I have been working on this for awhile, wouldn't think it was so hard to come up with a 3/4 time rock song. Well I was sitting here quietly thinking in my head, one two three, one two three, one two three...when this song just popped in.

Back in the day when the Charlie Daniels Band was one of the stalwarts of the Southern Rock scene, they put out an album "Fire On The Mountain" which included an 11 minute plus live version of "No Place Left To Go" that is in 3/4 time.

For those of you that may remember this one but haven't heard it in awhile, or for those who have never heard it, I recommend you give it a listen. I found it on Songza, probably others where you can have a free listen. Great blues based example of that 'South's Gonna Do It' era, from the opening bass line to the twin guitar leads (I know, LPs). Thanks, Mike, for the jarring the old memory banks.

"Ain't it good to be alive and be in Tennessee!" - CD

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“All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.” Louis Armstrong

Hey Fender Junkies....

Isn't "House of the Rising Sun" in 3/4 time?

The Freeze

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There's Always Room For MELLOW !!!!

2000 MIM Stratocaster, Midnight Wine W/Texas Specials
2000 Fender Hot Rod Deluxe
1969 Fender Vibro Champ

Well duh, the Allman Brothers' "Whipping Post" is in 3/4 time.

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“All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.” Louis Armstrong

Hi strato. Not that the Allmans ever wrote out a chart for us to look at, but I think if you did Whipping Post would make more sense in 6/8 - listen to the "feel like I've been tied to a whipping post" section before the intro reprise. (Though you could write it different ways - can't remember what Dave Celentano says about it on the Signature Licks DVD...)

And that's the issue here. Genuine 3/4 numbers are very thin on the ground in the rock genre.

The Allman Brothers' drummers often split bars of 6/8 in half to give a kinda three beat feel. And toggling between a three and six beat feel was something Buddy Rich did in the Big Band area a great deal, often across numbers that would actually have been written in 6/8. (A great number called Group Shot is a good example.)

Long ago when I used to sit on the drummer's stool I wanted to emulate both of the above and give an up-tempo 6/8 blues we did a more 3/4 feel. But the rest of the band didn't like that one little bit. They wanted their backbeat solidly on the fourth of six beats and no messing.

That 3/4 feel, with the backbeat on two and/or three is sadly hard to fit into a rock setting - with a few of the exceptions mentioned on this thread...

Cheers - C

You know, I thought about that after I posted. Thanks for clarifying.

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“All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.” Louis Armstrong

Though I gotta admit, tomorrow I'm going to have a careful listen to Whipping Post and do some counting - just to double check! That intro essentially has 11 beats in it, for instance. But you could write that out different ways. Hmmm.

I think the sections at the end of each verse where the feel gets very much, one-two-three-FOUR-five-six is where it reveals itself in its true colors.

But I'm always wide open to discussion on these kindsa things...!

Cheers - C

I was definitely not listening to it at the time, just trying to run through it in my head. Let us know what you hear.

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“All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.” Louis Armstrong

[Next day] Well, reporting back - cos it interests me, if no-one else... Been listening to Allmans tracks for a few of hours, which has been no hardship!

Most of us probably know Whipping Post best from the live Filmore album. But if you listen to the original studio cut then there is no doubt at all: the song is written in six. Actually I guess you'd probably write it as 6/4 rather than 6/8, but... The intro might confuse the issue, because that is done as groups of three (and two) notes. But you'd simply write that as alternating bars of 6/4 and 5/4. Or three bars of 3/4 and one of 2/4. Or huge bars of 11/4!

I guess a small part of the reason the live track is nicer is that Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny Johanson play it with a much more three beat feel, taking the backbeat off the fourth beat of the measure, which makes the whole number a little more ambiguous and interesting. Sorta thing we love the Allman Brothers Band for, after all! But there's still a pulse at the beginning of each six beat bar. Listen at the end of the verse at 1:07, and you can hear what's really going on...

Now then. Howsabout note selection in Elizabeth Reed?

- C