ABABCAB - In describing the structure of a piece of music, one often uses capital letters to indicate the various parts. The letters shown here would be used for a pretty typical Rock song, in which the Verse (A) alternates with the Chorus (B), and the whole includes an instrumental interlude (C). All the A sections are likely to be similar in their musical tune, though the words will be changed to advance the theme. The B sections are likely to be identical in both words and music (that's how you know it's the Chorus!). Pink Floyd regularly breaks these unwritten rules, and creates quite unusual structures. That's why we have difficulty calling their musical works "songs".
ACOUSTIC - literally from "the science of sound", it usually refers to music made without the aid of electronic amplifiers or instruments. MTV's "Unplugged" series allows musicians to perform their music in a more intimate setting, and often results in renditions of tunes that are amazingly different than their electrified counterparts (remember Eric Clapton's performance of Layla, that eventually got released as a single?) There are few instruments that are so radically different as acoustic and electric guitar, so they create a great difference in the sound of the songs on which they are used.
ACTIVE LISTENING - All great music requires participation on the part of the listener. Many individuals will turn on their radio, CD player, or go to a concert, and expect the band to do all the work of entertaining them. This results in a listener who is lazy, difficult to impress, and unlikely to recognize real music from cats in the trash cans. The Active Listener gets involved in the music, looking for interesting patterns and musical ideas. The A.L. wants to imagine where the band is going, what they are trying to communicate, and why they have chosen particular methods. The A.L. is part of what is going on!
ALBUM - a collection of music, usually by one group or individual. In the old days, people actually bought Record Albums - books with paper pages into which they could slip their records. Records were purchased at the music store, and did not come with the dust jackets most of us have seen. Later, the term came to apply to the LP, a "long-playing" record that usually had a dozen or so songs on it. This was an "album" of one artist's work. I think the term can still apply to today's CD's, which serve the same basic purpose as the LP, so that's how I use the term.
ALLITERATION - a series of similar-sounding syllables or words that begin with the same letter or sound. In Astronomy Domine it's "Lime and limpid green, a second scene..." where you have two alliterations in the first line.
ALS - Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis, a degenerative arterial disease that is usually called "Lou Gehrig's Disease" since he was the most famous person to contract it. The arteries harden until an individual can no longer utilize their muscles. Today, Stephen Hawking is the most famous person with this disease.
AMBIENT - part of the surrounding area or atmosphere. It is one of the basic principles of Pink Floyd, that every sound has a musical quality, and their mission was to find ways to incorporate those sounds into their recordings in such a way that the audience could feel the rhythm, tempo, and tone of the sound. Ambients help set a very special mood for each song or album. It is a technique that leads to some pretty interesting and original recordings, and one which no other group has attempted half so well. (Even though the effects of their experimentation are heard everywhere.)
There are actually two definable types of ambients. The first is when the band records "everyday" sounds (people's voices, a bell, machinery, a heartbeat, or money clinking) and incorporates it directly into a song's melody or rhythm. The second is when an instrument or voice is altered or even synthesized to the point where it becomes something very different than we usually hear.
I find it admirable that a group was so adept at hearing the musical quality in what many of us would consider to be noises or insignificant everyday sounds. It seems that many of us take our hearing for granted, and become annoyed at or ignorant of the interesting variety of sounds we are exposed to each day, which these guys turned into music.
BALLAD - a song that narrates a story, often a love tale or sentimental story, using fairly simple rhyming and musical structure. It is usually a slow-moving and emotional structure.
BARRETT, SYD - one of the founders, and the original creative force of Pink Floyd, Syd began as the group's lead singer and lead guitar player. An artistic and emotional soul, he was really the only member of the early band with any sort of stage presence or personality. Interested in musical experimentation, his fascination with fairy-tale fantasy life is evident in many of the group's early works. As the band delved further into psychedelic music, Syd became more involved with LSD and other drugs. It is generally accepted that he eventually became mentally unbalanced as a result of overuse of these psychotropics, and gradually became unable to perform. Roger Waters took over the lyric-writing and creative direction of the band, and David Gilmour, an old friend, was brought in to be the lead guitar player.
