm muting, staccato articulations and rests, then with ringing, unmuted notes and ties across certain beats. Again, proceed slowly and play both iterations of the two-bar figure several times, tapping your foot on all four beats at first, then only on “1” and “3.” Doing this creates what some musicians refer to as a doubletime half-time feel and gives us the sound of 32nd notes using “good old” 16ths.
FIGURES 2b and 2c offer two interesting and challenging variations on the riff, for which I’ve removed the second or third note of the repeating four-note motif, respectively, in each case transforming it into a threenote idea. This “math-rock” riff writing approach can be used to create intricate and intense-sounding riffs and grooves... kind of like “YYZ” by Rush “on steroids.”
Senior Music Editor “Downtown” Jimmy Brown is an experienced, working musician, performer and private teacher in the greater NYC area whose mission is to entertain, enlighten and inspire people with his guitar playing.