Hey everyone! I've released a new video, let me know what you think in the comments/what you would like to see next! Thanks! th-cam.com/video/va5SL60IS6Y/w-d-xo.html
Technical question from a non-musically inclined person: (1) how did he insert a *beat, and wouldn't that have also messed up the rest of the band who did not add that beat? And (2) why do musicians prefer clapping on beat 2 and 4 rather than 1 and 3? [*I I can understand how he could add a new note to an existing beat by splitting an existing note, but how does he add an entire beat to the predetermined timing of the bars?
@@joeradler he was playing solo when he added the beat. The band joined after that, when the crowd was already clapping on 2&4. I’m not sure about the reason of clapping on 2&4. Some guy said that was because beat 1 & 3 are for drummers to hit on, to keep tempo for the whole band. And naturally people clap faster and faster, so clapping on 1 and 3 will most likely mess the tempo up eventually. As someone who learned to play music from early age, I have always clapped in 2 and 4. No one taught me that but I just feel that how I should do. Whenever I hear someone clap on 1 & 3, or try it myself, it just feels wrong immediately.
@@joeradler I guarantee you that look with the smirk he was sending to the band was a "get ready" look. This happens all the time and they are used to improvising it. So, yes, the band DID play the 5/4 measure. I'd have to go back and see if it was phrased as a "split" beat, but that isn't what happened. It was just the addition of a beat. It is quite common in music to have various time signatures (4/4 time, 3/4 time, 6/8 time, etc) in one singular piece. It's really quite brilliant to watch Harry do things like this.
@@hienlethai3979 I find most drummers emphasize the 2/4 beat, a bit louder or sometimes striking the cymbal on same. Test it out next time you're at a live small band event. Clap on the 1/3 beats then do 2/4. You'll feel the difference. Signed, a banjo player.
This would be amazing... if he did it with a band. But hes just playing piano by himself. Ive done this before in a cover band we used to book wedding gigs for. People are always making up their own sets of timing when drinking
@@dangerrrnick5005 i dont think its that hard I would even say everyone has done it at some point. When you accidently get lost on the beat using a metronome or backing track while playing you would probably skip a beat or wait until you can relocate yourself and start the new bar which is kind of intuitive
@@marxer8665 in the case of a backing track (or click track) that's not quite the same thing: you're waiting for the next bar to start, which wouldn't relocate the audience's clapping. Here, inserting the extra beat swaps the downbeat and the offbeat around: you could do it with a traditional metronome quite easily, but the really impressive thing is doing it without a click to anchor you and shifting your own down/off beat mid-song without losing your groove. It's not insanely hard, but it's definitely not such an easy thing to pull off, either.
@@marxer8665 yeah i like the smoothness of it but if i was off beat of say a drummer who i expect to lead the beat, i would hold a chord or something to disregard the offset before make sure that i get the next measure started off correctly. never thought to fill in a riff like he did in the video great stuff
@@daallen7636 you can actually see the drummer put his fists in the air because he heard what Connick did and was excited the audience fit the more intuitive beat now. Having drummed a bit myself it is not as difficult as you'd think to follow his correction like that, especially when its during his piano solo.
@Shady Queens to be fair...that was the point of this 5/4 trick so it’s not going to be an obvious change. They were tricked and your brain is being tricked, so don’t worry about not getting it!
@@FriendlyNeighborhoodBallsack If you'd play it on drums, you'd hit the snare on 2's and 4's. It just flows better that way, and it applies to clapping as well, since it has the same function as snare.
@@FriendlyNeighborhoodBallsack when you clap on off- beats it actually strengthens rhythm, making the strong Beats 1 and 3 more pronounced internally. Watch the video and clap against the audience between their claps, you’ll physically feel how buoyant the music will feel.
Ha! Thanks for pointing that out, Moose! You gotta love an audience that can't hear when to clap and we drummers do rejoice when we can point this out! Tee hee.
This is how I understand this trick: It's kind of like if you and a friend were walking along a footpath and your footsteps were out of sync so you did a little "off-beat" skip to realign your steps.
Instead of a skip, kinda the opposite of it, he actually adds an extra step with the same foot. (With 2 foots it doesn't make much different but when there are 4 beats it does ^^) Normal piece is 4/4 he makes it 5/4 for just one single bar. But yeah other than that the comparison is quite on point :)
@@demran "Instead of a skip, kinda the opposite of it, he actually adds an extra step with the same foot" Adding an extra step with the same foot is literally what a skip is.
@@TetzFiles @TetzFiles Skip is "Skipping" a beat while counting 1-2-3-4 and saying 1-2-3-1-2-3-4 instead. Adding a beat is literally "adding", as in; 1-2-3-4-5-1-2-3-4... and so on. On the video he doesn't skip, he adds a beat, turning a 4/4 into a 5/4.
@@demran That's one meaning of "skip": to bypass or leave out. However, the analogy you were responding to was _walking,_ where someone *adds* an extra step with one foot in order to sync with a partner: "a little 'off-beat' skip to realign your steps. " That's a totally different meaning of the word "skip", which is literally _adding_ an extra step with the same foot: See: th-cam.com/video/LWUsF32jdFg/w-d-xo.html Its doesn't mean " leave out" in that context. It's closer to meaning of "skipping" a stone; i.e. bouncing something.
He also did it without showboating as I've seen so many musicians do. They stop the song to correct the audience or start having someone on stage clap when they're supposed to, or have the percussion correct the audience in an obvious way. He just let the audience naturally fall in sync with him.
@@TheRogueX it's really simple. Music is usually written on a beat. Beats are counted. It helps your timing. Get it wrong and it throws your timing off. Also You want accented notes to fall on certain beats. If your counting on 1 and 3 instead of 2 and 4 ( if thats the way the song is meant to be. ) it can sound off as if the beat is falling behind. Theres many other reasons but I suggest you study how song writing works to learn more.
