time signatures

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jancivil wrote:well it's the same thing, four beats to a bar, vs five beats to a bar I just wanted to indicate to the audience that upside-downing it has no conventional use, and our language isn't clear, accordingly, we don't even disagree. in the metrical modulation scenario, they've flipped. if it's to be in this case four of the 'beats'.

IE: if you call those pentuplets a 'quarter note', and indicate nothing else to your player or your sequencer, you're in 4/5 if a bar is to contain 4/5ths (or 5/4ths cf. the original pulse).
without wanting to get into the whole 'swing' debacle from a while back, these make appear the same (20 'notes' in a bar), but the feel of 5 sixteenths, and 4 lots of pentuplets 'feels' totally different. In an unaccented step sequencer, arguably it can come across the same - but you need to consider the context of the music.

As far as the plug is concerned, it should only interest itself in the 'bar' value, as that will be what vsttimeinfo will be reporting.

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duncanparsons wrote:
jancivil wrote:there is a piece in this month's contest here by one rachmiel which subverts the convention of 156bpm by adding 1+2+3 etc to get 156 notes in a minute that's much worse, if you don't dig that sort of thing

I love 7: an implied pulse of 8, but it is wearing if you're not used to it, when that 8 is explicit.
Glass is pointing to India with this thing, but is culturally not really hip to the groove of it at all.
Do remember that tims sig is distinct from tempo. there's allsorts of stuff you can do whilst maintaining a rigid tempo. I teach drums, and was trying to get across to a pupil on monday evening that one can swap back and forth between simple and half time, throw in triplets and pentuplets (yes, I can and do play them) but keep the tempo rock solid, tho there will be apparent time shifts all pver the place.
One can play in 7/8 at 120 bpm, then play a couple of bars in 5/4 all at the same tempo, but each will have very different feel and the changeover can be used for particular effect. Listen to Quark Lepton, that demonstrates precisely that (tho' I can't recall the exact tempo at the mo - but it is totally constant even tho the feel completely changes).

It may be that we agree to differ. (but I'm still right!!)

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it appears that it's only a difference in terms.(except for saying that the denominator divides anything, that's incorrect) Talk of beats vs bars is meaningless, and I failed to come up with a good way to put it.

in the rachmiel thing, i was digressing anyways. it doesn't apply to this discussion, only to your mention of 7 in the time of 8, he had that going on at I donno how many levels.

the tempo is quarter note = 100 bpm. let's say.
if it's a 'fifth note', 100bpm is gone, kaput, according to quarter note values;
it's the same as quarter. = 125 bpm

that's actually very simple, third grade arithmetic, isn't it???
Last edited by jancivil on Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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ah, but third grade arithmetic doesn't apply.

if it's a 'fifth' note, 100bpm still stands, but that division is played faster, since you need to fit 25% extra rhythm into the same space. Time sig is still 4/4. You end up with a polyrhythm.

lower number still equates to a power of two, what one does with those values in each bar is up for grabs.

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duncanparsons wrote:ah, but third grade arithmetic doesn't apply.

if it's a 'fifth' note, 100bpm still stands, but that division is played faster, since you need to fit 25% extra rhythm into the same space. Time sig is still 4/4. You end up with a polyrhythm.

lower number still equates to a power of two, what one does with those values in each bar is up for grabs.

DSP
yes, you are correct, there is NO way to indicate the new pulse coherently, I caught my error immediately, jumping the gun. this is stimulating to the point of headache isn't it?

it's quarter note with a 5 over it = quarter note, or the imaginary '4/5' in terms of the same 100 bpm.

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even if there's five sixteenths for each 5:4, we still call 'em sixteenths etc.

I had a guy once tell me that you can't do anything but double or triple values though and he HAD to be right.
(I had done what you did in the chart, with every integer up to thirty, compared as many other integers against whole notes in a chart, and he said I was making shit up, that could never happen. ok.... )

in sum for our lovely studio audience: the new value whether one calls it a pentuplet or '4/5 time' the new pulse is 125:100 accordingly. but you have illustrated why 4/5 time is not used (almost never, you'd be surprised)

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My Introduction to Time-Signatures may be of some use (scrolling may be required).
Unfamiliar words can be looked up in my Glossary of musical terms.
Also check out my Introduction to Music Theory.

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jancivil wrote:even if there's five sixteenths for each 5:4, we still call 'em sixteenths etc.
..nope... we call them 8th note pentuplets ;)

@JJF - nice clear intro :) For clarity, there are times when x/8 time sigs are interpreted literally, rather than as compound - I have oft played 6/8 and 9/8 straight, since that is the way the harmony and accents make sense, and the 6/4 and 9/4 equivalents are just heavy handed and suggest something slightly different to the player. There's also the case that 7/8 would lead to a third of a triplet! But that's a really minor technical point on a very good bit of text :D

ATB

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for clarity:

rule of thumb: if it's a smaller duration than the value it replaces, but less than twice as fast, [IE: eight *32nds* in the time of a quarter (aka: four sixteenths, two eighths)], usually they are called by the value it replaces.

EG., five in the time of one quarter; in terms of 16ths, 5:4. *pentuplet 16ths*
six in the time of one quarter; in terms of 16ths, 6:4. *sextuplet 16ths*
seven in the time of one quarter; in terms of 16ths, 7:4. *septtuplet 16ths*

now, sometimes there are differences in what we'd call 9 in that time {9:4 in terms of the sixteenth division}.

I call them nonetuplet sixteenths, some would call these 32nds, of course there's more than the normal amt of 32nds.

if it's tantamount to triplets nested inside triplets eighths, nonetuplet sixteenths is the more correct usage.

if these nine are accented more like 5 + 4, arguably 32nds is the denomination.

the example you chose to 'correct' me on would sum to 25 in the time of a nominative whole note, and they're DEFINITELY not eighths in any coherent sense.

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