BECK, JEFF - One of the early rock guitar icons, he began his career with The Yardbirds (at least sometimes alongside a couple of guys named Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton) but eventually became most known for his amazing technical playing ability. Able to play almost any lick ever conceived on guitar, his popularity has been decreased by his lack of melodic style.
BEETHOVEN, Ludwig Van - A Classical composer (1770-1827) with more links to Pink Floyd than you might imagine.
Beethoven has always provided trouble for musical classifiers, because he is essentially both a great Classical composer, and the first Romantic composer. His 6th Symphony attempted to communicate the feelings attained by spending a day in the country, which no Classical man would have ever attempted. Just as Pink Floyd bridged the gap between bands that recorded for the radio (Classic Rock) and those who recorded for the joy and art of music, Beethoven bridged the gap between orchestral composers who adhered to strict structural rules and the passion of emotional music.
Another connection is the way Beethoven constantly rewrote his scores, trying to find the perfect combination of notes for his music. If you look at any Beethoven manuscript, you will see it scribbled and scratched all over, as Beethoven searched for utter perfection. Pink Floyd almost always tried out their music many times in live concerts before they began recording, and then did many more versions in the studio until they had to turn out the product. In both cases, it can be shown that the artists were still not fully satisfied with the final product, and can be critical of themselves, even when we might feel that they have achieved perfection.
BLUESY - like the Blues. One of the major roots of jazz in America, the Blues has been an inspiration to all Rock musicians. Deriving from Black southern folk music and spirituals, it is generally slow-moving and heartfelt, and often reflects the difficulties of life. For the technically concerned, Blues usually involves flattening the 3rd and 7th degrees of the scale (Remember do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do? Well, this is do-re-mi flat-fa-sol-la-ti flat-do) It is from this same general background that we get the slide guitar, which David Gilmour uses to such emotional effect.
CD - Compact Disk, the current digital, laser-guided method of recording and playback for music. CDs are far superior in sound quality to vinyl records since they do not require grooves to be cut in them or needles to ride smoothly within those grooves. In a continuing pattern of planned obsolescence, CDs will someday be as out-of-date as 8-Track tapes.
CATHARSIS - a purification or purging of emotions, primarily through art, that brings about a spiritual renewal or release from tension. Webster's says it can be the elimination of a (psychological) complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression. My reference implies that despite this action, the members of the group never did fully divest themselves of their feelings toward Syd, and then Roger.
CLASSICAL - relating to a musical form that grew out of the work of J.S. Bach and other masters of counterpoint. A very formal structure, it was still less mathematic than the forms of Bach, and allowed composers like Haydn & Mozart to thrive. Perhaps invented by C.P.E. Bach, the true classical form has 3 well-defined sections - (A) the advancement of two musical themes, (B) the development of the possibilities of the themes, and (C) a return to the themes in slightly altered form. Though Haydn and Mozart usually play by the "rules", it was Beethoven's departure from them that helped advance the quality of music in the world.
CODA - a concluding section to a piece of music, usually having a different theme than the preceding parts, but being related. Marches, particularly by Sousa, often follow an ABABC structure, so that we have heard two different musical ideas before it is basically summed up by the coda.
CONCEPT ALBUM - A very popular idea in the late 1960's and the 1970's, it provided the opportunity for bands to expand their creativity by organizing every piece of music on an album into a continuous idea. Pink Floyd came to excel at this approach, particularly with DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, WISH YOU WERE HERE, ANIMALS, and THE WALL, though they had already experimented with lengthy songs like Atom Heart Mother and Echoes. The approach was attempted by many other bands, but didn't always meet with such success, because their concepts may not have been as good to begin with.
DERISION - Webster's: to subject to bitter or contemptous ridicule
DERIVATIVE - to come from another source. In art, this is essentially a put-down, because it implies that the work is not entirely original, or that some previous work has been only partially altered in order to produce this result.
DREAMSCAPE - a term that is used to apply to the dreamlike musical sequences that Pink Floyd often inserts into their longer works. They are often characterized by a seeming disappearance of a definable time signature or melody line. Though chord patterns are almost always still somewhat evident, the effect becomes that the listener is transported to a place where the usual rules of composition do not apply.
Sometimes these dreamscapes attempt to create a very particular mood or image in the mind, while at other times they seem to exist only to deprive the listener of a foothold on the slippery landscape of the music. Just when one has become thoroughly disoriented, the band will return to a familiar theme, usually in a way that one would not have imagined possible, yet which is totally satisfying and logical.
