RUCHENITSA

If you want to become familiar with odd-time, get into bulgarian/macedonian/albanian music. Balkan is _the_ motherland and fatherland of odd time, which is otherwise called aksak - term by Bela Bartok, derived from a turkish word which means "limping".

The aksak idea of rhythm is very different from african rhythm. African rhythm is about _dividing_ a constant period of time into an "easy" (2,3,4) number of beats, then subdividing them into sub-beats etc. Aksak rhythm is about _grouping_ beats into groups of small number of beats (2,3,4), and assembling complex rhythms from such groups, so that each rhythm has a constant sequence of groups. The total of beats in the whole sequence may be very odd: 25/16 is not a rare phenomenon!

For example: ruchenitsa - the most popular dance in Bulgaria - is assembled from three groups. First two are 2-s and the remaining is 3. So, ruchenitsa counts 2+2+3, which produces 7, and this is what you're looking for.

There are three basic families of rhythms in 7 on the Balkan.

Ruchenitsa:

7/16, counted 2+2+3, or just 4+3

Try this djembeized ruchenitsa beat: