polyrythym (and poly meter)

well, you say you can only come up with 8th note riffs. stop, step back for a second, and think of a riff that's not straight 8ths, even if it's replacing one with 2 16ths, and play that. once you're comfortable with that, think of one slightly more complicated, rinse and repeat...
or i don't know, listen to a lot of odd time signature music and play along. take 5's a pretty easy way to start, since that riff seems much more natural than the forced-seeming rhythms tool uses.
another thing that works for me is just add or subtract a beat from a riff. another, take something like a 4/4, and divide it 5 beats and 3 beats, instead of 4s, so internally you'll still be in the same rhythmic space, and it's not as jarring. after a while, you'll start hearing 3s and 5s tho, and then you can just play a series of 5s.
as for polyrhythms, try just tapping out triplets with one hand and duplets with the other so they sinc up every measure, then play that. once you get it down, it starts to groove pretty fast. play it on the guitar, mess around with it until it internalizes. then try 3 vs 4. etc
finding a drum circle can also help tremendously with polyrhythms and almost any other rhythm issues you have, although i wouldn't hold your hopes up to high on convincing them to play in 7s unless you bring the groove yourself.

playing and switching between time signatures is one thing ive been good at when it comes to this stuff. in one band i was in we had a riff that went 5/4, 5/4, 6/4, 3/8.. its just playing in rediculous time signatures like 13/8 *tool's song schism, or 20/16 (meshuggah) that i find difficult. i want to be able to write in these time signatures but i just cant seem to break the 8th note pulse. i'll try your idea of modifying existing riffs and see if that clicks for me.

we've got a new band coming together that's a major pool of talent, basically the best couple members from the past few bands ive been in. and we're so much more different than everything else here in ohio. should be a good time to put those odd time signatures to the test. :)

im a bassist by the way. i just thought the information gathered here on this thread may benefit others as it seems this topic isnt very discussed on this forum, and the guitar forum is by far more viewed than the bass forum.

I'll see if I can clear up some of this... but I have to start with clearing up the terms.

Polyrhythm is two (or more) simultaneous, but different, rhythms. If you're playing triplets and another instrument is playing eighths, that's a polyrhythm. In a polyrhythm, the downbeats match - both instruments always reach "one" at the same time... but in between the ones, they're doing different rhythms.

A plays: 1 T L 2 T L 3 T L 4 T L 1....
B plays: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1....


Polymeter is two (or more) simultaneous, but different, meters. In polymeter, the beats match - but the measures don't. If you're playing in 3/4, and another instrument is playing in 4/4, that's a polymeter.

A plays: 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1....
B plays: 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1....


There's a third rhythmic device, the hemiola, that's sort of related. When you have a repeated rhythm with accents that don't match the beat, you create a hemiola. A great example of this is Glen Miller's "In the Mood" - it's straight eighth notes in 4/4 time, but the melody plays three rising eighths, accenting the third; that means you get accents off the beat:

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 &

What you're describing are actually two other things: "odd" meter (complex time signatures) and "mixed" meter (shifting time signatures). Now for my tips on handling them:

Odd meter

All meter breaks down into twos and threes. 5/4 time can be seen as either 2/4 followed by 3/4, or 3/4 followed by 2/4. (There are rare instances where they won't form 2s and 3s, like 4-1/2 over 4, but that's mostly in the realm of avant-garde classical music rather than math rock). So when you're looking at something in 11/16 time, you have a whole bunch of possibilities:

2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 3
2 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 2
2 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 2
2 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 2
3 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2
3 + 3 + 3 + 2
3 + 3 + 2 + 3
3 + 2 + 3 + 3
2 + 3 + 3 + 3

When you're playing odd meter, you need to pay attention to these divisions within the meter - they'll start with secondary accents, and the internal divisions are called "metric units". If you're looking at standard notation music, the beams are your friends: beams never cross a metric unit (provided the editor knows what they're doing). It might take looking at several measures to suss out the pattern of units, but once you do, that's where you put your accents.

If you're trying to create a riff in odd meter, start with the accents. You're essentially assembling smaller phrases into a larger whole... you CAN make an odd meter riff using only eighths and quarters, as Pink Floyd did with "Money" (in 7/4)

Mixed meters

In mixed meter, it's typical to hold the note value the same across changes. If you go from 4/4 to 5/8, the 5/8 slice is essentially two and a half beats. Identify the smallest unit that serves as the beat - in this example, an eighth note - and count those evenly. 4/4 to 5/8 would count like this:

One-and-two-and-three-and-four-and-one-two-three-four-five

Hope that helps a bit.

it appears when i ask for advice i seem to confuse those trying to answer. my bad

what i was saying is i get switching meters, its things like odd meters (5/4, 7/8, 13/8, etc), poly rythyms (triplets over eights, 4's over 5's, etc), poly meter's (3/4 and 4/4 combined) that im having trouble writing in. ive taken theory in school, so i know the concepts on paper, but when i try to compose with them they just dont seem to gel like i want them too. i end up following old habits like in odd meters (playing 8th notes) etc.

and we play "in the mood" in jazz band. its a great song :)

well, you're always going to go back to what you're more comfortable doing. you have to actually spend some time playing around in those new meters until they internalize. you're not going to be fluent in them right out of the gate. it's like learning to write in a new language. you have to spend some time actually speaking it and getting comfortable with it before you can say anything original. spend an hour or a day or however long it takes to actually be able to improvise and loosen up in a time signature before even trying to write in it.

There's nothing wrong with playing eighth notes in odd meters - it's just that your accents won't fall in the same places. So first, start doing what you're comfortable with, but focus on the accents.

If it's the sense that eighth notes are boring, then you'll need to divide the beat in other ways. You can do triplets, broken triplets ("swing" eighths), sixteenth note triplets (eighth/three sixteenths to fill the beat, or but the triplet on the first half of the beat with an eighth note following). Try syncopating within the beat, sixteenth-eighth-sixteenth. Subdivide part of a triplet (eighth/eighth/two sixteenths, eighth/two sixteenths/eighth, or two sixteenths/eighth/eighth)

Once you're comfortable with those - and there's a LOT you can do with those 'regular' rhythms - you can try irregular ones, like quintuplets or septuplets, or a triplet subdivision within part of a triplet.