1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2
3 pyramid song is a stunning piece of
music that has sparked a lot of
discussion amongst radio head fans
mostly about its strange sense of timing
recently I read even more new
explanations for how to think of the
song rhythmically when I stumbled across
this video by Peter white percussion on
Instagram it's humorous it's him trying
to figure at the time signature of
pyramid song while he notates it and uh
wow
just I can understand all of these
except maybe this one maybe it's best
that we just share how we interpret it
and be amazed at how many different ways
you can interpret this one song I just
want to say there's nothing wrong with
feeling completely lost when you listen
to the song I think that's actually
quite apropo I'm also going to delve
into the harmony of the song because
it's so haunting in and very unusual
there's that one really painful chord
you know the one I'm talking about so
stick around if that interests you but
for now we're going to delve into the
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timing I've gone through three phases in
my understanding of Pyramid Song
rhythmically the first phase was I'm
learning how to play it I'm coming from
a very emotional place and I just kind
of learned it by ear and by feel and I
guessed there were three different
sections in the song and one of them I
didn't have to guess as hard when I
played it and another section I just was
like this is even like this just evens
out this is no longer weird and I'm
talking about the outro I really wanted
to feel like I could feel it
consistently so years later I decided
why don't I just count this out why
don't I just find out for sure and my
Approach was to count the groupings uh
that I heard in the Beats there are
emphasis patterns
um and here's how I heard it 1 2 3 1 2 1
2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 so 3 2 3 3 2 3 and
that's well and good and you can see
that some other people have different uh
emphasis patterns that they've
discovered I think this is a really
great way of going about determining the
timing of a song because it's not the
same thing as figuring out a time
signature time signatures are usually
more about
visually representing the music versus
how it's actually felt anyway so the
next phase of my understanding of
Pyramid Song started when very recently
I say the last two years I cut wind of
this theory that Pyramid Song is just in
44 I was like no way you know just
because it mathematically can fit into a
44 time signature doesn't mean it's in
44 doesn't feel like four or4 it doesn't
present itself as four or4 so why would
you do that how would that help a
musician play play it um so I kind of
brushed that notion aside well last year
I was practicing Pyramid Song and I was
just playing the chords and I was just
trying to kind of get through it so that
I could you know just get the fingerings
and kind of remember like oh yeah yeah
it's like this it's like this it's like
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this suddenly I was like 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 four and now I see the
light or maybe I've gone to the dark
side I'm not sure but this is now how I
feel pyramid song I Feel pyramid song as
a very slow clav pattern variation
suddenly I didn't have to guess I didn't
have to count I could just feel it and
confidently Tom's vocal melodies all
made sense all those syncopations
the sorry that was really Out Of Tune
and the violence I was like oh now there
is nothing to fear and nothing to doubt
when I play a pyramid song sorry I had
to do that the rhythm of these chords
doesn't change at all the figure is du
du du du du that's it and it just
repeats du du du du du du du du du du if
you speed it up it starts to sound like
a CLA sort of D D D D D D
D if you've never played a clave pattern
then this may not help you but if you
have it's probably already internalized
and you can just feel it you can count
the this like with a slow four or a
faster four and I'll show you both 1 2 3
4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3
4 1 2 3 4 1 2 slow 1 2 3 4 1 and 2 and 3
and 4
so let's talk about these oo at the
beginning and later on the strings join
in octaves higher than Tom um they
always sounded very very listless to me
and when I would try to sing along or
sing it as I played it I'm like
I don't know when to do this and oh God
one two 3 4 1 2 and three and four and
one 1 2 3 and 4 and 1 2 3
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4 it's so nice to know what I am doing
all my my lovers were there with
me nice all my past and
fut so Futures is on the Beats oh we all
went to heaven in a little rope
booat there was nothing a fear nothing a
doubt so yeah it is very syncopated but
radio head is syncopated Phil has said
in an interview that it's just in four
that was his quote whether or not he
actually counts it that way or feels it
that way I don't know we would have to
ask them but it seems likely important
to note the song swings the swing in
Pyramid Song is most heavily felt in the
drums what swing it's like a it's a
feeling where the eighth notes are no
longer equal in duration usually it's
the first one is longer and second one
is shorter so for example 1 and two and
three and four and 1 and two and three