I've been a percussionist for 8 years, so I know rhythms, time signatures, etc, really well. Let me just say, this is really hard to pull off while feeling the beat correctly. Brilliant trick, and to think that he most likely did this on the spot without premeditating it.... wow. Genius idea
It is a cool trick, and funny that the audience don't even notice, but I disagree that it's really hard to do, especially for a seasoned musician. Plenty of music, especially romantic and modern music, but jazz and rock too, features frequent changes of time signature, sometimes from bar to bar, and is something that most professional musicians are used to dealing with. In this case it's not even a complex change, he's just adding a beat and carrying on as before. Fun to see though :)
When you have a solo (speaking from a pianists perspective), you could do a run in the left hand, and than play a note extra somewhere for the 5th beat, it's not that difficult to add in an extra note, as a percussionist it might be a tad more tedious to get the hang of
I would say even for a professional musician, it can be hard. You already have the measures and rhythm in your mind. It isn't hard to inject a note but your internal rhythm will be thrown off. Physically adding a note is easy, but mentally adjusting your internal rhythm is the hard part, especially if you have practiced that bit of the song countless times. Doable, but risky.
Harry was probably thinking "This is going to sound terrible when the rest of the band kicks in and the audience tries to switch to 2 & 4, so I better fix it between the chorus and the ending". He probably does this often, especially with that song.
@@VincentPhotoCom same thing with the Germans. But then again, music consumption and understanding of music in Germany is barely existent haha. At least with the average listener.
Harry Connick Jr. Wrote the music for a kids book adapted into a musical, and my local theater was one of the first to put it on, Harry himself ordered 100 some cookies from a local bakery and had them sent to us on our first performance with a long-handeritten note of how grateful he was we were doing his show. Such a nice guy!
I don't feel that you showed us how the clap was initially on one and three. Perhaps if you showed the song from the beginning, it would be more obvious. If the audience came in on the one, where did they get off of the 12 bar sequence? They didn't start clapping the instant the song began, but presumably some time on the next 12 bar section. It feels like they are always on 2 and 4, but perhaps if you played the part they began clapping, with the rest of the song before, I could see how they were off.
He noticed that the audience was not clapping on the backbeat and so he decided to play off of that rather than fight it. How smoothly he did that really demonstrates his proficiency and depth of groove.
I can't stand them clapping at all because their timing is never great and they often wander all over the place. But I don't think clapping on the 1 and 3 is musically a bad decision on their part. You might as well say tapping their feet anywhere other than 2 and 4 is wrong too. If their hands made a bassier sound it would be fine. It's not really their fault hand claps are better suited to the back beat.
It's amazing to see world-class musicians fix things like this in real time. Most of us would be trying to get through the song, mean while, Harry can think ahead and figure out where to add an extra beat to get the audience to clap on the backbeat.. Sure it seems easy, but having enough experience to pull it off on the fly on camera is next level. I'm not a huge Harry Connick Jr. fan but I'll probably check him out now that I've seen this.
If it is to swing, the claps HAVE to be on 2 &4. It is too square otherwise. That point was missed in the original rather brilliant explanation in the video.
What this tells me about Harry connick Jr is that he cares about his music and he cares about his audience and he doesn't want either one of those things to sound bad he treats them like part of the band they belong there clapping just as much as he belongs there playing the piano
Jesus Christ. I knew Harry Connick Jr. was a singer, but I had no idea he had chops like that on the piano. Really clever trick he used to get the audience to clap on 2 and 4, too.
This is the first video of yours of watched and I would love to see more! Just please don't have the visual indicators on opposite sides of the screen next time please 😅
Yes! This was ingenious!!!...I'm a pianists myself and I noticed and heard just how he did it and just like you said,he added an extra chord stroke in that bar ...The audience stayed the same in their syncopation but he changed to make them fall in line with his agenda without them knowing it...BRILLIANT....
EVERY live performer SHOULD know this. He did what great performers do. Who cares if the 4/4 was interrupted and reset on the "3" when the crowd is clapping. This is live performing 101. I'm no Harry, but I'm a live performer. HCJ is a GREAT performer, and what a great song!!!
my jazz band director had to supervise a bus full of mostly non-jazz students (band students, though). There was a song that everyone started singing (i forget what it was) but everyone started clapping to the beat, but it was on the 1 and 3. The jazz director halted the song, and declared "I may not be your band director, but while you're on MY bus, you will clap on the 2 and 4." I miss her
The easiest way to understand Harry’s trick and be able to replicate it yourself is to listen to the piano bass notes. The root note hits on the ONE count. So all his did was extend playing the bass note in the 3rd bar of the solo by adding a 5th (hence 5/4) beat to the second bar. So the bass which always signifies the ONE count got moved by one which switched the claps from odds to even beats.
Naah, he just doubled the little 8th-note pickup going into the next measure. Almost a musical stutter. :-) To me, that's actually part of what makes it clever -- it's something your fingers can do without thinking about it, since getting into your head would screw up the timing.
You can see @3:47 the guy on stage bobbing his head on beats 2 & 4, and after Harry does his incredible timing change, he starts cheering with hands pumping in the air haha
I used to play drums and a guitarist once did this to me (unintentionally) when we played together at a party--he spent all his time playing alone in his room and when he was learning Iron Man, he didn't bother adding the extra eighth-note rest at the end of the riff, so every other measure was 7/8. Every second time through the riff, it sounded like I was playing on upbeats and it turned into the Iron Man Polka.
I love how he dealt with it on his own performance but he knew the BAND would get thrown off with the clapping so he made it his mission to fix it before the band came in. Just an epic performance he could literally just let them clap off key and the band would hate the audience for it but he saved everyone the trouble and fixed it.
This is brilliant! I’ve once managed to turn a (smaller) crowd to 2 and 4, when I was part of a musically inclined group in an audience - but generally this is hard to correct from the audience side. I’ve never heard any artist solve it this way - very elegant. As far as I could tell, 5/4 of the audience never realized what hit (or rather beat) them.. ;)
Reminds me of what we used to do in church when people started clapping on the other times as well. Very well done, however, it is not even apparent if we are not expecting it!
As someone who doesn't know this song, it's hard to hear the actual downbeat where it's apparently meant to be. I just hear the audience claps as 2 and 4. 😅
I felt my eyes start spreading out to be able to see both sides of the screen. Still clueless as to when the switch occurred but I can see predators coming from my former blind spots.
