Help on understanding time signatures.

[duncanparsons]

why do ppl keep on tha Moonlight sonata is in 3/4 - it's a slow tripleted (not swung) 4/4, always has been... You could arguably call it 3/8 with a very broken melody.

There are some passages in 3/4, but overall it's in a variant of 4

let's see... err here and here... these actually state it as cut time (traditionally 2/4, but works as 2/2 here).

So there we are

DSP

[rachmiel]

>> hey how about dem bills?

> thought dem sabres were the bigger news these days

yes but dem bills has a better ring.

[rachmiel]

in the midst of a discussion like this, i think it's important to harken to the words of noted Norwegian psychoanalyst and musical philosopher Doktor Kristian Engel-Gudbrandsdalen:

"Time is but a grand illusion and the grid but a cultural convention to give composers the illusion of temporal order in a nongridded world of exquisitely dis-ordered ecstato-chaotic rhythmic freedom."

i think that says it all.

[nuffink]

in the midst of a discussion like this, i think it's important to harken to the words of noted Norwegian psychoanalyst and musical philosopher Doktor Kristian Engel-Gudbrandsdalen:

"Time is but a grand illusion and the grid but a cultural convention to give composers the illusion of temporal order in a nongridded world of exquisitely dis-ordered ecstato-chaotic rhythmic freedom."

i think that says it all.

Yeah, but could the motherf**ker swing?

[Deric]

Going slowly here... so if I count the bass drum as four beats per bar (I'm counting it as nuffink suggested as and-one-and-two-and-three-and-four) I hear another drum in between the bass drum beats (snare/tom?) - which is how I came to be counting it as eight previously (see above post).

So now I'm counting it as four. Ignoring the rest of the instrumentation (for now) what is the drummer doing in terms of time sig and rhythm? (ignoring the fills and breaks) The section from 1:56-2:10 is less dense (instrumentation) - can someone please explain what I am hearing?

[Hink]

Swing rhythms are triplets. The fact that swing rhythms are also of loose timing doesn't stop them from being triplets.

that's my point. The discussion came about how triplets and swing weren't at all the same thing, that instead swing involved shifting 8th notes in some way completely different from triplets without the middle note. The timing is flexible, that's the nature of the style, but the rhythm is still built out of triplets. that's all.

I hear what you are saying and it seems to me (and I could be wrong) that possibly that is your interpretation and as was earlier stated an over simplified explanation, not wrong but not exactly correct...you did say they were exactly the same thing...so let me ask you this...do triplets=swing?

[Toxikator]

@duncanparsons: Ah! It seems you are right. I was mistaken; I said 3/4, it would be more accurate to say 6/8 or 12/8 (compound time, not triple time).

FTR notating a piece in simple meter with all triplets is the same as notating it in 12/8, the meter is literally identical. (if you changed the "C" to "12/8" and didn't write threes below the 8th notes you'd have that same piece in 12/8 time)

[Toxikator]

I hear what you are saying and it seems to me (and I could be wrong) that possibly that is your interpretation and as was earlier stated an over simplified explanation, not wrong but not exactly correct...you did say they were exactly the same thing...so let me ask you this...do triplets=swing?

No (not necessarily anyway). So perhaps the = sign was inaccurate...

It's sort of like "All squares are rectangles. Not all rectangles are squares".

Swing rhythm is triplets. It is built on a fundamental triplet structure. There are other things going on as well, most commonly the restraint or fluctuation of tempo (ritardando/tempo rubato, respectively) which give it it's characteristic "feel" but at the fundamental level it is still the division of the pulse into threes and dropping the middle note (though notated as if dividing the pulse in twos)

Not all triplets are swing rhythm; Swing rhythm, most importantly, involves dropping the middle note for most passages (though it can be added in occasionally for rapid movements or fills) and also involves a "loose" interpretation of tempo, wherein the entire band or individual performers exercise a creative control over timing (which is not at all surprising in a genre like jazz which is based so heavily in improvisation).

I confess that early on my statements about swing being identical to triplets in every sense was a gross oversimplification, and I realize my mistake. Be that as it may, it is STILL wholly inaccurate to insist that thinking of swing as "triplets without the middle note" is a way of faking it since swing has nothing to do with triplets (which, to this very page, is still the insistence of some)

[rachmiel]

> could the motherf**ker swing

like a norwegian monkey.

[nuffink]

Going slowly here... so if I count the bass drum as four beats per bar (I'm counting it as nuffink suggested as and-one-and-two-and-three-and-four) I hear another drum in between the bass drum beats (snare/tom?) - which is how I came to be counting it as eight previously (see above post).

So now I'm counting it as four. Ignoring the rest of the instrumentation (for now) what is the drummer doing in terms of time sig and rhythm? (ignoring the fills and breaks) The section from 1:56-2:10 is less dense (instrumentation) - can someone please explain what I am hearing?

