Sometimes if you want to improve on your creativity you have to push yourself and challenge yourself to do new things.
One way to make your music more creative-sounding is to stray away from common time signatures. (Click HERE for an explanation of time signatures) In most forms of modern American music, 4/4 time is the standard, with 3/4 being a somewhat common alternative.
Because most modern songs are written in these time signatures, the beats feel very easy for those of us who have heard them our whole lives to keep track of. They feel very natural.
For example… turn on the radio to your favorite station. The song that’s playing is most likely in 4/4 time, meaning you can naturally count to it like this… 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4…
Since most of the music we hear these days are written in 1 or 2 different time signatures, one easy way of writing some “outside the box” music is by changing the time signature.
Today we’re going to look at 5/4 time.
If 4/4 time is counting “1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4″, then 5/4 time is obviously counting “1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5″. A lot of things in life are based on units of 5 or 10, but when it comes to music, counting in fives can feel a little unnatural at first. The cool thing is, when you get it down, your song will have that kind of beat that “almost” feels normal to people, but they’ll notice something a little different about it.
Here are a couple video examples of songs in 5/4 time.
First is a song from Cream called White Room. Most of you have heard this song, even if you don’t realize that you’ve had. Most of the song is in 4/4 time, but the intro is in 5/4.
Second is a song called “When Your Mind’s Made Up” by one of my favorite songwriting duos, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (sometimes known as The Swell Season). The song is entirely in 5/4 time.
As a final example, I’ll post a song from my songwriting group BHP called Signs Of Life. I’ll warn you that the song is slightly over 9 minutes long, though! 
It was written in 5/4 time, and even though the song changes drastically after the intro, the 5/4 time signature stands through the whole song.
So my challenge to you is to explore some unusual time signatures. Star with 5/4 time and see what you can come up with.
If you do, I’d love to hear what you write!