Loved the video but I just have a quick suggestion. With the visuals in the bottom left and right corners, it would be great if you could make them bigger and closer together so people can really see the relationship between the two
It this a cultural thing...becuse I notice that French jazz allways has an accent;)... really French has a very distinctive flow and it's allways 180 out if phase with Angelo German languages.. hard soft...not soft hard. Or maybe I am just imagining it..
My dad was 80 when he told me how much he loved Harry Connick in 1992. I never heard about him 31 years ago. But since my dad told me about him I became amazed at his ability. I wish I could’ve taken my dad to a Harry Connick show.
He just slaps the audience into place, some of them are sure they heard him make a mistake. I guess if he can teach J Lo what a scale is he can accomplish almost anything. Thanks for doing this, nicely done and super easy to understand.
Great video, Joshua! Thank you! I’ve played guitar since I was a little kid but have never really studied music theory. I have a major love for musical improvisation and the level of skill shown here blew my mind. Thanks for making a video that explains this to lesser-trained musicians and non-musicians, alike.
I only heard the audience clap on the 2nd and 4th beat. It did seem a tad delayed when you mentioned it, and I did notice the "trick" you called out. However, they still clapped on the 2nd and 4th to me! Which is a much more incredible trick to my ears!!!
Another approach to this is by multiplying 4 by 5 or 5 by 4. (Hear me out, I suck at math, but as a musician, it can make it sound like you're "out" without actually being out and vice versa.) Since 4x5=20, you need either 5 measures of 4 or 4 measures of 5 to arrive at the same place musically. In Herbie Hancock's "Tell me A Bedtime story", he has a section of 5/4. In Robert Glasper's rendition, he does the same section, but the drummer is playing 4 over the 5. Another cool way of illustrating this is when you need a song to technically be in 4/4 while sounding like it isn't. Using some combination of 2's and 3's with a least common multiple of whatever irregular time signature you would like to mimic. I love the way he handled the crowd without making them feel bad. Not all musicians are capable of doing this in a humble way.
If im understanding your strategy correctly, which I highly doubt, yours would take a lot longer cause you'd have to do it over 4 bars or something, no?
What I love about it is the second bar after the trick, you can hear the very *faintest* of delays from some of the audience, as they innately pick up what’s happened and get confused for a second. Genius.
I do this often as a drummer if I find myself emphasizing the wrong part of a song or if I’m one beat off in an odd time signature. Just adding an extra snare hit or an extra down beat is sooooo much easier than trying to reorient yourself into a song
You can hear it, everyone clapping is about half a beat or so too soon.. which causes the excitement and anticipation in the song.. So clever.. The dude is pure genius!
As a musician, dont watch the beats shown in the corners. They are off. A real shame because why show them if theyre not correct cuz now it's just confusing to the layman observer? The beats shown are going at a slightly faster tempo than the song, which throws the whole thing off and it's completely out of sync by the 3:40 mark.
THANK YOU!!! It’s absolutely way off. Before the 5/4 bar, the graphic had crept an entire beat ahead of the tempo, so it’s beats 2 & 4 were in line with the audience, who were actually clapping on beats 1 & 3, completely contradictory to what we were being told as we watch. After the beat 5 which appeared on screen on beat 4 of the 5/4 bar, the audience were clapping on beats 2 & 4 while the graphic was displaying beats 1 & 3 in time with the claps. It’s quite concerning that so many people, including musicians, have watched this and not noticed the contradiction between what they are seeing and hearing. It’s a real shame because it’s a great video and topic otherwise!
I think it' actually more subtle and more ingenious than you describe. In their head, the audience is clapping at half time on what they perceive as every beat. He tricks them to clapping on what they perceive as the off-beat.
I just hate when the audience starts clapping when I just paid big bucks to hear my favorite artist play my favorite song. I love it when most of the audience refuses to clap and the clappers die down to one or two clueless clappers who hopefully finally get the message.
it's almost as annoying as seeing a see of mobile phones in front of me which is the reason I stopped going to gigs yeas ago. Put them down you stupid twats, why do you need to film it.
@@AndrewKay @Rabonour I mean yeah but, since we're all on this video ima guess most people watching listen to the likes of either blues, jazz, funk, soul or any type of rock. Unless it's NOT a musician you're going to appreciate that you truly goddamn love - clapping sucks.
@@Dana21283 I wholly agree. Unless they are playing Kumbaya, it sucks. And clapping in or out of time is tolerated by the musicians because the audience paid to see them. As Andrew Kay said, it depends on the genre.
Having played the B3 in church for a few decades, I picked up on this immediately and can't tell you how many times this has happened. This is quite common in church services where medleys are played or songs segue into other songs. Excellent video and thank you for sharing!
Yeah, that's a nice, subtle correction that doesn't mess with the audience. I teach basic rhythm to people who aren't good with it, and one trick is to start a slow beat, me clapping 1 and 3, and them clapping 2 and 4. We speed up, and they cannot believe that they can off-beat at a blistering pace. The trick is, of course, to match against their clap the whole time. They can be sloppy, but you do your best to quantise the mess and they keep getting back on rhythm. It feels like Connick is also doing that with the audience, not just skipping them to the off, but also modulating his own rhythm to keep them in time.
Taj Mahal does this during an A Capella gospel shout, and it is just as perfect. The line is "Rise up children shake the devil out your soul" and Taj "fixes" the crowd's clap simply by singing "Rise" twice, and then continuing as normal. Brilliant.
This video is so fascinating. You can see him registering the out of sync clapping the whole time, you can see when he gets the idea to do his lil trick. I know nothing about music-reading or notes or anything, but something about this has truly fascinated me. Thanks for the video
I’ve heard audiences start on 2 and 4 and slowly slide to 1 and 3. It’s kind of nauseating hearing them lose time out of sheer collective carelessness. PS: Ever tried hearing 2 and 4 groves as 1 and 3? It’s a mindfck!
I never heard that song, so the claps on the 1st and on the 3rd beat seemed to me on the 2nd and on the 4th beat. At the end of the video I'm just confused ahahahahah
Inebriates come through the door Wanting to dance, nothing more But their clapping's not rhythmic It's in fact cataclysmic Do they not know the beat's two and four?
Nah, you're rhythm's a bit off. Inebriates come through the door, Just wanting to dance, nothing more. But their clapping's arhythmic, It's near-cataclysmic, Do they not know the beat's two and four?
