Help on understanding time signatures.

[Kriminal]

im working on a remix for a singer/artist at the moment, took me nearly 5 hours to work out that it was 5/4...i was going mad trying to run it at 4/4 and get the tempo right...

[jens]

Bloody hell.. can't we just PLAY in odd meters rather than analyse odd meters!

agreed - I'm doing a lot of very odd stuff and this thread starts to bore the hell out of me...

[jens]

Bloody hell.. can't we just PLAY in odd meters rather than analyse odd meters!

Yip - play away However, when you find yourself not just playing a melody, but having to improvise, or move seamlessly between different meters and feels, it reaaly does help to have some understanding of what is going on - that way you are less likely to get lost

not sure tbh - when I want to work with others on a track of mine which is using odd time-signatures (and I'm always switching back and forth) while they initially don't get it I'm not really trying to explain them what's going on in technical terms - I rather try to explain them how to feel the beat i.e. how to clap it, how to dance to it how to whistle along with it...

[AgonisThorn]

when I want to work with others on a track of mine which is using odd time-signatures (and I'm always switching back and forth) while they initially don't get it I'm not really trying to explain them what's going on in technical terms - I rather try to explain them how to feel the beat i.e. how to clap it, how to dance to it how to whistle along with it...

And that's the best way to do it...but as you can see from this thread, doing that in print is amazingly difficult. That's what...no, more than that, that's ALL the time signature is - a way to convey, by visual shorthand alone, what would best be communicated in a face-to-face "multimedia" presentation. I doubt there've been many musicians who, when experiencing the inspiration of a new composition, immediately began to struggle with "Oh lord, what meter is this in?" As many posters here have said, you simply feel it - the time signature is just for communicating it later.

[herodotus]

In any case, I challenge you to get more specific about this 'distinct difference' between how 5/8 sounds as opposed to 5/4.

I promise you that your sequencer could never tell the difference between the two.

Challenge:

1) enter 5/4 as the time signature into your host. Turn click on. Press play.
2) enter 5/8 as your time signature. Press play. DO NOT CHANGE THE TEMPO.

Your sequencer may not know the difference between 5/8 and 5/4 (then again, almost any fool knows that a sequencer don't know sh1t from shineola *note: I really have no idea what shineola is, either, but apparently Google does ), but you should (if you're going to blather) and they are NOT the same.

Given the same tempo, they are vastly different, albeit with a very simple relativity.

Sigh.

OK.

It's like this.

Some hosts regard the crochet or quarter note as the basis for all their computations. And so any part in an eighth note based time signature is seen by the sequencer as being either twice as fast or twice as slow, depending on its particular quirks. I have noticed Reason plays any Rex file that is in 7/8 or 6/8 twice as fast when auditioning them, while Tracktion will take any midi file with an x/8 time signature and half its tempo upon importing.

But that wasn't my point.

That wasn't my point at all.

My point was that time signatures with the same 'numerator' or metrical value are infinitely fungible.

Habit, or convenience, or any number of factors might make us prefer writing in, say, 7/8 as opposed to 7/4, but there is nothing that can be written in the one that can't just as easily and accurately be written in the other. Thats why we have things like thirty-second notes and sixty-fourth notes.

And it is interesting to note that the 'simple' and 'compound' time dichotomy is probably the last vestige of mensural notation, wherein tertiary meters were of a different prolation than quaternary meters.

[nuffink]

Music educator Carl Orff proposed replacing the lower number of the time signature with the actual note value, as shown at right. This system eliminates the need for compound time signatures (described above), which are confusing to beginners. While this notation has not been adopted by music publishers generally (except in Orff's own compositions), it is used extensively in music education textbooks.

Works for me

[Toxikator]

I doubt there've been many musicians who, when experiencing the inspiration of a new composition, immediately began to struggle with "Oh lord, what meter is this in?" As many posters here have said, you simply feel it - the time signature is just for communicating it later.

I doubt that many of those same musicians kick up a kickass melody and ask "oh Lord, what KEY is this in?", either. Doesn't mean that they shouldn't.

Time signature is JUST as important as key; the melody stands without knowing it, but if you want to add SENSIBLE and good-sounding rhyhtms without playing guess-n-check then you'd better be well-acquainted with the time you've composed it in. And if your brilliant melody is in A minor and you don't know that and you slam on a c-minor chord it's gonna sound comparably bad.

IMO the rule of music is: 'whatever you just did, we have a word for it'. So the sooner you become acquainted with the theory BEHIND your own style (whether you meant to apply it or not) the sooner you can understand a broader application of techniques to augment it.

[duncanparsons]

I doubt there've been many musicians who, when experiencing the inspiration of a new composition, immediately began to struggle with "Oh lord, what meter is this in?" As many posters here have said, you simply feel it - the time signature is just for communicating it later.

I wrote an organ riff about 10years back that took me ages to work out the timing for it, do to various pushes and pulls. I cared very much what it was written in. It turned out to be 2 bars of 11/16 and a bar of 10/16 - a phrase of 32/16 or 8/4. It could be written as 2 bars of 4/4 with peculiar ties, but 8/4 makes more sense when scoring the string part..

