How it's heard.

I was at the football the other night, and was sitting behind a self-appointed cheerleader for Geelong. Every so often he'd turn to the Geelong supporters around him and start the chant: Gee-long! clap clap clap. Gee-long! clap clap clap.

As I listened to it, I realised that there are a couple of ways you could hear it, in terms of a musical phrase. Do you hear the "Gee" as the downbeat, or as a pickup into the "long"? I think most people would think the former (I always did), so you'd notate it approximately like this:



But there's also the latter option: using the "Gee" as a lead in to the "long" as the downbeat, like this:



That's how the guy the other night started: by holding on to the "Gee" for a while, then accenting the "long". But this rhythm didn't continue. At some point during the chant, the emphasis moved to the first example, so that the "Gee" was clearly the downbeat. In order to notate it, you'd need to cut a beat out of a bar, probably like this:



This makes the transition by having a single 1/4 bar in the middle. It may seem really trivial, but I think this sort of thing is interesting. Composers of popular music often get criticized by doing things that are too complicated, like changing time signatures or keys. Sometimes that criticism is apt, but in some ways it's a bit misdirected. If you examine the natural world, or even the basic chants and songs that people come up with at sports events, it's generally more complex than a simple series of 4/4 beats in one key. In order to get that feeling in music, you have to play with things a bit.

Of course, we've gotten so used to pop music having strict, metronomic time and notes that fit a clear scale (without any "out of tune" notes, that it can seem a bit strange when we are confronted with stuff that doesn't fit that mould. Still, I like to think it's an avenue worth exploring.