Hey everyone! I've released a new video, let me know what you think in the comments/what you would like to see next! Thanks! th-cam.com/video/va5SL60IS6Y/w-d-xo.html
Technical question from a non-musically inclined person: (1) how did he insert a *beat, and wouldn't that have also messed up the rest of the band who did not add that beat? And (2) why do musicians prefer clapping on beat 2 and 4 rather than 1 and 3? [*I I can understand how he could add a new note to an existing beat by splitting an existing note, but how does he add an entire beat to the predetermined timing of the bars?
@@joeradler he was playing solo when he added the beat. The band joined after that, when the crowd was already clapping on 2&4.
I’m not sure about the reason of clapping on 2&4. Some guy said that was because beat 1 & 3 are for drummers to hit on, to keep tempo for the whole band. And naturally people clap faster and faster, so clapping on 1 and 3 will most likely mess the tempo up eventually.
As someone who learned to play music from early age, I have always clapped in 2 and 4. No one taught me that but I just feel that how I should do. Whenever I hear someone clap on 1 & 3, or try it myself, it just feels wrong immediately.
@@joeradler I guarantee you that look with the smirk he was sending to the band was a "get ready" look. This happens all the time and they are used to improvising it. So, yes, the band DID play the 5/4 measure. I'd have to go back and see if it was phrased as a "split" beat, but that isn't what happened. It was just the addition of a beat. It is quite common in music to have various time signatures (4/4 time, 3/4 time, 6/8 time, etc) in one singular piece. It's really quite brilliant to watch Harry do things like this.
@@hienlethai3979 I find most drummers emphasize the 2/4 beat, a bit louder or sometimes striking the cymbal on same. Test it out next time you're at a live small band event. Clap on the 1/3 beats then do 2/4. You'll feel the difference. Signed, a banjo player.
This would be amazing... if he did it with a band. But hes just playing piano by himself. Ive done this before in a cover band we used to book wedding gigs for. People are always making up their own sets of timing when drinking
The best bit is, he knows he has to get it done early so the band who come in later aren’t also caught off. Genius.
Exactly! Crazy stuff. So simple but hard to pull off.
@@dangerrrnick5005 i dont think its that hard I would even say everyone has done it at some point. When you accidently get lost on the beat using a metronome or backing track while playing you would probably skip a beat or wait until you can relocate yourself and start the new bar which is kind of intuitive
@@marxer8665 in the case of a backing track (or click track) that's not quite the same thing: you're waiting for the next bar to start, which wouldn't relocate the audience's clapping. Here, inserting the extra beat swaps the downbeat and the offbeat around: you could do it with a traditional metronome quite easily, but the really impressive thing is doing it without a click to anchor you and shifting your own down/off beat mid-song without losing your groove. It's not insanely hard, but it's definitely not such an easy thing to pull off, either.
@@marxer8665 yeah i like the smoothness of it but if i was off beat of say a drummer who i expect to lead the beat, i would hold a chord or something to disregard the offset before make sure that i get the next measure started off correctly. never thought to fill in a riff like he did in the video great stuff
@@daallen7636 you can actually see the drummer put his fists in the air because he heard what Connick did and was excited the audience fit the more intuitive beat now. Having drummed a bit myself it is not as difficult as you'd think to follow his correction like that, especially when its during his piano solo.
The funniest thing in the world would be if the audience decided to "fix" it and return to clapping on the 1 & 3!
Why am I laughing so hard at this!😂😂😂😂
is sounds like a few people tried to switch back over to one and three, confused on how they got 'off', but the masses stayed on 2,4 so they gave up
🤣🤣🤣
@Shady Queens to be fair...that was the point of this 5/4 trick so it’s not going to be an obvious change. They were tricked and your brain is being tricked, so don’t worry about not getting it!
HAHAHAHAHA
After hearing audiences clap on the 1 and 3 for years, this literally makes me happier than anything else
White evangelicals have entered the chat
why is clapping on 1 and 3 such a problem?
@@FriendlyNeighborhoodBallsack If you'd play it on drums, you'd hit the snare on 2's and 4's. It just flows better that way, and it applies to clapping as well, since it has the same function as snare.
@@JiihaaS i played drums for 6 years in my teens, and still play guitar (24 now) and I never even thought about this lol. Ashamed!
@@FriendlyNeighborhoodBallsack when you clap on off- beats it actually strengthens rhythm, making the strong Beats 1 and 3 more pronounced internally. Watch the video and clap against the audience between their claps, you’ll physically feel how buoyant the music will feel.
He was just fixing a classic audience mistake that absolutely infuriates drummers 😂
This is why you can see the drummer celebrating in the background
*that absolutely infuriates anyone with musical knowledge.
ftfy ;)
White audiences are especially likely to make this mistake.
Infuriates jazz cats like myself too
@@MilesLikeDavis09 cause all they listen to is shit like pop and country
lmfao when the drummer celebrates in the background
That's actually my favorite part, lol
thanks for pointing it out! lol
Drummers love the back-beat :D
Ha! Thanks for pointing that out, Moose! You gotta love an audience that can't hear when to clap and we drummers do rejoice when we can point this out! Tee hee.
John Overton How do you know if someone’s a drummer? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you!
Love how the drummer celebrates when the public finally claps on 2 and 4
where i don't see it?
nvm found it at 3:35
🤣 Absolutely!
@@dashielcockrill998 I still don’t see it. Where do you see it?
@@EddVCR 3:55
Legend says, Harry was just sick of people clapping on 1 and 3, so he made his own reality.
He had the Time Signature stone, after all.
@@theothersmith9570 Haahahahahahahhahahaha nice one
🤣
@@theothersmith9570 guessing how Harry got it? He sacrificed Peter's back
It's one of those signs of a veteran. They not only recognize a problem but have a trick to fix it.
You can see a band member raise both hands triumphantly when he makes the switch! Like yes Harry! You’ve done it! You’re a wizard Harry.
Top comment, this 🤣"you're a wizard, Harry!!"
My favorite part of this video!! I come back yearly just to see it lololol.
🤣
This is how I understand this trick:
It's kind of like if you and a friend were walking along a footpath and your footsteps were out of sync so you did a little "off-beat" skip to realign your steps.
