The artists who taught Maynard James Keenan how to play complex music
When music is a huge part of your life, you are constantly listening out for bands and artists that surprise you, that can bring something different to the table and present to you sound in a way that you’ve never experienced before. After a while, it becomes harder to find those kinds of bands, but the first time you listen to Tool, you can take solace in the fact that you are going to be experiencing something completely unique.
When we listen to music, it’s not so much the notes that we are listening to, but more those that we are anticipating. Music doesn’t begin until a second note is played. You play a first note, and then you either play a second over that note to create harmony, or something after that note to create rhythm. Throughout our time listening to songs, we develop a natural inkling for rhythm, and as such, it allows us to tap along to songs even before we’ve listened to the whole thing.
That being said, some artists play around with our idea of rhythm. The first way to do this is by using an offbeat, which means that you take the moment when people would expect the beat and delay it or bring it forward. Many hip-hop producers use offbeats to create unexpected rhythm. For instance, J Dilla was renowned for his ability to make great music that remained unexpected.
Artists also use different time signatures to create unexpected music. For example, most songs are written in a 4/4 time signature, meaning there are four beats in the bar, but other bands like to change this to create something more off-kilter and chaotic. One of the bands that best uses time signatures to their advantage is Tool.
Maynard James Keenan is able to write songs in unprecedented rhythms that not only alter popular music but also persistently change throughout the same song. It’s hard for people to keep up with a Tool song, and the band have a reputation for making tracks that are out of time and in time… at the same time.
Keenan previously spoke about his ability to create bizarre time signatures and how he managed to create in a way that seemed unconventional to others. He realised he had an interesting relationship with rhythm when he was younger, as when he would run during PE classes at school, he picked up on how his breathing seemed to alter compared to other people’s.
“I remember running cross country in high school, and everyone has their own breathing rhythms. It’s just supposed to be in out, right?” he said, “But I found myself running when I was in high school, and I had odd rhythms, it wasn’t just in-out-in-out rhythm, I was actually running to the steps. So if you’re going over hill or downhill, in chuckholes or whatever, my breath would follow those rhythms, which is weird.”
As well as picking up on this natural ability, Keenan listened to a number of different artists who played with strange time signatures that helped him better hone in on his talents. “Odd time signature stuff. There’s some Joni Mitchell stuff that has crazy time signatures […] She’s singing on the up, she’s singing on the down, and that was kind of like the running,” he added.
Concluding, “Some of the Pink Floyd stuff, some King Crimson, a lot of those rhythms, I think. So, I think just naturally it’s easier for me to write to things that are outside of 4/4.”