and four it's like long short long short
long short long you can notate that in
sheet music very explicitly or you can
just simply put a note that says
swinging eighths or swing and then the
musician knows ah all my eighth notes
are going to have the swing feeling so
because of this swing someone might as
well just notate a pyramid song in 128
and then it would be a shuffle uh other
examples of Shuffle Rosanna by Toto uh
Everybody Wants to Rule the World by
Tears for Fears capital G by 9in nails
and uh the way you make me feel by
Michael Jackson now at first the drum
sounded really weird in terms of like
okay how how do the drums fit into a
kind of a 44 feeling to me and I was
like well they don't really they're sort
of just playing with the accent pattern
that I used to count as the two three 3
two can't remember now um so long ago
how I'm just going to scat it because I
really can't explain
it and just like the uh piano it's just
the same figure repeated twice which is
gut gut but this leads me to the next
section of this video is why is this so
rhythmically confusing why are there so
many interpretations here are my
theories number one it's really slow I
think the slower some a song is the more
the cohesion of the Rhythm starts to
break down and especially at the
beginning which is reason number two
there are no drums and drums typically
do help us kind of get our bearings in
terms of the timing like where is the
downbeat beat one that is what grounds
us where are the offbeats that give us
kind of that interplay that help Orient
us there are none and so with the piano
being so syncopated and Tom's Melody
also being pretty
syncopated there's not a whole lot to go
on and number three yeah the drum
pattern is essentially accentuating that
clave pattern and less
accentuating um how you might count in
for
this the uh snares are very
syncopated number four I would say is
that there's just kind of a lack of
Dynamics in the piano part to sort of
help Orient us every chord is played I
would say with the same uh emphasis uh
the same volume the same articulation
you know nothing there's no like
staccato and then long that leads us
into number five which is that there's a
little confusion created by the fact
that sometimes the chord progression
starts and ends with the same chord so
there's sort of like this lack of a seam
between the individual progressions and
so it starts to bleed over into each
other when the oo are happening and also
at the very
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end starting
over the last reason is that the
harmonic rhythm is quite
misleading 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3
4 so what I did there is I just waited
until the next down be of the second
measure to hit the the chord that has a
lot more uh harmonic weight and by
weight I just mean it feels like you
kind of get to a place where things
sound a bit
resolved um this chord is the most
resolved sounding chord in the whole
thing because it is our tonic chord it's
our home
base okay this is the three chord flat
three and it also kind of feels like a
place of arrival like if we are on a
train this would be where we um board
the train you know the train station and
then we are going and we're seeing
things and it's beautiful but we're not
there yet and then we get to a another
station some people get off some people
continue on and then
we and so when you play it you have to
just get used to the fact that it's 1 2
3 4 1 2 3 four it's not as confusing uh
with the other parts um
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uh they all move when you expect
especially at the end when it Loops it
goes 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 again 1 2 3 4 1 2 3
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radio head is usually very creative with
their Harmony one of my favorite things
about them this song is no exception
just a second I have to correct myself I
got the voicing for the piano chords a
little bit wrong um when I first learned
the song I was playing it really fleshed
out like
this
which sounds really bright and really
strong when I listened harder to the
song I could have sworn that I wasn't
hearing some of these doubled notes and
that it was
this but if you look at the sheet
music I'm wrong so uh this doesn't
affect my harmonic analysis
significantly I can't re reccord it at
this point point but I did just want to
point that out so if you do want to
learn the song and you want to learn it
as written I think I just accidentally
did like a hand fart I'm leaving this in
the video it's too late um then uh just
know there's going to be more notes that
you're playing than what I'm playing but
I'm still playing the same chords I'm
just not doubling the root and the fifth
all right let's keep
going starts out with this very sparse
spread voicing of an F major
chord
then it goes to a also sparse and spread
voicing of a G major 7th
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chord and we top it off with an a major
six
chord the top note is is kept static and
all the chords are moving up and
encroaching upon it which is very
similar to how it works well it's
exactly the way it works in everything
in it's right place there's this pedal
point this consistent note that's sort
of creating resolution and tension with