Yep! And your friend was oblivious to it, lol.
Instead of a skip, kinda the opposite of it, he actually adds an extra step with the same foot. (With 2 foots it doesn't make much different but when there are 4 beats it does ^^)
Normal piece is 4/4 he makes it 5/4 for just one single bar. But yeah other than that the comparison is quite on point :)
@@demran "Instead of a skip, kinda the opposite of it, he actually adds an extra step with the same foot"
Adding an extra step with the same foot is literally what a skip is.
@@TetzFiles @TetzFiles Skip is "Skipping" a beat while counting 1-2-3-4 and saying 1-2-3-1-2-3-4 instead.
Adding a beat is literally "adding", as in; 1-2-3-4-5-1-2-3-4... and so on.
On the video he doesn't skip, he adds a beat, turning a 4/4 into a 5/4.
@@demran That's one meaning of "skip": to bypass or leave out. However, the analogy you were responding to was _walking,_ where someone *adds* an extra step with one foot in order to sync with a partner: "a little 'off-beat' skip to realign your steps.
" That's a totally different meaning of the word "skip", which is literally _adding_ an extra step with the same foot: See: th-cam.com/video/LWUsF32jdFg/w-d-xo.html Its doesn't mean " leave out" in that context. It's closer to meaning of "skipping" a stone; i.e. bouncing something.
He also did it without showboating as I've seen so many musicians do. They stop the song to correct the audience or start having someone on stage clap when they're supposed to, or have the percussion correct the audience in an obvious way. He just let the audience naturally fall in sync with him.
Yeah! It was a very elegant solution by a classy artist/performer. :)
This coming from Buddha just seems to fit.
@@thegoodgeneral namaste my dude 🙏
I just don't get why people are 'supposed' to clap on certain beats and not others. That makes no sense to me.
@@TheRogueX it's really simple.
Music is usually written on a beat.
Beats are counted.
It helps your timing.
Get it wrong and it throws your timing off.
Also You want accented notes to fall on certain beats.
If your counting on 1 and 3 instead of 2 and 4 ( if thats the way the song is meant to be. ) it can sound off as if the beat is falling behind.
Theres many other reasons but I suggest you study how song writing works to learn more.
I've been a percussionist for 8 years, so I know rhythms, time signatures, etc, really well. Let me just say, this is really hard to pull off while feeling the beat correctly. Brilliant trick, and to think that he most likely did this on the spot without premeditating it.... wow. Genius idea
It is a cool trick, and funny that the audience don't even notice, but I disagree that it's really hard to do, especially for a seasoned musician. Plenty of music, especially romantic and modern music, but jazz and rock too, features frequent changes of time signature, sometimes from bar to bar, and is something that most professional musicians are used to dealing with. In this case it's not even a complex change, he's just adding a beat and carrying on as before. Fun to see though :)
When you have a solo (speaking from a pianists perspective), you could do a run in the left hand, and than play a note extra somewhere for the 5th beat, it's not that difficult to add in an extra note, as a percussionist it might be a tad more tedious to get the hang of
It's easy to do solo, imagine trying to coordinate it with an entire band/ orchestra/ whatever
I would say even for a professional musician, it can be hard. You already have the measures and rhythm in your mind. It isn't hard to inject a note but your internal rhythm will be thrown off. Physically adding a note is easy, but mentally adjusting your internal rhythm is the hard part, especially if you have practiced that bit of the song countless times. Doable, but risky.
It's not that hard? Just add an extra bar of 3/4 or 5/4 and you're sorted
Harry Connick Jr switches to 5/4 one bar to fix the audience*
The drumer who can now breathe properly: 0:39
love the guy in the back jubilating when order is finally restored.
yeah its the drummer, hes obviously the happiest of all of them and the first to notice JKASDHFKLAJSD
Nice catch 👌
3:54
Harry was probably thinking "This is going to sound terrible when the rest of the band kicks in and the audience tries to switch to 2 & 4, so I better fix it between the chorus and the ending". He probably does this often, especially with that song.
YES! This is exactly right.
French audience, I don't think they were gonna try to switch...
@@VincentPhotoCom same thing with the Germans. But then again, music consumption and understanding of music in Germany is barely existent haha. At least with the average listener.
@@halt.halt.halt. we must know very different Germans. Lmao
@@juanrabanales4933 the average listener for me, equals those who listen to the radio mainly. And well... haha
This is friggin' amazing. The idea, the seamless execution, the manipulation of the audience without them even realizing it. Brilliant.
They probably felt something had happened but couldn't tell what. And then they felt much lighter and funkier.
Judging by the look in his eyes at 3:29 - 3:30 I guess that was the moment when he made up his mind how he would fix the issue.
@@Jiminy-trx yeah! That was a slightly villain look he gave them! :D
and the looks he throws his band at the beginning of the video, you can tell he's scheming there too. That clapping is so disorienting
And the drummer's celebration after he done did it haha
@@marblnka *villainous
Harry Connick Jr. Wrote the music for a kids book adapted into a musical, and my local theater was one of the first to put it on, Harry himself ordered 100 some cookies from a local bakery and had them sent to us on our first performance with a long-handeritten note of how grateful he was we were doing his show. Such a nice guy!
I caught the "fix" but it almost sounds like a glitch. What would've had me is if the audience added a beat to keep their clap on 1 & 3 😆
I was caught off guard with this comment. Nice. Good day buddy.
Uno no reverso No You no reverse card right there.
Yea lmao
There's no way they're smart enough to do that, we were always going to be fine haha
I don't feel that you showed us how the clap was initially on one and three. Perhaps if you showed the song from the beginning, it would be more obvious. If the audience came in on the one, where did they get off of the 12 bar sequence? They didn't start clapping the instant the song began, but presumably some time on the next 12 bar section. It feels like they are always on 2 and 4, but perhaps if you played the part they began clapping, with the rest of the song before, I could see how they were off.
He noticed that the audience was not clapping on the backbeat and so he decided to play off of that rather than fight it. How smoothly he did that really demonstrates his proficiency and depth of groove.
I’m proud of myself for audibly being able to recognize it
Same, it makes me feel more musically inclined
Same
Aurally!
same
I saw this before and didn't get it. I heard it this time though. It instantly sounds better to me when they switch actually.. so strange.
