Come Ride The Cosmic SchoolBus - a slow fusion jam study in 17/16 time

https://soundcloud.com/th...4-come-ride-the-cosmic
 
Going a bit old school here. With this piece, I attempted to answer the question, "can you groove slow in 17/16 time?" Hopefully the answer is yes. I started with a 17/16 metronome loop @ 60bpm and layed down a simple bassline over it. I then tracked the live drums and put the organ and rhodes on top of it, trying to "jam" with myself by matching up the drum riffs. I think it works in some spots... some spots not so much. It's not perfect, but I think it's a cool moody piece, and gives me a bit of a Return To Forever vibe when I listen to it.
 
Recorded w/ X3d Producer - everything tracked live (short of the bass guitar riff, which was looped)
 
Instrumentation:
Live (real) drums
NI Scarbee bass VSTi
VB2 organ VSTi
Korg Kronos "PurgatoryCreek MV Fusion" Rhodes patch

oh totally - I definitely relied on feel. That's part of the reason why the bass part is so simple - I think it (relatively) breaks the measures to where they aren't too disjointed. I basically counted it as two 2/4 measures with an extra 16th note in between (or sometimes at the end) to flip the feel around. Sometimes I just played over the barline to make things equal out in the end. Once I worked up the metronome pattern and played the bassline, I just looped 16 measures inside Sonar and jammed on it until it felt natural. I'm definitely no Jeff Porcaro, but I think I managed to not make it sound as mechanical as it could have been. I suppose some of this comes a bit natural to me after 20+ years of jamming along with Zappa, Rush, and Dream Theater songs.
 
The unison figures were actually felt as well. I only had to count them out when it came time to play the other parts on top of it.
 
Thanks for checking it out!

Yeah ok, I think it works. I'm not sure I have enough in me to just feel it. I had to count it out just to keep up, and the only way I could achieve that was to count 8 then 9, so I could hear what you were trying to achieve. Are you sure it's 17/16 and not 17/8? I felt a half note groove. Maybe the beat is just so slow that it comes across as a half note timing.
Having said that, I just couldn't help myself, I had to loop it and jam along.

Played smoothly and easy enough to play , drums sound nice the way they were recorded . The music sounded good , it did sound alittle bit repetitive me . I understand its that type of music your playing drums to and I enjoyed listening to it .
 
James

i got lost in time (signature), but thanks for the ride! I would love to hear some spaced out vocals here

Very cool. I'd get lost trying to put drum fills into this, but you did it very smoothly and kept the groove. Interesting track, liked it.

thanks guys! Yea, I decided that after listening to this for a couple days, I need to turn this into a proper song. It was mainly just a jam here, but I've had some ideas since and I've started chopping up the arrangement to put into more of a traditional song form. Sticking to the Chick Corea/RTF feel, I'm trying to work up a latin feel for some of the other parts (while still remaining in 17/16). I've never played a samba in this meter before, so it'll be an adventure to see what I can come up with (and actually play!). The original drum track was basically worked up only after about 4 takes or so (after the "learning the feel" phase) with no punch-ins, so I know there are a couple warts here and there. I'll be sure to re-post what I come up with. Hopefully it won't suck! :)

nuff said, thanks for sharing

Hi Brian , this is fun to jam over.  Not to sure about this 17/16 thing, but then again I don't count anyway ; )
 
Rik