EZRIN, BOB - a famous record producer, particularly fond of working with big-name groups who have been struggling. His touch is often heard in the bold major chords in instrumental sections, use of acoustic piano and big, ringing guitar sounds, and background vocals. He also likes to play background instruments for the groups he produces. A very hands-on kind of guy.
FORMULAIC - implies that a simple set of rules or structures have been followed in order to produce a result. In art, this is a negative comment, meaning that the work is rather simplistic and uninspired, and does not show the true talents of the creator. Maybe like a paint-by-numbers artwork.
FOLKY - like Folk music. Folk songs are the music of the common people. Their exact melody and words are often hard to pinpoint, because each person who plays them modifies them somewhat to their own circumstances. Folk songs often tell stories and relate values of the culture in which they originated. All cultures have Folk music, and each culture's music sounds somewhat similar, while having its' own distinct characteristics. A major point in the development of music was when "serious" composers (like Beethoven in his 6th Symphony) incorporated Folk melodies into their works.
GILMOUR, DAVID - an early friend of Syd's, he had much greater playing ability, but often sat around with Syd trying all sorts of new sound-producing techniques on the guitar. Ironically, but fortuitously for Pink Floyd, it was Dave who was brought into the band to cover for Syd when Barrett began to become increasingly erratic. Easily the most musically talented of the members of the band, having played with the Newcomers and Jokers Wild, he had experience, ability, and the willingness to experiment that was essential to being a Pink Floyd member. Continually recognized as a master of the guitar.
HAWKING, Stephen - Famous physicist, who is renowned for having expanded some of Albert Einstein's concepts. His book, A Brief History of Time gave Physics its greatest popular surge since Albert was in his heyday. Hawking is recognized by his gnomelike appearance, part of which is due to being afflicted with ALS. Since Pink Floyd is often known for using loops within their albums or individual songs {CPFS}, it is ironically interesting that one of Hawking's primary theories is that our currently-expanding universe will eventually begin to return to its point of origin. He theorizes that the "Big Bang", which most physicists believe began our universe, is just part of a gigantic loop that will eventually result in another Big Bang. Hmmmmm.
HIATUS - a "vacation" from work. Taking some time off, often to get one's mind back on track.
IMAGERY - hang with me here. Webster's defines this as "figurative language" or "the products of imagination", but I think you have to go to the definition of IMAGE, the 5th and 6th definitions of which seem to strike the target better. (5) "a mental conception of something not present, held in common by members of a group, and symbolic of a basic attitude and orientation"; (6) "a vivid or graphic representation or description". In the best Pink Floyd music, the band is capable of creating certain ideas that, by virtue of their excellence as musicians, bring us into membership in the group. We come to share their attitude toward the idea they have created, because we can see the image they have described.
KAMEN, MICHAEL - Former leader of the New York Rock Ensemble, he was hired to do the orchestral arrangements for THE WALL. He became a friend of Roger Waters, and thus ended up helping him arrange and conduct the orchestra for the FINAL CUT. Often played piano on Age IIC Floyd works.
LOOP - a circular pattern within a musical composition, or series of compositions. Pink Floyd simply loves the Circle. (As architects, their buildings would have, no doubt, included many of them.) In nearly every album (and sometimes the entire album itself) will be a loop in which a certain musical idea is introduced, disappears for awhile, then returns just in time to conclude the piece in a very logical way. Sometimes several pieces, or even an entire album (i.e. DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, THE WALL) are linked together by melodic or ambient segues, and return to a musical theme we thought had gotten lost. It provides a very satisfying sense of completeness, and a feeling that, even if we do not, the band knew all along just where they were going.
LSD - Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, a psyschotropic chemical often used during the 1960's. Unlike other types of "highs", LSD supposedly gives the user an altered state of reality, in which sounds might appear in tangible form, or one might actually envision flying. Some users have reported having a "bad trip", in which their worst fears became frighteningly realistic. Others have had "flashbacks" years later, in which they were suddenly effected again. The actual number of individuals who have suffered permanent psychological damage from the use of LSD is unknown, and probably unknowable, but Syd Barrett seems to have definitely been a victim of overuse. The fear remains sufficiently present to make hoaxes like the Blue Star Tattoo be taken seriously.
