Radiohead · 2001 · 4/4
The 4/4 syncopation in Pyramid Song by Radiohead
Press play to count the meter or try the original drum exercise. Slow the pulse down or speed it up to feel how the pattern works.
Original practice groove. Two four-beat bars give you sixteen eighth-note slots. The kick explores a 3 + 3 + 4 + 3 + 3 spacing over that cycle, with an original backbeat. This is a straight-grid teaching model, not Phil Selway’s drum part.
● Hit · empty cell = rest. Switch a part off and play it yourself.
Two-bar practice cycle
Count 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & in each bar. Repeat after 16 eighth-note pulses.
Practice tempo: 60 BPM (quarter-note beat)
One click per eighth note. Accented cells sound stronger. 120 eighth-note pulses/min. Choose half speed for easier counting.
Note: This page demonstrates one 4/4 interpretation, not a claim that every listener must hear the song that way. The original drum exercise does not recreate the recording’s swing, sound or drum part.
Tempo: 60 BPM is a practice setting for this interpretation, not a measurement of the recording. The demo uses even eighth notes rather than the recording’s expressive timing.
Simplified educational demo, not a transcription of the recording.
Hear the real thing
Playing the track pauses the demo automatically (and vice versa) so they don't fight each other.
What's happening rhythmically
Pyramid Song is a lesson in rhythmic ambiguity. Nathan Hesselink’s research documents several ways listeners hear its meter, including simple and compound interpretations. This page chooses a two-bar 4/4 model so you can hear an even beat underneath unevenly spaced events.
In this model, a cycle of sixteen eighth-note slots is divided into gaps of three, three, four, three and three. Those gaps add up to two four-beat bars; they do not require the time signature to change at every hit. The exercise assigns the group starts to kick and adds an original hi-hat and snare accompaniment.
What to listen for
- On the record: the opening piano leaving the underlying beat difficult to locate
- The drum entry giving you another reference for the pulse
- In the exercise: uneven kick spacing against an even four-beat count
Practise this rhythm
- Start with Count clicks. Say one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and through both bars.
- Choose Drum exercise and follow the kick’s uneven spacing while keeping the quarter-note beat with your foot.
- Mute Kick and tap its marked hits. Use the hi-hat to stay oriented when a hit falls between beats.
