I chose Radioheads “Paranoid Android” song because it has a interesting and uncornventional approach to time signatures, tempo and rhythmic patterns.
The time signature changes throughout the song. It mostly changes every three to four bars depending on the section (verse, chorus or solo), from 4/4 to 7/8 which is unusual for contemporary rock music. The tempo also changes. The first part of the song is at 84 bpm (beats per minute) and it changes to 63 bpm for the guitar solo, which happens near the middle of the song.
The beginning of the song starts off quite slow, it has a bit of a latin feel and uses a clave instrument which accents the third and fourth beats. The rest of the song is played in a more standard rock beat and the changes from 4/4 to 7/8 which makes it more interesting and draws in the listener who tries to figure out the change.
This song will definitely be influencing the song I will be working on. I think that the most important part is the change in time signatures since it makes the song sound unique and more interesting to listen to, especially if I make one section of the song in 4/4 which is the most common in music nowadays and change it to somethiing more uncommon like 6/4 or 7/8 like Radioheads song. The change in tempo will also be a good thing to work on and i think it will be even better if i change both time signatures and tempo at the same time in a section if the song plus having different drum beats and bass lines with it.
Mariana Bagulho 