ayumi's time signatures
 

one more interesting thing to think about! do you guys know if ayu has any songs that are not in common time or 4/4?

im not musically-trained so these are just rough guesses from listening. so far i discovered:

Will
verses in 6/8, rest of the song in 4/4

Jewel
has some sort of polyrhythm, 5/4 and 4/4 playing at the same time, but the 5/4 beat in the background has been synced so that both have the same length per measure

forgiveness
entire song is in 6/8 i believe

can anyone think of others??

Humming 7/4 is in well.. 7/4 time! :laugh I don't know about the rest.. I think Love song is in either 3/4 or 4/4. I may be wrong, though! XDD

are you sure about humming? i listened to it several times and although the guitars sound choppy and odd, they're still 4/4 to me.. in fact i think theres only 1 bar where it was 7/4 but it doesnt sound like it was made that way..

i just checked love song and it's definitely in 4/4

wow..JEWEL?? cooll..im gonna hear it again

Humming 7/4 is in mixed meter. ;) Only a portion of the song is in 7/4. Most of the other parts are in 4/4 (common time).

I never thought about the time signatures of Ayu's songs. (I'm terrible at rhythm :laugh) I'm usually focused on the keys and chord progressions. x) I want to take a listen now! Haha

How will I know it? I'm so poor of it. >.< sorry

interesting... if only we knew the time sigs of every song :D

well we know a lot for the older ones when we would get the sheet music...but not anymore :/

NEVER EVER, RED LINE and marionette are in 6/8 as well
JEWEL: it's purely 4/4
Humming 7/4: it's a mixture of 3/4, 4/4, 7/4 and even 2/4

on the other hand, has anyone done any statistics on key signatures?
interesting examples:

1. tritonal modulations (supposedly a rare thing in pop music):
You were: B major and F minor
Over: Bb minor and E minor
SEASONS: D minor and Ab major
Fly high: A major and Eb major
Boys and Girls: F major and B major

2. Free and Easy has the most key changes
intro: F# minor
1st verse: Eb minor
1st bridge: E minor, F minor
1st chorus: G# minor
transition: F# minor
2nd verse: Eb minor
2nd bridge: E minor, F minor
2nd chorus: G# minor
3rd bridge: E minor, F minor
3rd chorus: G# minor
4th chorus: A minor
ending: E minor

3. least used key signatures
G major: Greatful days, RED LINE
Bb major: untitled ~for her~, AUDIENCE (chorus)


And albums usually follow the basic plan of starting with minor key songs (2/3) and ending with major key songs (the remaining 1/3). Ayu's fundamental concept had always been a progression from darkness to light.

^ great post! i love all this musical analysis, i will have to read up more about tritonal modulations, no clue what it is yet.

yes jewel is in 4/4, but the background stutter effect thing going on is 5/4!

SCAR is in 6/8?

Omg I hear it now! Hahaha that makes soooo much more sense. I always thought these songs sounded very... Well, I don't know what word to use for it. Hehe the modulations did seem odd to my hear, even if I didn't realize it.

Yay for tritones and musical analysis! xD

This is probably the most interesting post I have ever read on AHS. Could you maybe elaborate more? I'm not blessed with good musical hearing unfortunately and can always only guess what's going on note-wise and key-wise in songs, so anything special about Ayumi's compositions you know would be highly appreciated :)

Thanks for the analysis. This is a really interesting post indeed. Does anyone know what key Crossroad is in?

crossroad is in E-flat minor, but the choruses rise to E minor

what is time signature..?

Wow o.o reading these posts is like going back to math class >.<

I always thought that M sounded kind of... funky? :D Idunno... ^^

^ OMG... I'll never understand these kinds of musical thingy... but it's nice to see that ayu sang some "rare things in pop music". :D that's really something... :yes