Forget the drummer and forget Benny, he's doing what any good jazzer should and playing all over the bar. In that section you mention, listen for the horn section playing quietly in the background, they're changing the chord on the one. From there you'll realise that the drummer's playing 8ths and that they're swung.

[duncanparsons]

I like the way on early rock'n'roll records from the 50's and early 60's that there is often tension created by the drummer playing effectively straight quavers (1/8ths) while the rest of the band play implied triplets and the whole thing is pushing itself so close to the bar lines that it nearly strays into the previous bar. It doesn't swing, but it rocks (maybe it rings or swocks...).

Can't thing of examples of the top of my head, but you know it when you hear it..

DSP

[Sascha Franck]

Swing rhythms are triplets.

You won't stop that utter bullshit, won't you?
Listen to this:
http://home.arcor.de/s.franck/swing/Swing.mp3
You hear 4 x 8 bars.
First 8 bars: A pattern, which has to be described as swing.
Next 8 bars: Same pattern, now there's some triplets added. By a completely NOT suiting synth sound, so you can hear them clearly.
Next 8 bars: Same pattern, now the synth sound is playing the first and last triplets.
Next 8 bars: Same pattern, now the synth sound is playing straight (hard quantized) 8ths.

Now, which of the three "grids" the synth is playing is suiting best? I know, in defense of yourself you will probably be telling me that the first two, tripled-based ones would fit best.
But each and every person with a clue will clearly notice that out of the three versions, while none of them fits properly, the straight 8ths will fit best.
Yet, the pattern clearly *is* swing, and would I have to write a sheet, it'd say "with swing".

In this case, your triplet approach is making even less sense than ever before.
The pattern can't be notated as triplets - but it can very well be notated as 8ths and a "swing" remark.
The pattern can't be played with "full triplet swing" either. In fact, the swing values are around 55 to 58% - which is exactly why even 8ths sound better than triplets, when superimposed. Because the actual 8th note offs fall closer to them.
And finally, when dealing with such a tempo and feel even the (sometimes useful) approach of explaining swung 8ths as the first and last of an 8th triplet group in a teaching/learning situation is making no sense, because there's *nothing* which has got anything to do with triplets.
The only thing existing in this pattern ("TADAAAAA"): Right, SWUNG EIGHTS! There's no f**king triplet anywhere. There's no relation to triplets. Triplets even sound unmusical when superimposed.

Phew, really, some people...

[Sascha Franck]

I like the way on early rock'n'roll records from the 50's and early 60's that there is often tension created by the drummer playing effectively straight quavers (1/8ths) while the rest of the band play implied triplets and the whole thing is pushing itself so close to the bar lines that it nearly strays into the previous bar. It doesn't swing, but it rocks (maybe it rings or swocks...).

Can't thing of examples of the top of my head, but you know it when you hear it..

Same for old funk stuff. Listen to James Brown. There's varied degrees of shuffle in almost anything and very often not even the bass player and drummer are adjusting to the same feel.
Yet, it's as groovy as it could get.

[Hink]

I hear what you are saying and it seems to me (and I could be wrong) that possibly that is your interpretation and as was earlier stated an over simplified explanation, not wrong but not exactly correct...you did say they were exactly the same thing...so let me ask you this...do triplets=swing?

No (not necessarily anyway). So perhaps the = sign was inaccurate...

It's sort of like "All squares are rectangles. Not all rectangles are squares".

Swing rhythm is triplets. It is built on a fundamental triplet structure. There are other things going on as well, most commonly the restraint or fluctuation of tempo (ritardando/tempo rubato, respectively) which give it it's characteristic "feel" but at the fundamental level it is still the division of the pulse into threes and dropping the middle note (though notated as if dividing the pulse in twos)

Not all triplets are swing rhythm; Swing rhythm, most importantly, involves dropping the middle note for most passages (though it can be added in occasionally for rapid movements or fills) and also involves a "loose" interpretation of tempo, wherein the entire band or individual performers exercise a creative control over timing (which is not at all surprising in a genre like jazz which is based so heavily in improvisation).

I confess that early on my statements about swing being identical to triplets in every sense was a gross oversimplification, and I realize my mistake. Be that as it may, it is STILL wholly inaccurate to insist that thinking of swing as "triplets without the middle note" is a way of faking it since swing has nothing to do with triplets (which, to this very page, is still the insistence of some)

so perhaps instead of swing=triplets, it could be said "swing can also be thought of as triplets without the middle note"...which as I see it can be an adaptation or another way of looking at it, but not exactly faking....correct me if I'm wrong though...tbh that definition would bring a little clarification to swing in a physical sense.

[Killvehicle]

Sascha, what do I know, but the second synth section sounded best(most swing) to me.