Tips on counting and playing odd time signatures?

Question

I'm pretty interested in learning, composing and playing along to songs using odd time signatures (3/4, 5/4, 7/8, ...) and I'd like some advice on how to wrap my head around all this stuff. For example, counting along to 7/8 is specially hard. I understand I can see this as 4/4 with an eight missing and stomp my foot 7 times at double tempo, but this tends to make me rush the song I'm playing. If I try to stomp 3 times plus a shorter one, oh boy, do I get lost. Another annoying problem is that I tend to fallback to the more commonplace time signatures without realizing, even more if I have no metronome. I'd like to be able to just pick an instrument and play these songs, preferably counting only in my head. I know there are some questions touching this matter but I wanted some tips and exercises to help me *implement* this successfully.

Answer 1

One technique to approach counting and feeling odd rhythmic time signatures is to break down the component groupings of 2 and 3 beats. Consider these Claves (keys) as fundamental rhythms in the lexicon of playing in odd time signatures. If we consider 7 as a combination of 2 and 3 note groupings we have 3 fundamental patterns: A: 2-2-3 B: 3-2-2 and C: 2-3-2. (Count 1-2-1-2-1-2-3 or 1-2-3-1-2-1-2- or 1-2-1-2-3-1-2). Learning to hear and feel these groupings and their relation to a larger pulse (7) will dramatically help improve your abilities with odd time-signatures. As always, start slow, count out loud, practice A LOT and with patience and persistence you will begin to feel as comfortable with these time-signatures as you do with the ones you've played a lot of music in.

Answer 2

So, when you count 7 beats per measure, think about counting straight eighth notes1 2 3 4 5 6 7, where the first eighth always get the strong beat, and where either the fourth or fifth eighth gets the strong beat. There is no other way to get around the odd time signature.