each chord as it kind of moves up and
moves back away from
it but
then we get this kind of resolution sort
of there's a little bit of tension in
this major 7th chord it gets temporarily
relieved by removing the seventh which
is a dissonant
interval there's this bright moment but
then there's the
pain this I had to look up what this was
yes F
SHP uh flat nine I'll I'll go I'll go
over what that means in a second it's
not that it's not that weird but it
sounds very
tense which is so it hurts you know they
hold on to the G and you feel that
tension
it's beautiful but what makes it even
more beautiful is where it
goes
tension resolution oo you go through so
much just between
this God you could just do
that
does I feel like you're rocking oops
back and
forth the reason it's so tense is the
relationship between the root I think
the root and this
note you could call this a a minor
second very clashy very very clashy or
if it's spread out like this it's a
minor 9th which is a little bit easier
for our ears typically to make sense of
and then it resolves fully back to the F
major chord
and what's cool is that this resolution
doesn't happen until after the phrase
starts over so there's like this
overhang of the pain into the next
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part all these chords are major if I
play them in uh root position
it sounds a little different to our
Western ears doesn't it major chords
sound very bright and confident to me
but when they're related in this way
where there's like a bunch of them all
lined up and this one is half step away
ooh um it starts to sound more twisty
and dramatic and this indicates that
we're probably in some kind of strange
mode or maybe we're mixing mode this
sound is most closely related to frian
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dominant has that kind of exotic sound
to us um but the song doesn't neatly fit
into that scale so it's going to change
and now things are going to sound darker
I think they sound a a little bit more
vulnerable a little bit it it it hurts
in a different way this chord goes
minor so here's the third of
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it and this is my favorite part I mean
uh well I don't know that flat nine
chord is really good too but I just
always feel a lot of emotions when this
chord
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hits and what a gorgeous voicing of this
chord so this is called an ad nine chord
it might as well just be called
Magic so gorgeous so it's
so it's
like really tender to
me I it's surrounded by that
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Darkness man yeah it just kills
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me now let's look at the Ooze I love
Tom's fetto he holds out this long
beautiful note and his heart of sharp so
it's the one note that everything has in
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common
I always felt like there was something
like different about this melody like it
had an open Sound to it the other parts
didn't like this sounds
very kind of like I said Clos in and
kind of twisty but
this I don't know makes me want to open
my eyes up wide and it's because of one
note so if he were to sing this in the
scale that these chords are kind of sort
of implying it would
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go that flat two that flat nine Sound
but he
goes and so he chose this note that
really hasn't been
played G
sharp he sings it multiple
times goes down oh I just love that so
much um those are the kinds of things
that like if you studied music you would
learn like never to do that like sort of
create like a conflict between like a
note in your scale and a note that's
like just above it like no but if you
grew up listening to blues or Jazz then
you know you're free and I love the oo
it's almost like this it gets like a
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quickening and then
um is super pretty because it mixes sort
of a more open sound with a darker
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sound if this flat six it's just sitting
right above your
fifth and you get that half step
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ooh that's so
pretty
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ooh G Major seven sharp
11 I also forgot to say that
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Tom's G sharp actually avoids the G
natural really nicely so I don't know if
that influenced the timing but
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um
like right when he does he just let go
of
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this and
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then no conflict
there but then then he goes down to that
note and we get the G so they just miss
each other this beautiful descending
Melody comes back in on the
last part this song doesn't really have
a verse or chorus does it it's sort of
there's a Melody the lyrics There's a
little interlude and then it repeats
with more production and some vocal
harmonies um so it has that sort of
hypnotic sound um and that also I think
is part of why it feels sort of like
you're not moving forward very much and
it's more of a swaying feeling kind of
like I don't know it creates this weird
sense of space I think you don't feel
