Chords for 4:3 Polyrhythms (in top 40 pop music?!) [ AN's Bass Lessons #4 ]

I can't take it, take it, take [Eb] no more.
[Ab] Never felt like, felt like this before.
[Cm] Come on, get me.
Yes, that was a Britney Spears song.
And yes, that notation was correct.
[A] Huh?
_ [Ab] _
[Bb] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
_ [Bm] _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ [Bb] _
_ [Bm] So [Ab] in order to understand that notation,
we need to actually first understand the four against three polyrhythm.
Now, four against three polyrhythm basically means that you're going to be playing
four evenly spaced notes within the span of three evenly spaced notes.
And the easiest way I know of figuring this stuff out is through the pen and paper method,
where we're [Em] going to write out three rows of four numbers a piece.
_ Then what we're going to do is we're going to circle
every third number starting left to right like this.
You can do this with other polyrhythms, but right now [N] we're just going to do four against three.
So for all of the ones we're going to tap with the right hand,
and for all the numbers that we circled, we're going to tap with our left hand.
Here [Abm] we go.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
Polyrhythms.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
_ _ Now, the best part about this is that you don't actually need your bass in order to [F] practice it.
You can [Am] practice it while waiting for the train,
_ while on the train,
[F] _
_ [D] and at any one of New York City's great landmarks.
_ _ _ _ [E] _ _ [G] _
_ _ _ [A] While you've been practicing this, you might [Gb] have noticed something called the composite [Ab] rhythm,
which is the [F] rhythm of both of your hands playing [E] at the same time.
And the phrase to help you remember the composite rhythm [D] is,
[Gb] pass the goddamn butter. _ _ _
Now, how do you notate this?
Well, if you remember what I said about four against three,
you're having four evenly spaced notes within the span of three evenly spaced notes.
So if you think about it,
four dotted eighth notes take [F] the same amount of time to play as three quarter notes.
And this is usually how it's written out,
not that god-awful mess of tuplets and nested tuplets that I included at the top of the video.
_ _ _ Now, why even talk about the four three polyrhythm?
Well, it's actually a very common rhythmic device built into a lot of pop songs [G] these days,
just because there's a nice intrinsic 16th note [E] syncopation built within it
if you're using that dotted eighth note paradigm.
Here are a couple of the [Eb] songs that I found and I'm going to be playing bass to them.
[G] _
[D] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Em] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
[D] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Em] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
[D] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _
[Em] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [Fm] _
_ _ [G] _ _ [Gm] _ _ [N] _ _
_ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Bb] _
[G] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ [C] _
[Ab] _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
[Fm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [C] _
[Fm] _ _ [Eb] _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ _
[Fm] _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ [Eb] _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ [Eb] _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ [Cm] _
_ _ _ _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Ab] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Cm] _
_ _ [Eb] _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
[Eb] _ _ _ [Ab] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ So these are just a couple examples [G] of four against three in modern pop songwriting,
but there's a ton of others.
I know the electronic music producer Deadmau5 uses it in a lot of his productions,
but if you guys can think of any others, please let me know.
I really, really enjoy this stuff,
like finding the different connections [E] between polyrhythms
and how music is [F] being written _ contemporarily, meaning today.
Anyway, this has been Adam Neely's Bass Lessons.
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And until next time, bass.
_ [B] _