Ligature Marks - Complete Polymeter Breakdown and Drum Transcription
This week brought to you by the number 37
I’m back!
Do you find yourself wanting to dive into some Meshuggah, but are allergic to double kicks?
Meshuggah have finally written the song for you!
No, not that one..
Yes, Ligature Marks is just the thing for you!
This is a filthily-heavy track that never fails to get me head-banging, but also features an extremely groovy verse to keep us on our toes.
Right, here is the full transcription pdf:
Ligature marks is, of course, all in 4/4 with the snare on the three of almost every bar. Why mess with a good thing.
The intro/chorus kicks off with a phrase 37 8th notes long, which features a three beat long rhythmic motif of an eighth note followed by a quarter note (this comes back a lot in this track so get used to it).
This pattern repeats three times with a remainder of 18 beats to give us an even 16 bar total, with a couple of fills thrown in to keep us on our toes. Repeat all 16 bars with the lead guitar for the chorus and you’re through.
Oh, except for this one extra kick in bar 14 which doesn’t appear in the repeat 16 bars later:
I can’t think of any reason that kick would be there, so I think we have found a mistake in Tomas’ playing. How scandalous. *Edit: Since hitting publish on this, I figured out that this kick drum is part of the guitar solo riff, so I think it's a mix-up between the two parts?*
Fills and extra crashes aside, this section is pretty easy and you will probably be able to sight read it.
As a learning exercise, here it is written out as the polymeter on the feet with the 4/4 snare and crash, without any embellishments:
The next section is a little bit of a step up.
One of the things which increases the difficulty here is that the phrases aren’t a consistent length; we are alternating between a 21 eighth note phrase and a 20 eighth note phrase.
As you might already see, both phrases are very similar, and are really the same 17 note phrase followed by either a dotted quarter note, or a dotted quarter note and an eighth note.
I would recommend playing these two versions of the beat on their own before trying to add the snare to the three of every bar, because I found it a huge pain in the ass to add in..
Especially in bars 3, 8 and 13, where the snare interrupts the dotted eighth note at the end of each phrase, for some reason this really threw me off:
Our 20/21 note phrases are repeated three times, with 5 beats left over at the over to give us our full sixteen, and then we are into the bridge.
The bridge and guitar solo are made up of the same polymeter from the intro/chorus, but with the lone quarter notes accented so they stand out. Here are the two parts compared:
We also have a have a tiny bit of spice added to the pattern here, in the form of two rogue quarter notes right at the start of the section:
These notes don’t mathematically fit into the polyrhythm (though the same quarter notes appear in the riff several times), and mean that the 37-note phrase starts on beat three instead of beat one. Which isn’t a big deal to take into account when playing, but is interesting and caused me a decent amount of confusion when I was working out these polyrhythms initially.
From a structure point of view, its a great way to start the section as it gives us a kind of count-in to the next riff so we are prepared for the change in feel, and gives us a heads-up for the accented quarter note motifs which are spread through the bridge and guitar solo.
After the initial two quarter notes, the phrase repeats six times, with a remaining 30 notes at the end to complete the 16 bars.
The section isn’t too hard, but the quarter notes on the toms did catch me off guard a fair number of times before I got them sorted out, so be on your toes.
The second-to-last section, which I’m calling a breakdown, is yet another 37-eighth-note phrase, which makes this the third section with the same polymeter length in the song.
Here’s each of the 37-eighth-note patterns next to each other for comparison:
While it starts off in a similar way, the breakdown seems to be the odd-one-out, and I can’t really see how it relates to the other two patterns, but jump in the comments if you see the connection!
The way the polymeter repeats with 3 kicks in a row feels a bit weird, but otherwise this section is pretty easy even with the fills.
The outro kicks ass and has a layered build-up between the drums and guitar I just love. Its a good good time.
It features a 22-quarter-note long polymeter, which repeats twice fully, and just misses out a third repeat by needing 20 quarter notes to fit into 16 bars.
The whole thing is repeated three times with some punctuating snares to finish it off.
However, I am extremely suspicious of this entire section due it being very similar in texture to the verse, and I am certain there is some relationship between them that I’m not picking up on..
Here are the two pattern to compare:
Again, call me out in the comments if you have it all figured out!
Thanks for reading :)
Please consider sharing this newsletter with someone who might enjoy it
I’m always looking for bands with interesting approaches to rhythm, if you have any songs that you’d like to see broken down or transcribed, chuck a comment on this post and chances are I will do it!
- AJ