As a musician I find this amazing. It’s the difference between an Olympian and a regular joe.
I'm a drummer and it always irks me to listen to beat-deaf crowds clapping on 1 and 3. This video is a moral victory for all drummers :)
I can't stand them clapping at all because their timing is never great and they often wander all over the place. But I don't think clapping on the 1 and 3 is musically a bad decision on their part. You might as well say tapping their feet anywhere other than 2 and 4 is wrong too. If their hands made a bassier sound it would be fine. It's not really their fault hand claps are better suited to the back beat.
I clap on the 1 and 2
I'm mostly a horn player and I can't stand it either
It was like the musical equivalent of a "change step" when marching, to get back in step with everyone else if one was out of synch. Beautifully done!
Yes! I was searching for anyone to mention this.
Except that the people clapping *were* in sync with him, and he added a beat so as to get *out* of sync with them.
It's amazing to see world-class musicians fix things like this in real time. Most of us would be trying to get through the song, mean while, Harry can think ahead and figure out where to add an extra beat to get the audience to clap on the backbeat.. Sure it seems easy, but having enough experience to pull it off on the fly on camera is next level. I'm not a huge Harry Connick Jr. fan but I'll probably check him out now that I've seen this.
It's even more impressive that he plans this out while singing along.
“Y’all M’Fkrs won’t clap on the 2 n’ 4 so I’ll make ya”
I like that the drummer celebrates after the correction. you see him raise his arms in victory behind the piano.
Friends don’t let friends clap on 1s and 3s.
REAL friends dont care when friends clap.
Unless your in Africa, they clap on 1 & 3
If it is to swing, the claps HAVE to be on 2 &4. It is too square otherwise. That point was missed in the original rather brilliant explanation in the video.
@@onscuba1 What are the rules regarding hip cats and cool daddios? I ask because I think I am both of those and the off time clapping didnt bother me.
Unless you’re in Europe or Asia 😫
What this tells me about Harry connick Jr is that he cares about his music and he cares about his audience and he doesn't want either one of those things to sound bad he treats them like part of the band they belong there clapping just as much as he belongs there playing the piano
I’ve never listened to Harry Connick in my life but I’m glad TH-cam recommended this video
racist
I only found out last year that he voiced Dean from Iron Giant.
@@krioni86sa ?
same
@@krioni86sa lol
Jesus Christ. I knew Harry Connick Jr. was a singer, but I had no idea he had chops like that on the piano. Really clever trick he used to get the audience to clap on 2 and 4, too.
Surprising how many singers were originally pianists, then took up vocals as a kind of side hustle: Billy Joel, Elton John, Freddie Mercury...
He started playing professionally as a kid in NOLA, very talented.
He played every instrument on his new album, did all the arranging and all the vocals. Man's a musical legend.
@@mdolan900 yeah, some people just have it. I'd kill to be able to do just a sliver of that
That's like saying "I knew Jimi Hendrix sang but never knew he was such a good guitarist"
Another quick question, should i make more videos similar to this? Just wondering what content you guys might enjoy.
yes!
Yeah man, very interesting stuff, liked and subscribed.
dew it
This is the first video of yours of watched and I would love to see more! Just please don't have the visual indicators on opposite sides of the screen next time please 😅
Absolutely! That was very enlightening and fun.
0:39 "YES! HE PULLED IT OFF!" the fellow musician seemed to say as he threw his hands in the air.
Yes! This was ingenious!!!...I'm a pianists myself and I noticed and heard just how he did it and just like you said,he added an extra chord stroke in that bar ...The audience stayed the same in their syncopation but he changed to make them fall in line with his agenda without them knowing it...BRILLIANT....
EVERY live performer SHOULD know this. He did what great performers do. Who cares if the 4/4 was interrupted and reset on the "3" when the crowd is clapping. This is live performing 101. I'm no Harry, but I'm a live performer. HCJ is a GREAT performer, and what a great song!!!
I remember my band director going off at the drummer for playing the snare on 1& 3 by accident, then told the whole band about this performance
Two and 4 tend to uplift a song, one and three sounds like you’re beating a slave.
or playing reggae.
Lol that’s great
Don’t kink shame
my jazz band director had to supervise a bus full of mostly non-jazz students (band students, though). There was a song that everyone started singing (i forget what it was) but everyone started clapping to the beat, but it was on the 1 and 3.
The jazz director halted the song, and declared "I may not be your band director, but while you're on MY bus, you will clap on the 2 and 4."
I miss her
The easiest way to understand Harry’s trick and be able to replicate it yourself is to listen to the piano bass notes. The root note hits on the ONE count. So all his did was extend playing the bass note in the 3rd bar of the solo by adding a 5th (hence 5/4) beat to the second bar. So the bass which always signifies the ONE count got moved by one which switched the claps from odds to even beats.
This helped more than the video, thank you
Actually no. The bass plays still the same after that. It was just skipped for the fifth beat in that bar.
@@piotrmroz3131 he’s playing a walking bassline. The root has to change or else it would sound even more messed up.
@@DaveRucci well, he just stopped playing the bassline and added that one more beat with his right hand, or actually just repeated fourth.
Harry Connick is a genius. Hearing him live was one of my favorite concerts.
Yeah it sucks when the audience claps on weird beats like damn just don’t clap
It's mob mentality. If you look at the audience most of them are just doing it halfheartedly without really thinking about it.
TacitIron Hav 2 and 4 "back beat" got old and tired 70 years ago
If you're actually a musician, I should think you should just be grateful that they're clapping at all.......
@@FenceThis Try clapping on the 'and' of one, stamping foot on the three, and shouting 'ha' on the 'a' of four.
Ubu987 that's more like it 😀
I’ve played piano for almost 40 years and this is next to impossible....especially to do it so seamless!!!!
Naah, he just doubled the little 8th-note pickup going into the next measure. Almost a musical stutter. :-) To me, that's actually part of what makes it clever -- it's something your fingers can do without thinking about it, since getting into your head would screw up the timing.
Sounds like a mistake. Not hard to do by accident.
