'Turn it on Again' ! Great tune man, brings back fond memories. And great video you did there! As for the section you discuss, I think it all comes from the melodic riff and its harmony, which was probably the idea this part of the song came from. So it's cool you are singing it to get the whole thing started. To me, melody is king, it all comes from the melody, which implies rhythm and harmony. So, I'd think of the melodic riff as (4+2) + (4+3) beats. Could be thought of as 13/4 as the riff repeats after 13 beats, but that doesn't really tell you a lot, as mathmatically correct it would be. So as you say, I also like to think of it consisting of two groups. The second group is a variation of the first melodically and harmonically. Melodically, it's basically transposed up a minor third and rhythmically extended by one beat. Harmonically, the first group is in B major (ionian mode), the second in B minor (aeolian). Which is actually a displaced D major (ionian) scale. There you have the transposition up a minor third. So harmonically, it could be thought of as what a jazz guy might call modal interchange (unitonal/multimodal). Or: just playing around with major triads from other keys (in this case, D major/ionian for the 2nd group) over a constant bass note. My guess would be Tony Banks or Mike Rutherford came up with that melodic riff and the modal harmonization by just playing around without even being aware of the time signature. I doubt they were thinking, 'let's construct something in 13/4. Phil then probably came up with the idea of using the disco beat 'four on the floor' plus a backbeat with this, inserting 1 bar of 3/4 with snare on 2 and 3 at the end. Danceable if dancers just listen to the bass drum, but singing along the melody might throw them (which sort of was something prog rock bands were proud of at the time weren't they ... remember Frank Zappa joking about disco dancers in 'dancing fool'? haha. As for the bass drum variations, as you say Phil often adds an 8th before the '1' of the first and second parts of the riff as a pickup to the '1' (on '6and' and '13and' if you'd count in 13. That delineates the two parts of the riff with a variation. And on the pickup to the '1' of the entire 13 beat riff ('13and') he also opens the hi hat. So, he uses the same bassdrum variation twice within the entire riff, but varies it the 2nd time. Great, sparse construction. That's how memorable rhythm section riffs are made! Great stuff. I think now I gotta figure out the rest of the tune. Thx for reminding me, hadn't heard this one in a while!
Hey thanks so much - appreciate you! YEAH this is great - I haven't looked into the harmony of it, by can hear the scales you mention! And yes, totally agree that they weren't 'thinking about time signature', they just 'thought it sounded cool' haha! It's often he best way! This was fun to read through - thanks for this! Let me know if you discover anything more in your 'explorations' into the rest of the tune!
@@drumswithpete Hey, thanks! I was glad you reminded me of that little masterpiece. When that song first came out I heard it but it wasn't the style of music I listened to back then, so I never listened closely enough to figure out what they actually did there. I DID realize there was something 'odd' going on and the chords sounded cool somehow, but couldn't have analyzed the melody & chords then. Now I understand much better what they did and why that is so cool! :-) The modal interchange thing over one bass note by 'borrowing' major triads from other keys to change modes over the same bass note, is a really cool prog rock sound. If I heard it right, for that riff uses B mixolydian in the first bar, B ionian in the 2nd bar, and B aeolian in the 3rd and 4th bars (when slicing it up into 4 bars with 4+2+4+3 beats). Also, what's cool is that in the intro, the keys first play that 4 bar riff in 4/4 - except the 4th bar, which is shortened by one beat to a 3/4 (technically a 15/4 subdivided into 4+4+4+3). Then, the drums enter in of the last bar, the 3/4, with 2 snare hits on the first 2 16ths of '3'. They repeat the riff, but now with a shortened 2nd bar (2 instead of 4 beats), making it 4+2+4+3 = 13 beats. It may well be that the first original riff idea was ALL in 4/4 - with the 4th bar a 4/4 also, the last melody note being an 8th tied to a dotted half note on 1+. Maybe then, thinking 'wtf these modes sound cool but we're a prog rock band so let's spice up this rhythmically boring thing a bit rhythmically, too', they shortened the last bar by 1 beat. I guess that's called a 'truncation' (not sure about that, heard it SOMEwhere I think). And maybe after that, they came up with shortening the 2nd bar also - but by 2 beats (a symmetric truncation - shortening by 1 beat would be an asymmetric truncation, introducing an 'odd bar' - odd number of beats, in this case, 3/4). Actually a cool compositional process/strategy to creat prog sounding stuff ... as odd measures and unitonal/multimodal modal interchange are definitely stylistic elements of prog rock also found in bands like Yes! I'm thinking of the 90125 Album here, specifically the Song 'Hold On' where Alan White used very cool groupings of 4 within 12/8 in the drum part - actually a 3 over 4 polyrhythmic thingie that I transcribed decades ago, being totally excited about realizing what that actually was and how it worked!). That song also uses modal interchange over one bass note, changing between ionian and aeolian using the major triads of each mode. Anyway, back to 'Turn it on Again': I suspect that finally after experimenting with different versions of the riff: 16/4 (4/4/4/4), 15/4 (4/4/4/3) and 13/4 (4/2/4/3), they decided to actually use 2 versions: first, in the intro before the drums enter, the version truncated in the 4th bar only (4+4+4+3 = 15 beats), then after the drums enter, the version truncated in the 4th AND 2nd bar (4+2+4+3 = 13 beats). Hope that's not overthinking haha! But that makes at least a little bit of sense to at least MY mind - the actual compositional process most probably was totally different haha. But whatever helps to comprehend and learn from a song can be useful imo! But I'm sure they weren't thinking that much, just experimenting with the riff and ideas to make it more 'prog', maybe! So ... the whole thing which was originally 16 beats long (4/4/4/4) first becomes 15 beats long (4+4+4+3), then 13 beats long (4+2+4+3). Just for the heck of it, after all that analyzing I wrote out those 8 bars. If you wanna check it out, it's just one page, melody on top, then keys part (chords), guitar part, drum part www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xbqj6rauxuuqwcusxzorj/Turn-it-On-Again-Riff-Verse-Intro.pdf?rlkey=0y3wgyqkm7si0lq7g9fuhu86i&dl=0 Hell, there's a lot to discover in that tune, I should probably come back to it and transcribe and play the whole thing. Just so busy with other stuff these days :-( Also, I find it sad to see there is so little left of all that creativity of the prog rock bands of the 1970s in the stuff I hear on the radio today (yes I still listen to radio - in my car, and when working out in the gymn), and much of the music being produced today. Anyway! Thanks for your video & the inspiration! Without that, I'd have never listened again, trying to 'really get that riff'! Really cool stuff on your channel, and cool pick of tunes, you help keeping that 70s prog spirit alive! Also, great video editing skills (way to go for me for sure - never got past just doing some drum covers with no editing, just throwing in the vid + adding the track I played along to & basic mixing).
@@T_WTX haha I certainly do appreciate the drummers from bygone eras! And thanks so much for this, loved reading your take on it! So if you weren't into Genesis 'back in the day' when this came out, what were you listening to?
@@drumswithpete Back then, I would listen to the radio a lot, and they would have a LP hit list program every saturday afternoon. Listeners could vote their favorite LP, and from LPs placed #1 - 10, they would play one song. Some albums I remember having heard there almost in its entirety were Yes: 90125, Scorpions: BlackOut, Iron Maiden: Number of the Beast ... I would also share LPs with my friends. Some of them were by Kiss, AC/DC, Gary Moore, Colosseum II, Mama's Boys, Blues Brothers, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Working Week, Al Jarreau, Billy Joel ... anything I could get my hands on really. I loved Mother's Finest, and then other Funk Bands like Tower of Power - Blues and R&B. Then, later, I would listen to Chick Corea's Electric Band, then his Acoustic Band. Weckl totally floored me. Through him, I listened to early Chick Records, my favorite one still being 'Now He Sings, Now He Sobs' with Roy Haynes on drums and Miroslav Vitous on bass. I still listen to that album! Started listening to Miles Davis Quintet with Tony Williams, and John Coltrane's Quartet with Elvin Jones on bass ... a drummer friend turned me to Steve Coleman and five Elements ... Then I got into Big Bands as I had a chance to play in my first Big Band. Rob McConnell, Mel Lewis Orchestra, Frank Mantooth, also classic Sammy Nestico Basie stuff ... one day, I discovered Ed Palermo's awesome Big Band ... then I got into listening to Zappa!
I hope you get more views n likes n subscribes Honestly you seem like you ought to make it big as a content creator. Keep it up. Im a fan
Aaaaww thanks so much! Thanks for being here - appreciate you!