LYRIC - Webster's 2nd definition suits our purpose best, "expressing direct, usually intense, personal emotion". Though the word "lyric" refers specifically to the words of the songs, it also relates to a style that Pink Floyd exemplifies. Regardless of the specific words, when the singer expresses them in an intense, emotional way, there is a different flow than most popular music creates. When the instrumentalists play using direct personal emotion, there is a very compelling flow to the piece. Often times, I am unwilling to let a Pink Floyd piece end in my head, so I just keep the music going. It is a characteristic of lyrical music that most pieces do not come to a traditional, big-chord ending, but just sort of fade off into the distance. It makes it much easier to tie pieces together, and to create loops, and explains why the Floyd often fade in and out of albums or songs.
MASON, NICK - Nicholas Berkeley Mason was born the richest of the Pink Floyd members, and lived the high life most of the time. He loved fast cars, acting like a spoiled brat, and was actually pretty serious about his architectural studies. Why wealthy parents enjoy purchasing drums for their kids is one of the eternal mysteries, but maybe it's because they can afford a house large enough to hide far away from the ridiculous pounding of a trainee. He found a way to improve consistently as a performer, experiment effectively, and provide a varied repertoire of percussive addenda to the Floyd pantheon.
MELODIC - relating to melody. The two important parts of any composition are the melody and the harmony. The melody is called by Webster's "a sweet, agreeable arrangement of sounds" (you'll notice they didn't say "notes") and "a rhythmic succession of tones organized as an aesthetic whole". This is usually the tune you come away humming when a song is over, and is usually the line of sounds that carries the verses of a song with words. To be melodic is to be filled with agreeable arrangements of sounds that seem to fit together into an interesting succession.
The other major part of a composition is the harmony. This is a little harder to explain without a short course in music composition, but I'll give it a try. Each tone on the scale creates a "resonance" with certain other tones in that same scale. Essentially, hitting one note hard on a piano will cause some strings to vibrate more than others (sympathetic vibrations) and certain combinations will sound relatively more or less pleasing to the ear than others. (some also sound stronger, sadder, eerier, etc.) Guitar players are used to playing chords in which three or more strings are strummed simultaneously, and pianists regularly play in the left hand a harmony that goes along with the melody in the right.
MONOSYLLABIC - having only one syllable per word, a very limited and childish form of communication.
MUZAK - "canned" or "elevator" music, the type that is piped into stores and office buildings. Often, the music has been recorded by a "cover" group, or turned into a corny instrumental. The name originally belonged to a company that prepared such music, now is generically applied.
NUANCE - a subtle distinction or variation. Think of two shades of the same color (like Burgundy and Maroon), and how close they are in appearance. Now, think about how much more subtle one can be in creating "shades" of musical tone. This can be especially applied with certain instruments, particularly the slide guitar. By the nature of the beast, the slide guitar allows the player to create a tremendous variety of "notes between notes", tones that are not exactly on the scale. As the guitarist moves from note to note, subtle variations occur in the tone that add character and individuality to the piece, and make it different every time it's performed.
Pink Floyd also uses nuance in their lyrics. Every word in the English language has a number of synonyms, but there is always a subtle distinction between each one. When writing the lyrics to a song, a composer could choose any of the synonyms, but the choice of the perfect one to communicate exactly the thought and feeling he wishes you to have. If you come across any bootleg recordings of the Floyd, you are likely to find quite a variety of words used in any given song. I think this is evidence that they kept trying all the possible combinations they could, until they found just the imagery they were looking for.
PAGE, Jimmy - Famous rock guitarist, best known for his work as a member of Led Zeppelin. More technical than Gilmour, but more lyrical than Beck. Led Zep is harder Rock than the Floyd, at least partly as a result of Page's presence, but they prove that even Hard Rock bands can have intriguing lyrics and creative musical passages (how can you top Stairway to Heaven ?)
PARRY, Dick - Saxophonist schoolmate of some of the bandmembers, his work on DARK SIDE OF THE MOON and WISH YOU WERE HERE became some of the definitive sounds of the Pink Floyd discography. The range of his playing, and the soulful sound of his various saxes, adds great variety to the usual Floyd sound.