You can see @3:47 the guy on stage bobbing his head on beats 2 & 4, and after Harry does his incredible timing change, he starts cheering with hands pumping in the air haha
I used to play drums and a guitarist once did this to me (unintentionally) when we played together at a party--he spent all his time playing alone in his room and when he was learning Iron Man, he didn't bother adding the extra eighth-note rest at the end of the riff, so every other measure was 7/8. Every second time through the riff, it sounded like I was playing on upbeats and it turned into the Iron Man Polka.
Harry Connick, Jr. is one of the most underrated geniuses of our time. Love covering his music!
I love how he dealt with it on his own performance but he knew the BAND would get thrown off with the clapping so he made it his mission to fix it before the band came in. Just an epic performance he could literally just let them clap off key and the band would hate the audience for it but he saved everyone the trouble and fixed it.
And all the musicians in the crowd felt instant relief
Band member Hagrid in the back: "Yer a wizard Harry!"
Tall, talented, good looking, musical, funny, likeable - don't you just hat that guy!
For better understanding of your sentence ExEssex, use a long a in hat or for you perfectionists, insert an e after hat.
No, I lov him!
hat
no cap
This is brilliant!
I’ve once managed to turn a (smaller) crowd to 2 and 4, when I was part of a musically inclined group in an audience - but generally this is hard to correct from the audience side.
I’ve never heard any artist solve it this way - very elegant. As far as I could tell, 5/4 of the audience never realized what hit (or rather beat) them.. ;)
I've listened to this so many times, and I know what's going on, and I still can't tell anything changed or that anything was wrong to begin with.
Should've put the clap indicator next to the beat number. It's difficult to concentrate on them both as they are.
Cats Are Rubbish I’m guessing you’re not a musician then.
lol just listen to when they clap you don’t need a clap indicator
DragonBlaze X even if you are musician you cant look at two different sides of the screen at the sane time.
@@da4127 Bet
A work-around is to make your browser window smaller
Reminds me of what we used to do in church when people started clapping on the other times as well. Very well done, however, it is not even apparent if we are not expecting it!
Dream Theater prepared me for this.
Rush prepared Dream Theater for you.
@@M2Mil7er Yes prepared Rush for...ah, nevermind! 😄
As someone who doesn't know this song, it's hard to hear the actual downbeat where it's apparently meant to be. I just hear the audience claps as 2 and 4. 😅
Same
Exactly. This video author’s full of shit.
@@StocksIn60Seconds 😂
@@StocksIn60Seconds idk about full of shit lmao, he's totally right in everything he said. You just don't know squat about music structure ;)
Lol no, you just don’t get it. I love when wrong people are so confident.
I felt my eyes start spreading out to be able to see both sides of the screen. Still clueless as to when the switch occurred but I can see predators coming from my former blind spots.
😂😂😂😂😂
This is a prime example of why crowds should never clap. They usually can’t keep time, and absolutely no one is there to listen to you clapping.
I'm not a chameleon, I can't point my eyes in two different directions.
Lol....Now that was funny.
🤣🤣🤣
Brilliant! Thanks to the comments that point out the drummer's celebration. Heartwarming to see it for this old jazz fan here.
Loved the video but I just have a quick suggestion. With the visuals in the bottom left and right corners, it would be great if you could make them bigger and closer together so people can really see the relationship between the two
thank you sm for explaining this succinctly and not taking 50 min like every music video essay
At 3:55 the dude in the background gets it.
behind the piano lol
3:54 got me so good lmao the guy in the back is just like “YESSSSS HE GOT THEM TO CLAP ON 2 AND 4!!!”
This explains why he voiced the jazzed out hipster in The Iron Giant.
Same hair too
Harry is one of the most talented musicians ever!
genius! This explains while I am the only one one jamming at the beginning of a song and then all of a sudden I am off beat! LOL GREAT post!
I’ve seen this dude live and it was awesome. He is a true performer. Been listening to Harry since I was in my teens.
It’s in France. The crowd will trick him back and clap on one and three before long cause there’s no way they can clap right.
I know. I’m french.
It this a cultural thing...becuse I notice that French jazz allways has an accent;)... really French has a very distinctive flow and it's allways 180 out if phase with Angelo German languages.. hard soft...not soft hard. Or maybe I am just imagining it..
My dad was 80 when he told me how much he loved Harry Connick in 1992. I never heard about him 31 years ago. But since my dad told me about him I became amazed at his ability. I wish I could’ve taken my dad to a Harry Connick show.
He just slaps the audience into place, some of them are sure they heard him make a mistake. I guess if he can teach J Lo what a scale is he can accomplish almost anything. Thanks for doing this, nicely done and super easy to understand.
Dudes too smart to be wasting his time on american idol.
Great video, Joshua! Thank you! I’ve played guitar since I was a little kid but have never really studied music theory. I have a major love for musical improvisation and the level of skill shown here blew my mind. Thanks for making a video that explains this to lesser-trained musicians and non-musicians, alike.
I only heard the audience clap on the 2nd and 4th beat.
It did seem a tad delayed when you mentioned it, and I did notice the "trick" you called out. However, they still clapped on the 2nd and 4th to me!
Which is a much more incredible trick to my ears!!!
Harry Connick Jr is as cool as the other side of the pillow. The guy is fantastic..
Another approach to this is by multiplying 4 by 5 or 5 by 4. (Hear me out, I suck at math, but as a musician, it can make it sound like you're "out" without actually being out and vice versa.) Since 4x5=20, you need either 5 measures of 4 or 4 measures of 5 to arrive at the same place musically.
In Herbie Hancock's "Tell me A Bedtime story", he has a section of 5/4. In Robert Glasper's rendition, he does the same section, but the drummer is playing 4 over the 5.
Another cool way of illustrating this is when you need a song to technically be in 4/4 while sounding like it isn't. Using some combination of 2's and 3's with a least common multiple of whatever irregular time signature you would like to mimic.
I love the way he handled the crowd without making them feel bad. Not all musicians are capable of doing this in a humble way.
If im understanding your strategy correctly, which I highly doubt, yours would take a lot longer cause you'd have to do it over 4 bars or something, no?
I will never get tired of watching this 👌
This has got to be one of the best performance ever. So clever and hard to do!!! Especially with a band
Don't ever clap on the 1 and the 3, folks. It's unbelievably square.
