A question about time signatures

[Germ777]

Consider 4/4: Lean on the '1', it's funk. Lean on the '2', it's rock. Lean on the '3', it's reggae. Lean on the '4', it's ska.

So, it seems that I'm correct. There really isn't just one "approved" way of counting a measure.

Okay, what about this: Couldn't we have two absolutely identical sounding songs, one transcribed in 4/4 and, the other transcribed in 8/8 time? (Let's assume that the tempo is adjusted to make them play at the same actual speed.)

I'm really wanting to understand this better, but it all just seems like so much self-referencing circular logic at the moment.

I feel like a dog chasing its own tail, when trying to teach myself about this.


thanks,
McLilith

And if you want to really get anal about it you could go to a transcriptor and tell him to lay everything you have written using only 4/4 Time Sig.
It can be done and I have seen it in a very short example by my former key player.
No matter what time sig you use and how many changes there are within a piece. It can be written down in 4/4 format.
There are no rules. Only commonly folowed standards

[spectrum]

That poster you refered to in the original thread was simply explaining how to get to the "common beat" of each time signature.

It's like "square one" of the groove pulse for that time signature. You can go anywhere you want to from there, but it really helps to know where the starting points for the accents typically go in each time signature.

Otherwise, you are pretty much lost and it's just like starting over the counts at arbitrary beats.

Explaining the accents is simply a way of expressing the basic rhythm we associate with each meter....from there you can go nuts and there of course are no rules at all.

It's similar to the Latin Clave, Indian Ragga or classic Swing rhythms. Every musician in the ensemble has this pulse in his or her head, but it's often not played literally and the musicians play AROUND the beat...it's just the pulse that guides the players as the center of the rhythm. As was said earlier in the thread, that accented pulse is what gives the ensemble it's "groove" whether that's a Texas shuffle, a Brazilian Batucada, New Orleans Second Line, African Mozambique, or a Mambo.

In fact, these types of pulses are what allows musicians to play really complex time signature changes and polyrhythms. Ask a drummer like Vinnie Caliuta or Alex Acuna about those amazing solos and fills they do and they can show you the pulse which guides them as "home plate".....although they rarely ever play it specifically.

Hope that helps!

spectrum

[Meffy]

Instead of what is commonly referred to as "Music Theory", what about "Guidelines and Traditions of Common Western Music"

In my experience that's exactly how most people who understand music theory construe the term. Good luck trying to change the usage though. It's pretty well ingrained.

[hello1234]

Couldn't 12/16 sound the same as 4/4?

No 12/8 could have a 4/4 sound under some circumstances..........but it should swing or it's just 4/4

You seem to be saying that yes it could, but it would go against common western musical traditions. Does that pretty much sum it up correctly?

I come from a world where Voltage = Current X Resistance

That's not a mere cultural tradition masquerading as a technical theory or law. It's a valid, proven, and demonstrable law of physics. Music theory, on the other hand, well...

...well, let's just say that I think it should be called something other than "theory", because "theory" implies concepts like logic, science, and consistency.

Instead of what is commonly referred to as "Music Theory", what about "Guidelines and Traditions of Common Western Music", or maybe "Applied Acoustic Folklore"?


take care,
McLilith


--
Don't get me wrong, I do have respect for anyone who masters this hodge-podge collection of culural traditions...

You are probably right.......but it does make it easier to think the way I posted.

Now remember.......I said........there are very few "real" rules.........

[spectrum]

Instead of what is commonly referred to as "Music Theory", what about "Guidelines and Traditions of Common Western Music"

In my experience that's exactly how most people who understand music theory construe the term. Good luck trying to change the usage though. It's pretty well ingrained.

Well...it depends on how enlightened and knowledgable your teachers of course!

A strong Classical training is likely to be entirely Western-based...and this is probably more often the case in Europe.

In the US, we have a lot of traditions stemming from non-European sources, so at a Universities like Cal Arts here in California or Berklee in Boston, you'll find a fuller interpretation of Music Theory taught from many world perspectives and traditions. It's not unusual for musicians at these institutions to learn simultaneous music theory from a Western, Asian, Indian and African perspective.

It doesn't have to be an "either/or" situation...if anything, there's more respect in academia now for non-Western systems than there has ever been.

