Being really good at being not so good

Or when accidents happen to be the happy kind

I’ve mentioned a few times on here that I’ve been doing occasional old man jam sessions with some fellow musician friends lately. I had another one last night, and it was a good one. We continued work on a song that started out as a rough sketch created on my acoustic guitar.

It can be hard to translate something written on acoustic to something played out by a whole band, loud and rock-focused, but it’s been going remarkably well. Except that we discovered last night that, in addition to my using both a capo and drop D tuning, thus making it extra hard for the others guys to learn the song, I accidentally wrote it in 3/4 time.

As a bit of music theory (of which I know next to nothing), 4/4 time is the most common time signature. It’s the straight, driving, 4-beats-per-measure tempo most of are used to in most of our favorite songs. 3/4 time instead spreads 3 beats across a measure, making for a slightly more off-kilter tempo. It’s not inherently difficult or strange, I’m just not accustomed to writing songs in 3/4, so how I did that accidentally is miles beyond me.

I’d like file it in the “fake it til ya make it” folder, but I don’t even know if that’s fair. Because not only did I not realize I wrote the thing in 3/4, I didn’t even realize it after playing through it numerous times with a full band. The drummer had to point it out last night when we kept missing each other on the drop-in, and I thought HE was screwing up.

I’m, like, a so-so-but-not-so-great musician. But hey, at least I’m having fun…

Here’s a song.

I’ve mentioned SDRE enough that I don’t really need to go too far into my love for the band. This song, appropriately titled “5/4,” is written in 5/4 time, which is way more difficult to play than 3/4, but then the dudes in this band are infinitely better musicians than I am.

This great, great song off of their second album, which is lovingly referred to by fans as either The Pink Album or, more simply, LP2. It’s worth a listen even if you don’t give 5/4ths of a crap about time signatures.

Enjoy, and I’ll see you next time.

Call me
The sign
Rise and shine
Strange promenade with
Eyes closed
I thought I'd write the book of
Climbing
I'm trying