Recognizing 5/4 Timing in Music

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Austin McBride here with Expert Village. I'm going to show you how to play and hear some music that's in 5/4 timing. 5/4 is an awkward timing, and it's pretty uncommon. However, when you hear it, when you recognize it and when you get to know it you can get a great appreciation what it has to offer music. Probably the most popular song that most people are familiar with is a song called "take five", which is in 5/4 timing. If you're familiar with that song, get that in your head, count along with it, and you'll definitely gain an appreciation with what 5/4 timing is. As for myself, I'll just show you a brief example here, of a song that, rather just a riff that I've written in 5/4. So when you're playing or writing or thinking in 5/4, it's really best to start out by thinking in your head and counting along in the count of 5; 1,2,3,4,5; 1,2,3,4,5. Some people prefer to count to 3 and then 2, which adds up to five. 1,2,3; 1,2; 1,2,3; 1,2; 1,2,3; 1,2. That kind of gets you in the idea or the mind set that allows you to write in that music, in that time signature rather. So here we have a little thing that I wrote in 5/4. There's some 5/4 timing."