Just depends on how you want to learn...it's all available to you....and it's all good too!

spectrum

[hello1234]

correct again........

seems like the "wrong" answers are usually.......the "right" ones..........

[kaden]

On 'that other thread', Cordelia quite accurately pointed out that 'Music Theory' as we're discussing it is of little interest to bedroom beat producers; where it gains utility is as a means of communication between groups of musicians: it's a language, and as such has developed and accreted an enormous variety of dialects, accents and idioms. These 'regional variations' are just minor speedbumps in the communication process, because ensemble players navigating either composition or improvisation get real-time feedback as to the accuracy of their translation, as it were. As long as you're paying attention, refining that interpretation into a moving, evocative, creative performance just kinda happens.

K

[Meffy]

Well...it depends on how enlightened and knowledgable your teachers of course!

Troo dat. Also when and where you went to school. My theory courses were back in the 1970s, at a politically very liberal but socially and academically somewhat conservative university. And being a "toolie" (enrolled in the Engineering School), I wasn't expected to advance very far in courses given by the School of Arts. =9_9= After all, toolies can't even write complete English sentences, ha ha ha! Mmyeah.

Anyway, I never did get past (IIRC) beginning orchestration or some such. Playing with the computers (all mainframes, natch) was more fun, and there was NO electronic music being taught there at all from what I could tell.

[sangha]

I had always thought that the main difference between 2/4 and 4/4 was that they had a different meter. When someone says it's strong-weak, strong-weak (for 2/4) and strong-weak-medium-weak, they are referring to the meter that time signature is most commonly associated with.

Just another way to say, do what sounds right.

[McLilith]

I had always thought that the main difference between 2/4 and 4/4 was that they had a different meter. When someone says it's strong-weak, strong-weak (for 2/4) and strong-weak-medium-weak, they are referring to the meter that time signature is most commonly associated with.

Just another way to say, do what sounds right.

You say they "have a different meter", but technically the time signatures have no fixed meter, as far as I can tell. There seem to be meters that are commonly used with a particular time signature, but the meter doesn't seem to be an intrinsic part of the time signature itself. Much the same way as Stetson western hats are common on cowboys (at least in pop culture), but a Stetson is not actually part of the cowboy himself. The meter is not part of the time signature, and as far as I can tell, can be freely altered at will, without "violating" the time signature.

Am I totally wrong here?


take care,
McLilith

[kaden]

Meter = BPM


K

[sangha]

I had always thought that the main difference between 2/4 and 4/4 was that they had a different meter. When someone says it's strong-weak, strong-weak (for 2/4) and strong-weak-medium-weak, they are referring to the meter that time signature is most commonly associated with.

Just another way to say, do what sounds right.

You say they "have a different meter", but technically the time signatures have no fixed meter, as far as I can tell. There seem to be meters that are commonly used with a particular time signature, but the meter doesn't seem to be an intrinsic part of the time signature itself.

Yes, that's a much better way to put it. I shouldn't have said "they have a different meter". It's that they are more commonly associated with different meters.

I think the reason for this is that with 2/4, you can't have strong-weak-medium-weak. You can that write as 2/4, but when it's listened to, the listener will hear a meter that consists of four pulses. And the important thing about theory to remember, that's often overlooked, is that musical theory, like scientific theory, is descriptive, and not prescriptive.

IOW, theory doesn't tell (prescribe) one what must be done. It just describes the whats and whys of what gets heard as a result. It's explains why an augmented 4th is dissonant, but it doesn't prohibit us from using that interval. It merely notes its dissonance and explains why it's so dissonant

[McLilith]

Okay kaden, instead of meter, what about cadence instead?

I think you should like that word, for some reason.


take care,
McLilith

[sangha]

Actually, I think that might be the more proper word for what we're talking about

[kaden]

Rhythm is the placement of accents, notes and rests within a bar of music which has a defined time signature. Cadence is ..er...recurring rhythmic patterns, sorta
.
If you put together 1 bar of 3/4 with a slight shuffle feel and 1 bar of 2/4 with a 2 step feel, you end up with 1 bar of 5/4 with the cadence of Dave Brubeck's 'Take 5'.

This of course has nothing to do with tarnce.

K