There was the case a number of years ago of a conductor who was leading an international orchestra for a performance of 'Rite of Spring', and got into so much difficulty with all the meter changes that me had one of his students write out the entire closing section in a highly syncopated 4/4..

DSP

[herodotus]

Music educator Carl Orff proposed replacing the lower number of the time signature with the actual note value, as shown at right. This system eliminates the need for compound time signatures (described above), which are confusing to beginners. While this notation has not been adopted by music publishers generally (except in Orff's own compositions), it is used extensively in music education textbooks.

Works for me

Oh, quite.

Especially as one could, with double dots, have an infinite variety of time signatures to handle even the quirkiest counting patterns.

And do you ever wonder if the reason so many beginners find so much about musical pedagogy to be confusing is that so much of it is lacking in rigor?

I remember puzzling over transposing instruments like the B flat clarinet for a long time before realizing that there was nothing to get.

[Toxikator]

Yeah... but unfortunately there's too much history. Music is an international language that was developed independantly and then slammed together headfirst as time went by. Trying to reconcile tuning systems, scales, and rules in this day and age with a new language would be more efficient, but also disenfranchise sooooo many musicians...

Case in point: Trombone parts are written in bass clef. Now, disregarding the fact that a good 75% of notes that a trombone can and does sound have to be written with ledger lines, it is POOOOOOR sheet musicking to write trombone in treble clef. Why? because tradition has made it so that trombone is written in bass. Trombone parts are written in bass. Trombone players get good at reading bass parts. And if you write their part in treble clef they will hate you because they're not GOOD at treble clef.

All that aside, someone should just rewrite the book on music. Like come up with a GUT for music and give us all an alternative way of communicating and notating. And not like Schoenberg or Cage did, I mean REALLY.

[nuffink]

And do you ever wonder if the reason so many beginners find so much about musical pedagogy to be confusing is that so much of it is lacking in rigor?

Like all jargon systems it's meant to keep the unitiated out at least as much as providing shorthand for those in the know.
The nomenclature of musical theory needs a complete overhaul. Trouble is, every time somebody comes up with a new system bits of it get adopted and added to the whole tottering edifice.

[rachmiel]

> music professor that we can ask to come and shed some light

i qualify (in terms of diplomas and work experience) and would be happy to give it a try. :-) it's best if you ask specific questions; i'm more of a socratic method guy than a lecturer.

[herodotus]

And do you ever wonder if the reason so many beginners find so much about musical pedagogy to be confusing is that so much of it is lacking in rigor?

Like all jargon systems it's meant to keep the unitiated out at least as much as providing shorthand for those in the know.

True.

The moribund and increasingly obsolete 'classical' music establishment (which comprises a handful of musicologists and music directors, along with their cronies) jealously guards the knowledge that constitutes its last fortress. They no longer have any authority in the public at large (who can make and consume music without so much as knowing who these guardians are), so they must make the most of what they have left.

The nomenclature of musical theory needs a complete overhaul. Trouble is, every time somebody comes up with a new system bits of it get adopted and added to the whole tottering edifice.

Sad but so true.

The real difficulty is the quirky genius of notation itself.

No matter how many times people come up with something more reasonable, for some reason the old system is just easier to use in everday music making.

Perhaps some acts of (figurative) terrorism are in order.

[nuffink]

And do you ever wonder if the reason so many beginners find so much about musical pedagogy to be confusing is that so much of it is lacking in rigor?

Like all jargon systems it's meant to keep the unitiated out at least as much as providing shorthand for those in the know.

True.

The moribund and increasingly obsolete 'classical' music establishment (which comprises a handful of musicologists and music directors, along with their cronies) jealously guards the knowledge that constitutes its last fortress. They no longer have any authority in the public at large (who can make and consume music without so much as knowing who these guardians are), so they must make the most of what they have left.

The nomenclature of musical theory needs a complete overhaul. Trouble is, every time somebody comes up with a new system bits of it get adopted and added to the whole tottering edifice.

Sad but so true.

The real difficulty is the quirky genius of notation itself.

No matter how many times people come up with something more reasonable, for some reason the old system is just easier to use in everday music making.

Perhaps some acts of (figurative) terrorism are in order.

The piano roll can act as much more direct method of musical notation. The pitch and duration of the notes are more accurately represented, as are the accents. The tempo isn't in some subjective, archaic Italian. Most importantly the default position isn't C Major with all else marked as a departure from it.

[Hovmod]

The piano roll can act as much more direct method of musical notation. The pitch and duration of the notes are more accurately represented, as are the accents. The tempo isn't in some subjective, archaic Italian. Most importantly the default position isn't C Major with all else marked as a departure from it.

Velocity curves for dynamics? Little coloured rectangles to represent pitch and duration? It's good for machines. It doesn't matter that the tempi are in "archaic" italian, because you have to come up with other terms which will be less italian but equally subjective. Let's substitute FRANK for RUBATO and tell me how much more accurate it is...