Items18The creator’s order
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Hey Ya!Follow the strummed chords through the verse. One bar lasts only two beats, so the following chord comes racing in before the cycle gets back to its starting point. The guitar and drums keep moving through the short bar, which makes that little skip easy to dance through.0 - 2
Solsbury HillSteve Hunter’s picked guitar gives the song a light, repeating seven-beat stride. Follow that little turnaround as the singing comes in, then notice how the ends of the choruses have more room to settle. Those brief measures in four make the return to the guitar pattern feel especially buoyant.0 - 3
I Say a Little PrayerWarwick sings each of the first three chorus phrases as a single flowing thought. Follow the bass and the words instead of clapping evenly. Each phrase has a short middle bar of three beats between bars of four, and her delivery makes that little adjustment feel like an ordinary part of saying the…0 - 4
Blue Rondo a la TurkStart with the piano’s three short groups and one longer one. After three trips through that pattern, the same nine eighth notes are grouped in three even threes. Brubeck lets you hear how much a set of accents can change the motion before the quartet opens up into a blues swing.0 - 5
From EdenThe little guitar figure has a swing to it, and that swing is already in place before Hozier starts singing. The opening five-beat pattern leaves his voice space to draw the ends of lines out. Try humming the guitar part through a verse to hear how naturally the two fit together.0 - 6
Golden BrownThe harpsichord offers an easy way into the rhythm. In its instrumental pattern, the tune makes three ordinary turns in three and then gives the fourth turn one extra beat. The sung verse settles into three, so you can feel the difference when the harpsichord takes the foreground again.0 - 7
Mission: ImpossibleThe low figure has two long steps and two quick ones. That repeating pattern carries the 5/4 while the brass gets to make its sharp entrances above it. Follow the low part and the theme’s sudden turns feel as predictable as a countdown.0 - 8
Seven DaysVinnie Colaiuta makes this five-beat groove feel light on its feet. Pick out the bright hi-hat accents and notice how they move around in relation to the rest of the kit. The accents can suggest four while the underlying five keeps turning over, leaving Sting’s melody room to float.0 - 9
MoneyRoger Waters’s bass riff makes its seven beats feel like the length of a sentence. The saxophone solo still rides that shape. When David Gilmour starts his guitar solo, the band switches to four, and you can hear the floor straighten out underneath him.0 - 10
15 StepThe opening electronic beat sets up the loop before the band fills it in. Hear how the clean guitar slides into spaces in that same five-beat pattern. The arrangement can grow busier without disturbing the bounce the song gives you at the start.0