'Turn it on Again' ! Great tune man, brings back fond memories. And great video you did there!
As for the section you discuss, I think it all comes from the melodic riff and its harmony, which was probably the idea this part of the song came from. So it's cool you are singing it to get the whole thing started. To me, melody is king, it all comes from the melody, which implies rhythm and harmony. So, I'd think of the melodic riff as (4+2) + (4+3) beats. Could be thought of as 13/4 as the riff repeats after 13 beats, but that doesn't really tell you a lot, as mathmatically correct it would be.
So as you say, I also like to think of it consisting of two groups. The second group is a variation of the first melodically and harmonically. Melodically, it's basically transposed up a minor third and rhythmically extended by one beat. Harmonically, the first group is in B major (ionian mode), the second in B minor (aeolian). Which is actually a displaced D major (ionian) scale. There you have the transposition up a minor third. So harmonically, it could be thought of as what a jazz guy might call modal interchange (unitonal/multimodal). Or: just playing around with major triads from other keys (in this case, D major/ionian for the 2nd group) over a constant bass note.
My guess would be Tony Banks or Mike Rutherford came up with that melodic riff and the modal harmonization by just playing around without even being aware of the time signature. I doubt they were thinking, 'let's construct something in 13/4. Phil then probably came up with the idea of using the disco beat 'four on the floor' plus a backbeat with this, inserting 1 bar of 3/4 with snare on 2 and 3 at the end. Danceable if dancers just listen to the bass drum, but singing along the melody might throw them (which sort of was something prog rock bands were proud of at the time weren't they ... remember Frank Zappa joking about disco dancers in 'dancing fool'? haha.
As for the bass drum variations, as you say Phil often adds an 8th before the '1' of the first and second parts of the riff as a pickup to the '1' (on '6and' and '13and' if you'd count in 13. That delineates the two parts of the riff with a variation. And on the pickup to the '1' of the entire 13 beat riff ('13and') he also opens the hi hat. So, he uses the same bassdrum variation twice within the entire riff, but varies it the 2nd time. Great, sparse construction. That's how memorable rhythm section riffs are made! Great stuff. I think now I gotta figure out the rest of the tune. Thx for reminding me, hadn't heard this one in a while!
Hey thanks so much - appreciate you! YEAH this is great - I haven't looked into the harmony of it, by can hear the scales you mention! And yes, totally agree that they weren't 'thinking about time signature', they just 'thought it sounded cool' haha! It's often he best way!
This was fun to read through - thanks for this! Let me know if you discover anything more in your 'explorations' into the rest of the tune!
@@drumswithpete Hey, thanks! I was glad you reminded me of that little masterpiece. When that song first came out I heard it but it wasn't the style of music I listened to back then, so I never listened closely enough to figure out what they actually did there. I DID realize there was something 'odd' going on and the chords sounded cool somehow, but couldn't have analyzed the melody & chords then. Now I understand much better what they did and why that is so cool! :-) The modal interchange thing over one bass note by 'borrowing' major triads from other keys to change modes over the same bass note, is a really cool prog rock sound. If I heard it right, for that riff uses B mixolydian in the first bar, B ionian in the 2nd bar, and B aeolian in the 3rd and 4th bars (when slicing it up into 4 bars with 4+2+4+3 beats).
Also, what's cool is that in the intro, the keys first play that 4 bar riff in 4/4 - except the 4th bar, which is shortened by one beat to a 3/4 (technically a 15/4 subdivided into 4+4+4+3). Then, the drums enter in of the last bar, the 3/4, with 2 snare hits on the first 2 16ths of '3'. They repeat the riff, but now with a shortened 2nd bar (2 instead of 4 beats), making it 4+2+4+3 = 13 beats.
It may well be that the first original riff idea was ALL in 4/4 - with the 4th bar a 4/4 also, the last melody note being an 8th tied to a dotted half note on 1+. Maybe then, thinking 'wtf these modes sound cool but we're a prog rock band so let's spice up this rhythmically boring thing a bit rhythmically, too', they shortened the last bar by 1 beat. I guess that's called a 'truncation' (not sure about that, heard it SOMEwhere I think). And maybe after that, they came up with shortening the 2nd bar also - but by 2 beats (a symmetric truncation - shortening by 1 beat would be an asymmetric truncation, introducing an 'odd bar' - odd number of beats, in this case, 3/4).