PLAINTIVE - expressing suffering or sadness
PSEUDO-ORWELLIAN - after George Orwell, author of 1984, and Animal Farm. Pink Floyd's ANIMALS utilizes a similar idea to that which Orwell uses in Animal Farm, in which certain types of people are portrayed as the animals they represent.
PUNK ROCK - Anti-mainstream musical form led by Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious in the Summer of 1976, by which Pink Floyd had hit the big time with DARK SIDE OF THE MOON and WISH YOU WERE HERE. As a musical style that rejected all the values of "normal" music, the Punk movement brought to the forefront, the anger that many musicians and listeners felt about the success of monster groups like the Floyd, which excluded younger, more avante garde groups like the Sex Pistols. There was , immediately, a certain revelry in being sloppy, idiotic, and untalented.
QUINTESSENTIAL - the essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form; the most typical example or representative
ROMANTIC ERA - a musical period following the Classical, in which music attempted to become less "rule" oriented, and to more extensively express the composer's feelings about nature, political ideals, personal moods, great literary ideas, etc. Romantic composers were far more concerned with their emotions than with the structure of their music, and desired to communicate their feelings to their audience.
SARCASM - a low form of satire, in which bitter or ironic language is used, usually against one specific person, to inflict pain or cause harm. Quite common these days, and quite poorly used, it was once seen as the "poor man's satire". You can learn a lot from the origin of words, and this one comes from a French or Lower Latin origin, once meaning "to tear flesh, bite the lips in rage, sneer". Not much in the way of redeeming social value there.
SATIRE - generally considered the highest form of comedy, since its primary purpose is to expose social ills by discrediting the vices and follies that create them. The subtle difference between satire and sarcasm is that with the former we are laughing at our own errors (and resolving to change them) and with the latter someone else is ridiculing us for making errors. Though the difference is subtle, it makes all the difference in the world. Great satirists become famous for changing the way we look at ourselves, while the sarcastic person generally only makes enemies.
SCHOENBERG, Arnold - famous Austrian composer (1874-1951) who "invented" the 12-tone scale. Dedicated to the proposition that all notes are created equal, Arnold created works that were totally inconsiderate of key or time signature. To my mind, it results in in some pretty spastic compositions, my favorite being 6 Cats Romping on My Keyboard (OK, I made that one up, but it might give you an inkling what his music sounds like).
SEGUE - a musical term that implies that one part follows another, different part without the pause that we might expect.
SITAR - a long-necked Indian lute with many strings of two types. Though it resembles a guitar, the frets on a sitar are curved metal bars that elevate the strings above the neck, and allow the melody strings to be bent around the curves, resulting in a wide variety of tones. Underneath are the "sympathetic" harmonic strings that vibrate when related melody strings are struck. The result is a very distinctive high-pitched "twangy" sound. The instrument became very popular with rock bands in the late 60's due to two events: the Beatles went to India to spend time with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and brought the sitar back with them to use on several albums, and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar became a cult figure in America (he could play that thing to death!) causing people to buy his recordings and spread the idea. (Watch TV for a replay of his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival).
SLIDE GUITAR - With its' roots in the Blues, the slide guitar is intended to have a more voice-like sound than we usually hear from electric instruments. The player uses a metal or glass tube or bar to slide along the strings, creating a wide variety of subtle tone variations that is impossible with "normal" guitar playing. It owes some of its style and tone to the flat top steel guitars favored by Southern bands. Gilmour has a very distinctive style, that is lyrical and melodic, and rings out clearly in a very powerful way. If you are interested in learning more about slide guitars (or the Blues), go to Brian Robertson's fabulous site at Big Road Blues - he even offers lessons!
SONATA - a musical construction with a wide variety of manifestations. Early on, it was generally a piece for instruments, but became specifically a piece with three or four separate movements, each with its own structure and key. It also refers to the first movement of a sonata (often used in Classical compositions), in which, in three parts, two musical ideas are introduced, elaborated upon, then presented again in a slightly altered version of their original form.