like you're just moving from beginning
to end almost like it's cyclical the
violins in a
very romantic kind of cinematic way come
in on the last chorus um in octaves I
believe or maybe it's two octaves there
a really high high note and um there's
a and that happens in a new spot in the
song
basically so Tom's vocal Melody with
with the lyrics
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um so he's got these two
notes
one of my favorite things that happens
in music is when you have a like a A
melodic figure and it kind of repeats
over different chords and you get to
hear the different um emotional or feel
different emotional responses as the
melody interacts differently with the
new chords just really beautiful so he
is um jump in the
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river
then he dips down and sings the minor
third of this chord black eyed it's the
it's the perfect moment for things to go
Dark blackeyed Angels and I wouldn't say
this is like a negative thing the
blackeyed angel it's just it's
complex Black
Angels
resolution slotting into the chord then
my favorite
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part this is really really nice
um it's
so I think what makes this feel so
strange and kind of
Otherworldly is the chord
G major
7th and he
goes it introduces this incredible
dissonance it almost feels like a
conflict
like would be more in line
but
but it perfectly matches up with the F
major chord which is the first first
one so almost feels like he's straddling
Two Worlds he sings um a variation of I
jumped into the river which I really
love instead of I jumped in the river
what did I
see we
have jumped into the
river actually let me double check the
time on when he actually says
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ver I love the way the strings are so
whiny there's a lot of sliding I think
going on but I don't know for sure what
they're
doing
jum the
riv okay it's a little later than I
thought I think jumped into the
river so he holds on to RI he doesn't
say what did I see we know what he saw
so you know it's just this like
elongation and an emphasis of jumping
into the river it feels a lot more
final and he sings this with a lot more
um
Power
angel
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you got a
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face
Ang it's a little hard to hear but I
believe he sings in unison with himself
black eyed Angels one of them goes swim
the other one goes swim and you get this
two-part Harmony in thirds I think
it's Angel SW with
me on this emphasizes the sound of the
next chord which is the e at n
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chord
Mo I love
that
[Applause]
and then we get
a so beautiful all the f I used to
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sing almost sounds like there's a really
low Harmony oh my live with me it's
really
subtle
past
fure you'll also notice that the strings
are very organically like slowly
creeping up on the song you know um
you're starting to hear the strings
playing the chords of the piano d
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d
there fear and there's a bit of a a a
gentle climax to this point um right
before he sings there was nothing to
fear nothing to doubt you feel like
you're you know something's growing and
then the energy just drops it's not
sudden but it's
noticeable
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um
there was nothing a feel nothing to
doubt I mainly just hear piano bass
drums and
Tom you get this
repetition this is so nice I love this
uh line again there was nothing fear
nothing and then returning it's feels
like finally you know like finally
you're not just leaving me
here this resolution there was nothing
fear this part always makes me cry and
then you think maybe things are on their
way out you know maybe you're being
carried out in the sea and then
everything comes
back there was
nothing nothing
vocal
Harmony
strings the howling starts to come in I
love the
howling
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four
times I'm not going to do it four times
but you finally
get you get your like final resolution
on that FP and it's I don't know it's
almost like a little triumphant or
something also you notice in the intro
that there's uh these sort of shimmering
strings kind of sounds like those two
not there's other ones too
though and then you get
the and I'm not sure what it is but it
sounds like something going up and down
the the string um it's got that kind of
metallic sound it's very very creative
it must have been so fun to record these
the instrumentation and the production
is for certain a a big part of what
makes it so powerful thank you thank you
so much for watching and thank you for
not arguing with your fellow music
lovers in the comments but feel free to
share uh how you hear the song and maybe
some of your favorite parts and thank
you so much to my patrons for making
these videos possible special thanks to
chriswood Daniel Banks fiar Jonathan
Hill Peter ven power tools Robert granis
vesuvian Yan DOA jol too Brian hook
David N John kirkis Kieran honor and
Anonymous for being top supporters I
hope that you have a beautiful rest of
your day and I will see you next
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time