Actually a cool compositional process/strategy to creat prog sounding stuff ... as odd measures and unitonal/multimodal modal interchange are definitely stylistic elements of prog rock also found in bands like Yes! I'm thinking of the 90125 Album here, specifically the Song 'Hold On' where Alan White used very cool groupings of 4 within 12/8 in the drum part - actually a 3 over 4 polyrhythmic thingie that I transcribed decades ago, being totally excited about realizing what that actually was and how it worked!). That song also uses modal interchange over one bass note, changing between ionian and aeolian using the major triads of each mode.
Anyway, back to 'Turn it on Again': I suspect that finally after experimenting with different versions of the riff: 16/4 (4/4/4/4), 15/4 (4/4/4/3) and 13/4 (4/2/4/3), they decided to actually use 2 versions: first, in the intro before the drums enter, the version truncated in the 4th bar only (4+4+4+3 = 15 beats), then after the drums enter, the version truncated in the 4th AND 2nd bar (4+2+4+3 = 13 beats).
Hope that's not overthinking haha! But that makes at least a little bit of sense to at least MY mind - the actual compositional process most probably was totally different haha. But whatever helps to comprehend and learn from a song can be useful imo! But I'm sure they weren't thinking that much, just experimenting with the riff and ideas to make it more 'prog', maybe!
So ... the whole thing which was originally 16 beats long (4/4/4/4) first becomes 15 beats long (4+4+4+3), then 13 beats long (4+2+4+3).
Just for the heck of it, after all that analyzing I wrote out those 8 bars. If you wanna check it out, it's just one page, melody on top, then keys part (chords), guitar part, drum part www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xbqj6rauxuuqwcusxzorj/Turn-it-On-Again-Riff-Verse-Intro.pdf?rlkey=0y3wgyqkm7si0lq7g9fuhu86i&dl=0
Hell, there's a lot to discover in that tune, I should probably come back to it and transcribe and play the whole thing. Just so busy with other stuff these days :-( Also, I find it sad to see there is so little left of all that creativity of the prog rock bands of the 1970s in the stuff I hear on the radio today (yes I still listen to radio - in my car, and when working out in the gymn), and much of the music being produced today. Anyway!
Thanks for your video & the inspiration! Without that, I'd have never listened again, trying to 'really get that riff'! Really cool stuff on your channel, and cool pick of tunes, you help keeping that 70s prog spirit alive! Also, great video editing skills (way to go for me for sure - never got past just doing some drum covers with no editing, just throwing in the vid + adding the track I played along to & basic mixing).
@@T_WTX haha I certainly do appreciate the drummers from bygone eras! And thanks so much for this, loved reading your take on it! So if you weren't into Genesis 'back in the day' when this came out, what were you listening to?
@@drumswithpete Back then, I would listen to the radio a lot, and they would have a LP hit list program every saturday afternoon. Listeners could vote their favorite LP, and from LPs placed #1 - 10, they would play one song. Some albums I remember having heard there almost in its entirety were Yes: 90125, Scorpions: BlackOut, Iron Maiden: Number of the Beast ...
I would also share LPs with my friends. Some of them were by Kiss, AC/DC, Gary Moore, Colosseum II, Mama's Boys, Blues Brothers, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Working Week, Al Jarreau, Billy Joel ... anything I could get my hands on really. I loved Mother's Finest, and then other Funk Bands like Tower of Power - Blues and R&B.
Then, later, I would listen to Chick Corea's Electric Band, then his Acoustic Band. Weckl totally floored me. Through him, I listened to early Chick Records, my favorite one still being 'Now He Sings, Now He Sobs' with Roy Haynes on drums and Miroslav Vitous on bass. I still listen to that album! Started listening to Miles Davis Quintet with Tony Williams, and John Coltrane's Quartet with Elvin Jones on bass ... a drummer friend turned me to Steve Coleman and five Elements ...
Then I got into Big Bands as I had a chance to play in my first Big Band. Rob McConnell, Mel Lewis Orchestra, Frank Mantooth, also classic Sammy Nestico Basie stuff ... one day, I discovered Ed Palermo's awesome Big Band ... then I got into listening to Zappa!
Lol this funny and educational. Needs more howbell tho
Haha thank you so much!
Everything in life needs more cowbell... 🐄🔔