when and why did Prince go from counting off 1 2 3 at the beginning of a song to 1 2 3 4 . . .? all of his earlier stuff, he never said 4. but as of late, i've heard him say it - or yell it in Loose, "1234!!!! 1234!!!!!"

He's just learnt what came next that's all. He'll be able to count up to 10 by the end of next year.

Sometimes either a drummer, bass, or guitar has a 'pick-up'. So they sart playing on the 'down of 4' Then the rest of the band follows on the '1' (first downbeat).

An example of this is 'Cool as The other side of the pillow' on the ONA Live Tour album. He counts off, and Prince (guitar) plays on 4...

Have listen...

Blue

bryanpage said:

cute

TheBluePrince said:

thanks for that intelligent answer to a rather silly question. (sorry)

silly to some, maybe, yes - but the intelligent answer of which you speak wasn't an answer to my "silly to you" question. i wasn't asking WHY people count off . . . jeeze!!!

silly question, yes.

the intelligent answer did answer your silly question.

sometimes the four is implied. you only need to count three times to set the tempo of the song. knowing that the song is in 4/4 time, one just can imply where that four is going to fall. prince did not consciously make a decision to bring back the four, he just feels it i'm sure. sometimes he goes one two three come on.
or one two three aowah!! or five six seven eight (only when he is teaching his dance moves to his proteges). i cannot believe i am answering this question.

well thanks, but i don't think it did and you didn't either . . . so whatever . . . it may have been a silly question but i was just innocently curious . . . it was not meant to be a life altering question. it just seemed like a conscious desicion on his part . . . fagetaboutit . . . ugh

On the live Romance 1600 video, it's, "A ... B ... A, B, C, D!"

Lenae said:

i didn't mean to get you upset.

but the answer that does answer your question, i was surprised how well it was explained.

Back in the day, I used to say that it would've been fun to watch Prince in grammar school learning to count....

"One, Two, three.....UNNNHH!"



And I don't think it's always cuz there's a "pickup". He often just grunts instead of the 4..... It's just cool.

And re: A, B, ABCD.... at Family Jamm, I noticed that Sheila used "A, B C" to refer to specific chords in the intro..... She called out A, B, A, A, .... C and each letter had a different chord. It was really cool.

dawntreader said:

Thanks DawnTreader