redefining a time signature using simple maths... Is this possible or ridiculous???

[someone called simon]

I have a little problem with some piano accompaniment sheet music.

My daughter is doing a singing audition, she has sheet music of the song she likes for the pianist.

The problem is there is a limit of 32 bars for the audition, which is often enough for a representative chunk of the song. This song however is 4/4 and slowish, but has a quite fast tempo of 136 indicated, meaning that 32 bars goes by very quickly. She is studying musical theatre and has done these auditions before and usually can get way more of the song in than in this example. I was going to attach a pic of the music but apparently the board quota has been reached.

I don't really read music, but it would seem to me maybe you could 'hack' the music, by taking out every second bar line and call it 4/8 timing... or if I have got that wrong, some other time signature, so that a 32 bar section of the song will last twice as long as it currently does?

Am I insane for suggesting this?

[imrae]

There is some music written without regular barlines but...

Musicians know what a "downbeat" sounds like, whether a barline is drawn in or not. 8/4 sounds different from 4/4. Does the music sound like it's in groups of 2 written bars? If so, maybe it should have been written in 4/2 or 8/4 from the start. Otherwise, you aren't going to fool someone who cares about this rule.

[someone called simon]

It sounds like a slow 4/4 to me, I would count this slow if I was playing it myself I think. but it's notated at twice the tempo, a fast count. So 32 bars is not much of the song...

here's a link to a sheet music sample, and a youtube clip. Thanks for any help, my daughter really wants to do this song. Which is from a musical about Boy George!

https://pasteboard.co/H2fGlKw.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6UY_jm71DA

[BertKoor]

I guess they just want the auditions to take around a minute.
32 bars of 4 beats is 128 beats.
With a slow-ish tempo of 100 bpm that takes 1:17
With a faster tempo of 136 bpm that takes 0:56

it would seem to me maybe you could 'hack' the music, by taking out every second bar line and call it 4/8 timing

No, that's cheating and the committee will notice that straight away.

Maybe she can strip out some uninteresting bars, or just pick a song better suited for this kind of audition.

[Gamma-UT]

I can't see any obvious showstoppers to recasting the piece to a notional slower tempo and bars that are double the length other than it would make the music look unnecessarily busy. If the music was clustered in groups of three bars, it would get somewhat trickier to represent cleanly, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. But you can't simply take out every other bar line, because you wind up with note lengths that are all-wrong – eg two whole notes per bar.

So someone has to rewrite the music with appropriate note values. At that point, you'd probably find that the anticipations across beats become harder to read and the structure of the music is obscured – which is presumably why it's structured this way in the first place.

Or, put another way, you could recast it and a sequencer would play it back correctly but a human player might just roll their eyes.

[someone called simon]

All good points. Thanks.

Many of the auditions she has had have had a time limit of around a couple of minutes, which seems more sensible than a number of bars. 32 bars of many songs would be at least a verse and chorus, this one is only a verse and half a chorus. Oh well, that's show business...

[jancivil]

Musicians know what a "downbeat" sounds like, whether a barline is drawn in or not. 8/4 sounds different from 4/4.

This makes for a true statement only for music that's that simple. And you'd have to indicate what that actually entails by use cases.

I'm confused as to why this question matters for this use case and I'm not sure of the value of my thoughts here (I started to go into it) for the wider consumption of this thread, but I know plenty of music that I could count differently "downbeat" notwithstanding. I will say this: Two of my Satie covers feel like they're in 2/4 for the most part, the music was written in 4/4. And neither perception is confused I don't think.

I don't really read music, but it would seem to me maybe you could 'hack' the music, by taking out every second bar line and call it 4/8 timing...

This is just a matter of how you count it. "It sounds like a slow 4/4 to me,"
then that's what it is, to you.

[jancivil]

Many of the auditions she has had have had a time limit of around a couple of minutes, which seems more sensible than a number of bars. 32 bars of many songs would be at least a verse and chorus, this one is only a verse and half a chorus. Oh well, that's show business...

Here's the thing: 32 bars is "normal" preconception. People tend to want that in this world.

[xabilon]

It sounds like a slow 4/4 at 68 bpm to me too.
Counting at that tempo, you have :

Intro : 4 bars
Verse : 4 bars
Pre-chorus : 4 bars
Chorus : 8 bars
= 20 bars

[JumpingJackFlash]

Mathematically, a fudge might be possible, but music is more than just numbers.

I do find it odd for them to ask for a specific number of bars though. Depending on the tempo, that could go by in a flash or feel like an eternity!

I'd say either do what they ask (and if they complain that it's short, tell them that their rules are stupid), or else come up with another option (it's always good to have a 'Plan B' in any case).

Rather than a mathematic "hack" (which is not likely to be fruitful), it may be possible to do an arrangement hack. For example, cut out unnecessary bits like repeats or a lengthy introduction.

As I'm sure you know, there are of course more important things than length (in bars or seconds). Being intimately familiar and comfortable with the piece, have it sufficiently technically demanding to show off ability, contrasts to show versatility etc. In some cases, things like stage presence, charisma, confidence, and showmanship may also be more important than technical accuracy.

[jancivil]

[someone now has] to rewrite the music with appropriate note values.

what?

I just now clicked on the link to the pic. Ok (removing every other bar line to make the tempo 1/2 of what's shown and), displaying the dotted quarters as dotted eighths works better for me as a reader. So 8ths are now 16ths, now people are "rolling their eyes"?

NB: if you take out every other bar line, and recast the note values at twice what we see for a tempo that is half what was given, this is still 4/4; I don't know where 4/8 came from in the OP.



Yeah, teh DAW is going to take the tempo by whatever the quarter notes are per minute.

[jancivil]

It sounds like a slow 4/4 at 68 bpm to me too.

I'm slightly more inclined to think it's 16ths at the slower tempo myself, but I can go either way with it. I don't think that's too important, again.

[someone called simon]

Ok, thanks for the further replies.

I thought if I doubled the bar lengths I'd have to alter some element of the time signature to compensate, but my understanding of notation is pathetic, and particularly so when it comes to rhythm.

[jancivil]

NB: if you take out every other bar line, and recast the note values at twice what we see for a tempo that is half what was given, this is still 4/4.