>Mark forwarded this question for his friend Melanie: > >>Has the joni list ever talked >>about the time signature(s) in the song Turbulent Indigo? What the >>heck is it? It shifts, or I'm imagining things. It seems like it floats >>between 4/4, sometimes 2/4, sometimes 3/4.... is it 4/4 with a 5/4 measure or two >>thrown in there every now and then to throw off our expectations? > >Walt wrote: > >I'm glad it's not just me who gets cunfused by some of her time signatures. >I finally decided in the case of this one (TI) that it was generally 3/4 with >an occasionally dropped beat (say down from 3/4 to 2/4), but only the >Jon'ster would know, I suppose. >
It's an interesting question this one! Joni refers to the rhythm on TI and other similar songs (Cherokee Louise, Crazy Cries of Love) as her shuffle. Melanie was right - there seems to be a "3 feel" going on as well as a "4 feel". With these songs you can count a slow, steady count of 4 throughout the song *or* you can count in faster groups of three: *1* 2 3 *2* 2 3 *3* 2 3 *4* 2 3 (where the asterisks mark the slower count of four). On Crazy Cries of Love, listen to the rhythm of the words on the chorus where Joni sings "paper thin" (no paper thin walls). If you repeat this phrase over and over, you have the same groups of three as above: *pa*-per thin *pa*-per thin *pa*-per thin *pa*-per thin This is the basic groove for TI, Crazy Cries, Cherokee Louise and several others. Because you've got four groups of three beats, it's usually written down as a 12/8 time signature - meaning four beats, each made of of 3 eighth notes. It's the same 12/8 throughout, though Joni accents different beats to make it more varied. >The two that still stump *me* are "Stay in Touch" and "Love Puts On a New >Face" on TtT. Anyone have those figured out? > These have some strong off-beat rhythms on the guitar, and because there's no drum track, it seems as if the beat is being pushed and pulled all over the place! Stay In Touch is actually in 4/4 throughout, but it sounds more complicated than this just because of the strong off-beat strums on the guitar. Love Puts On A New face is also in 4/4 except for one bar of 2/4 in the introduction, but again, Joni's very rhythmic guitar playing makes it feel like the beats are coming in unusual places. Joni's always had a very strong sense of rhythm on the guitar, and I think this comes through more strongly on these tracks because they are quite sparse - no drums or percussion, just guitar, vocals, a bit of keyboard and not much else. I remember Joni quoted Wayne Shorter after he heard these tracks, and he said that people would never know "where one was" - i.e where the start of each bar was, and it's true that the simple 4/4 time that's used on many tracks is kind of "disguised". Even the person who transcribed the music for "Face Lift" for the TTT songbook was thrown off the scent, and wrote bars of 4/4, 5/4 and 3/4 - it's actually 4/4 all the way, it just doesn't sound like it! Howard
