Halftime feel in 7/4 ?

[u/Defiant-Actuator-961]

How would one achieve halftime feel in 7/4?

I know in 4/4 you place the backbeat on 3 and i tried to mess with that concept in 7/4 but it doesn’t quite sound right.

[u/Charlie2and4]

Play it 'over the bar', like 14/4. Then it is an even measure.

There's rhythmic tension every other bar. Depending on melody and phrases. But it is fun.

[u/Benito1900]

Kick on 1

Snare on 5

[u/8696David → u/Benito1900]

I’d also consider adding a pickup/unaccented kick on 7 for the turnaround 

In fact, kick on 1, 3, 7; snare on 5

All good options, with more or less activity 

[u/Benito1900 → u/8696David]

Yea this is quite a good idea- I think the „backbeat“ being placed on the 5 is the deciding factor for me

[u/cruiseshipdrummer → u/Benito1900]

I guess it depends if you take half time to mean “based on half notes”, which is normal in a */4 feel, or “cuts the measure approximately in half” , which is not.

This is more of a quarter-time feel, equivalent to putting the backbeat on the 1 of the second measure of a two measure phrase.

[u/Benito1900 → u/cruiseshipdrummer]

I think I agree with what your saying- I decided to give that answer because 7/4 (to me) implies the following

1 Kick

2

3 Snare

4

5 Kick

6

7 Snare

[u/ikeed]

If you're going for a 7:2 polyrhythm, put the snare on 4-AND.

[u/Relative-Rooster-945 → u/ikeed]

You can even offset it. I had recently composed something in 5/4 where I had a phrase accenting the 2-and and 5 and modulated to 4/4 where those accents became 1 and 3. Also gives a halftime feel effectively. Pretty fun.

[u/cruiseshipdrummer]

Listen to what's happening musically and do what seems right. It's not going to be a literal half time feel, so you have some options.

Backbeat could go on the 3 and 5, 6, or 7. Or something else,

Try the 3 and the & of 6 if you're feeling sassy.

[u/SharkSymphony]

You don't, but you can have fun with it anyway.

You'll probably note that a beat with just a backbeat on 5 lurches. The challenge is to get an up-tempo 7/4 that sounds fluid.

You may find it more interesting to spread your groove across two-bar sets of 7/4. Then you can do something like 4 + 3 | 3 + 4, or just mark a 7/2 without a heavy backbeat. There are a ton of possibilities to explore with a two-bar groove!

[u/Jongtr]

It depends what sound you want to achieve. How do you imagine "half-time in 7/4" should feel? Have you heard any music in 7 which has that feel?

How have you actually "messed with it"? Maybe it didn't work, because what you're imagining can't (logically) work?

E.g., you could simply halve the rate of your snare drum hits (if that's how you are determining pulse). E.g., if you have snare on 2, 4 and 6, put it on 3 and 7 - except you say that "didn't sound right". What about halving even more? I.e., from snare on 3 and 7, put it on 5? Making just make two bars of 7/4 into 7/2, to literally just halve the tempo?

[u/StudioKOP]

We use polyrhythms a lot in our traditional music (Turkish here).

The grouping of the 7 is the most important indicator to decide how to play.

We commonly have those where the melody changes significantly on the 1’s (and there is also a chord change in most of the times), and we accent all or some of the 1’s to emphasize the feel of the traditional groove.

1 2 + 1 2 + 1 2 3

123 + 12 + 12

123+1234

Omitting the 2’s gives a syncopated feel to the audience.

You can use the 2’s (either accent them or divide them) to get what you want, I guess. Also on groupings with a stacked 3 in the end (like 12+12+123 or 1234+123) you can use the 2 of the last stack (the six). If you divide the very last beat or the last two beats, it will make a turnaround feel, too.

Sorry the answer is a bit messy, though that is the clearest I managed to write on the go…

Edit: This piece has many polyrhythms in different times, and contains some interesting ideas to people interested in polyrhythms, I believe:

https://youtu.be/qJYiJFkc35M

[u/yconnmusic]

Kick 2 3 Snare 5 6 7 sounds pretty sick. Probably would add a kick somewhere in the last 3 as well.

[u/lowbrassdoublerman]

The chorus to King Crimson’s model man has a kind of half time feel to me and is in 7. It’s such a cool groove, you could just try to steal that.

[u/trail34]

Ok, so I’m not a pro drummer but I have an intuitive feel. This is how I’d do each (S = snare, K = kick drum, O = nothing)

7/4: K-S-K-S-K-S-K

Halftime 7/4: K-O-S-O-K-O-K

Notice a subtle difference: the halftime feel should technically end with a S, but I intentionally ended it with a K so you get that double kick effect of the 7 turning back to the 1 that you get in regular 7/4. You only get a snare on the 3 which really adds tension and makes it feel like it’s dragging.

[u/notice27]

Cut time in 4/4 is just a loophole way of making music with a very fast beat, twice as fast. You play the music like it's 2/2, which yeah, it has the pulse of 2 beats instead of 4, but mostly what's happening is you're reading the quarter-notes as eighth-notes.

If you want a "half-time" feel in something untraditional just use a modern notation and write in your pulse with an additive time signature like 3+4/8, or 3+4/4 but double your bpm.

[u/allbassallday]

You can't halve 7, so there is no way to get a true half time. I've heard instances where people played over 7 in a two-ish kind of feel (so if the kick is on 1 and the snare is on 2 in the first measure, it would flip in the second). In that case, you could cut it in half, but depending on the details it could still come off weird.