Take Five if You Must

In my role as music director of our little congregation, I have recommended a few lovely songs for you to listen to while we are isolated and can't sing for each other. 

Then there's hymn 411, "God's Love Made Visible." What were they thinking? Hymn 411 has a 5/4 meter. You just don't do that. 3/4 is for dancing. 4/4 is for marching. 5/4 is for limping. Five beats to the measure is Mission Impossible, whose composer, Lalo Schifrin, joked that it was for people with five legs. Actually Lalo made it possible for the rest of us by grouping the five quarter note beats into four uneven eighth note sets  ♪♪♪  ♪♪♪  ♪♪  ♪♪, long long short short.

I decided to investigate the story behind 411. Clue: it was written by Dave Brubeck, a jazz pianist who made being out of step into a career. It wasn't easy at the beginning even for Dave. His zoology teacher told him he was wasting his time in vet school and advised him to study music. He was nearly expelled from music college because of his inability to sightread. They allowed him to graduate on condition that he never teach piano. Soon after Dave was drafted, he volunteered to play piano at a Red Cross show, and his jazz improv was such a hit that they ordered him to form a band to entertain the troops. Being out of step is not unusual in the army, and they know how to deal with the oddballs. 

During a Eurasian tour with his quartet in 1958, he was exposed to eastern music with alternative meters which he used in some of his most popular work. Out of that epoch of experiment came "Take Five" which was written by Brubeck's friend, Paul Desmond, the saxophonist in Dave's quartet. It became the best-selling jazz single in history. If you give it a listen > here < you will probably find the 5/4 meter delightfully familiar rather than strange. Desmond broke up the five beat measure as  ♪ ♪♪    ♪ ♪♪    ♪♪    ♪♪ , skip-inng  skip-inng hop hop, mission possible for us four-legged beasts. A tricky syncopated beat combined with relentless chording, and a flowing melody makes limping fun. The Brubeck Quartet was intentionally out of step until we all caught on and joined in. 

Now, please listen to the Treble Choir of Houston sing "God's Love Made Visible" proving that a fifth leg is optional.