I wouldn't know what beats I'm clapping to, so this advice doesn't help.
What I love about it is the second bar after the trick, you can hear the very *faintest* of delays from some of the audience, as they innately pick up what’s happened and get confused for a second. Genius.
I do this often as a drummer if I find myself emphasizing the wrong part of a song or if I’m one beat off in an odd time signature. Just adding an extra snare hit or an extra down beat is sooooo much easier than trying to reorient yourself into a song
u what?
You can hear it, everyone clapping is about half a beat or so too soon.. which causes the excitement and anticipation in the song.. So clever.. The dude is pure genius!
As a musician, dont watch the beats shown in the corners. They are off. A real shame because why show them if theyre not correct cuz now it's just confusing to the layman observer? The beats shown are going at a slightly faster tempo than the song, which throws the whole thing off and it's completely out of sync by the 3:40 mark.
It still showcases the switch to 5/4 and back to 4/4 as it's supposed to though
I NOTICED THIS TOO AND NO ONE IS SAYING ANYTHING
THANK YOU!!! It’s absolutely way off. Before the 5/4 bar, the graphic had crept an entire beat ahead of the tempo, so it’s beats 2 & 4 were in line with the audience, who were actually clapping on beats 1 & 3, completely contradictory to what we were being told as we watch. After the beat 5 which appeared on screen on beat 4 of the 5/4 bar, the audience were clapping on beats 2 & 4 while the graphic was displaying beats 1 & 3 in time with the claps.
It’s quite concerning that so many people, including musicians, have watched this and not noticed the contradiction between what they are seeing and hearing. It’s a real shame because it’s a great video and topic otherwise!
I think it' actually more subtle and more ingenious than you describe. In their head, the audience is clapping at half time on what they perceive as every beat. He tricks them to clapping on what they perceive as the off-beat.
He's great. And you can really hear the influence of his teacher, James Booker in this piece.
Oh yeah, absolutely. Didn't even realize that.
Also Ellis Marsalis who was a big influence/teacher.
Yep, that's a classic Gonzo groove right there.
And George Shearing
Ellos Marsalis was his teacher
So clever, I never thought of "fixing" the audience's clapping... Harry's pretty swag.
I’m honestly just proud of myself that I could tell the first piece of sheet music he shows was Jingle bells.
I-
Who’s gonna say it 😶
@@barentfoley2082 who’s gonna say what?
@@barentfoley2082 should I or should you?
5 is one of my favorite timings to write with and I still couldn’t quite tell where he added the beat until you annotated it. Awesome stuff
I just hate when the audience starts clapping when I just paid big bucks to hear my favorite artist play my favorite song. I love it when most of the audience refuses to clap and the clappers die down to one or two clueless clappers who hopefully finally get the message.
The artists and most of the audience like the clapping (as long as it's on the right beats).
it's almost as annoying as seeing a see of mobile phones in front of me which is the reason I stopped going to gigs yeas ago. Put them down you stupid twats, why do you need to film it.
Depending on the genre, the clapping is an intended part of the performance.
@@AndrewKay @Rabonour I mean yeah but, since we're all on this video ima guess most people watching listen to the likes of either blues, jazz, funk, soul or any type of rock. Unless it's NOT a musician you're going to appreciate that you truly goddamn love - clapping sucks.
@@Dana21283 I wholly agree. Unless they are playing Kumbaya, it sucks. And clapping in or out of time is tolerated by the musicians because the audience paid to see them. As Andrew Kay said, it depends on the genre.
Having played the B3 in church for a few decades, I picked up on this immediately and can't tell you how many times this has happened. This is quite common in church services where medleys are played or songs segue into other songs. Excellent video and thank you for sharing!
Yeah, that's a nice, subtle correction that doesn't mess with the audience. I teach basic rhythm to people who aren't good with it, and one trick is to start a slow beat, me clapping 1 and 3, and them clapping 2 and 4. We speed up, and they cannot believe that they can off-beat at a blistering pace. The trick is, of course, to match against their clap the whole time. They can be sloppy, but you do your best to quantise the mess and they keep getting back on rhythm. It feels like Connick is also doing that with the audience, not just skipping them to the off, but also modulating his own rhythm to keep them in time.
Taj Mahal does this during an A Capella gospel shout, and it is just as perfect. The line is "Rise up children shake the devil out your soul" and Taj "fixes" the crowd's clap simply by singing "Rise" twice, and then continuing as normal. Brilliant.
Dude went private investigator on this performance
This video is so fascinating. You can see him registering the out of sync clapping the whole time, you can see when he gets the idea to do his lil trick. I know nothing about music-reading or notes or anything, but something about this has truly fascinated me. Thanks for the video
You can kind of hear it also. He drops the bass also so he can realign.
This was the best explanation/description! Thank you!
skip to 3:25 if you are a musician
Lmao. I was skipping that explanation, too... if only I saw your comment sooner.
Saw him a few yrs ago in Orlando, Dr Phillips Avenue, he was amazing & would pay again & again to see him. Great entertainer!!!
I’ve heard audiences start on 2 and 4 and slowly slide to 1 and 3. It’s kind of nauseating hearing them lose time out of sheer collective carelessness.
PS: Ever tried hearing 2 and 4 groves as 1 and 3? It’s a mindfck!
Lose time
I’m a jazz musician so clapping on 2 and 4 is ingrained into my soul so I can’t even comprehend the music when the audience is clapping on 1 and 3.
I never heard that song, so the claps on the 1st and on the 3rd beat seemed to me on the 2nd and on the 4th beat. At the end of the video I'm just confused ahahahahah
Yeah same I wasn’t able to hear the first part as 1 & 3
Yeah same I keep counting the 1 and 3 beats as the 2 and 4 beats in my head and it's hard to start counting it right because of the clapping lol
He did it so naturally that no one hesitated and just kept on clapping, and came back in sync. Genius!
Inebriates come through the door
Wanting to dance, nothing more
But their clapping's not rhythmic
It's in fact cataclysmic
Do they not know the beat's two and four?
Nah, you're rhythm's a bit off.
Inebriates come through the door,
Just wanting to dance, nothing more.
But their clapping's arhythmic,
It's near-cataclysmic,
Do they not know the beat's two and four?
Thanks Doc.. you rock...