SONG - in one part of their definition, Webster's calls it "a poem easily set to music". Certain poems have an innate lyrical quality that causes one to feel a rhythm, tempo, and tone within them. In this website, I usually use the term in a rather negative way, because songs seem too simplistic to me. Great composers create melodies that take one on a musical roller-coaster ride of unexpected twists and turns that eventually seem perfectly logical to us. Only Beethoven could have conceived of incorporating Schiller's Ode to Joy into a symphonic movement (and in German, for crying out loud!), yet his result is so obvious that virtually everyone has sung the melody as a hymn in church. Only Pink Floyd could have conceived of and incorporated the lyrics of DARK SIDE OF THE MOON into a coherent composition, and yet it not only flows perfectly from segment to segment, but it seems impossible that it could have been done any other way.
SOPORIFIC - capable of making one drowsy, like a drug that puts one to sleep.
STASIS - a state of suspended animation, often entered into by choice. (Like if Walt Disney really was frozen somewhere!) Khan was in stasis until Kirk revived him in a Star Trek episode.
THEME - the essential musical idea at the heart of a piece. Often, a composer will introduce the theme early in a work, hide it behind an enhanced harmony, key changes, or variations, bringing it back now and again to remind us of the point he's trying to make. We may also see the theme in the lyrics to a song, as certain words or phrases recur, causing us to think about the concept.
THORGERSON, STORM - friend of the band, and the man usually responsible for their album artwork.
TORRY, CLAIRE - Paid the ridiculously low sum of L15 for the six hours it took her to record the vocals for The Great Gig in the Sky on the DARK SIDE OF THE MOON album, her vocal imagery is one of the highlights of the longest-selling album of all times. Even Wright supposedly got shivers from her performance. Her virtually undirected vocal forays into musical wonderland remain one of the greatest unscripted vocals in the history of modern music.
VIBES - shortened name for Vibraphones, a percussion instrument. Similar to a marimba, vibes are laid out like a piano keyboard, and are metal bars that are struck with a mallet. Below the bars are a set of tubes for the sound to travel through, and each tube has a rotating flap that causes a vibrating pulse in the tone.
VINYL - a pliable plastic substance found to be just about perfect for long-playing records. The original records were made of a much harder plastic, which was very brittle, but could have deep grooves cut into it. Old 78 and 45 RPM records frequently got broken, so the record industry looked for something better. Vinyl LPs were much more flexible, though they scratched more easily, and about 6 songs could be fit on each side, since the grooves could be closer together. LPs played at 33 and 1/3 RPM, and had much clearer sound, but needed their own cardboard jackets with paper liners instead of the old photo-type albums earlier records had used.
VOICEBOX - An electronic, guitar-amplification device in which the sound from the guitar is routed through a plastic tube that the guitarist holds in his mouth. By speaking or making other vocal noises into the tube, the artist can make his guitar "talk" in a very peculiar way. Probably the most famous use of this technique is by Peter Frampton on his songs "Show Me The Way" and "Do You Feel Like We Do".
WATERS, ROGER - Architecture major from Cambridge, Roger transformed from bass player to chief lyricist to guiding creative force to solo artist. His intense interest in making the lyrics the primary emphasis of the musical performance, led to his eventual separation from the group. In many ways, the odyssey of the Floyd parallels the transformation of Roger's mind from that of simplistic band member to a man with strong artistic ideals. Though Roger's stage presence was never sufficient to carry an audience the way a Mick Jagger or Roger Daltrey could, his lyrical sense and ideological construct was superior in many ways.
WRIGHT, RICK - London-born keyboardist who began Architecture school as a guy who mostly just wanted to play Jazz. Along with Gilmour, his love of music put him a leg up on the other members of the band, since some of his conceptual ideas were able to be made reality.
7/4 TIME - All music has a Time Signature, which shows how many beats are in a measure (top number) and what type of note gets a beat (bottom number). Most Rock music uses a straight 4/4 time, where a Quarter note gets one beat, and there are 4 beats in a measure (which is why songs are often begun with the cry "one, two, three, four!") Just as in any other language, there is emphasis on certain "syllables", so in 4/4 time, it is the first and third beats which get the most punch. You have probably heard pieces in 3/4 time as well, like waltzes. The 7/4 time Pink Floyd uses in Money is a very unusual time signature, and catches one's attention, because it is like using two different types of rhythmic patterns. In essence, the song alternates between one bar of 4/4 and one bar of 3/4, giving it a rhythm we are not at all used to hearing.