Time signatures

I couldn't bother to read the whole thread so Im sorry if someone already worte this but:

Time signatures don't always divide into an equal amount of beats. For instance;

My band has a piece which is partially in 15/8, but But it does not divide symmetrically into 5:5:5, because it has a "polly-rythm" that makes it "divide" into a 6:3:3:3 (beats 1, 7, 10, and 13 are "emphasized")... So to those who said 9/8 always divides into 3:3:3, your utterly wrong!

video vertigo wrote: I'm not 100% sure, but what I remember from high school music, it just made it easier to be in 6/8 with a faster tempo than it would 3/4 but wasn't entirely necessary. Anyone got a good explanation?

6/8 and 3/4 are different. in 6/8 you basically feel the pulse on beats 1 and 4 so you would count with accents:
ONE-two-three-FOUR-five-six.
In 3/4 there is a pulse only on the first beat of the bar each time and on no other beat, so it's genrally faster, but not all the time. All waltzes are in 3/4.

As for tempo in relation to the time signature, I think they are both completely different and are inter changable, except it's easier to change time signature as a band if the beats are the same speed. And it's not very easy to change tempo immediatly as a band you'd have to have some way of counting in, say if you had a brak and got brung back in by the drummer or something. But i'm sure it's possible if you knew the parts well enough and were tight enough as a band.

Also another question: whats the hardest time signature anyones come across or is using in their band?

My band is currently working on a Gentle Giant/Dream Theater style instrumental with some crazy time signatures. The longest time signature we're using at the moment is 31/16 and i found that easy because i just wrote it down on a piece of paper and learnt it. It's hard to do fills with that however but i don't think there is space for them due to the insane guitar riffs which is lucky.


Edited by UnknownFlow - April 25 2006 at 16:21

Very interesting thread! Im learning somethings about music theory

video vertigo wrote: Vompatti wrote: video vertigo wrote: no because in 6/8 the eighth note gets the beat and there are 6 per measure, in 3/4 the quarter note gets the beat and there are 3 per measure.  They sound pretty much identical and may even look the same written out, but different songs require different signatures.  Usually 6/8 is used for faster songs it makes it easier to follow I think. Thanks, I think I got it. But what if there is 1 quarter note and 4 eighth notes, is it 6/8? it could be in 6/8 because an eighth is half of a quarter. 6/8 and 3/4 usually depend more on tempo and what is easier to read with the tempo used.

Can you throw me more light on the relation between tempo and signature?
Is it possbile to slightly variate the tempo of a song without altering the signature? I think bands some times do this when they play live.

video vertigo wrote: no because in 6/8 the eighth note gets the beat and there are 6 per measure, in 3/4 the quarter note gets the beat and there are 3 per measure.  They sound pretty much identical and may even look the same written out, but different songs require different signatures.  Usually 6/8 is used for faster songs it makes it easier to follow I think.

Thanks, I think I got it. But what if there is 1 quarter note and 4 eighth notes, is it 6/8?

no because in 6/8 the eighth note gets the beat and there are 6 per measure, in 3/4 the quarter note gets the beat and there are 3 per measure.  They sound pretty much identical and may even look the same written out, but different songs require different signatures.  Usually 6/8 is used for faster songs it makes it easier to follow I think.

I'm listening to IQ's Dark Matter...it's amazing how they make a "simple" 6/8 sound so weird...
I'm referring to Born Brilliant and the section of Harvest of Souls that starts at 17'49" (the rhythm pattern is identical)
On the other hand, the central section of Genesis' Mad Man Moon is in 7/8, but it goes so natural that you hardly notice it.
Ditto with Living in the Past by Jethro Tull (5/4).

Another outstanding example of weird (and mixed) time signatures is the first section of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (the one whose revisitation on Tubular Bells II has been named Sentinel): it is a combination of 9/8 and 7/8.
And also Goblin's most famous theme (at least in Italy) Profondo Rosso shifts continuously from 7/8 to 8/8.

Sometimes it isn't that simple. You're really talking about two different things- how the music "feels" and how it is notated- and sometimes the two aren't always the same. And often there is more than one way to notate a song which works.

I once wrote a song which "felt" like 4/4 time, but ended up having way too many ties to the next measure to properly notate it in 4/4 so I wrote the arrangement as 12/8 time even though in my mind, it still seemed like a simple 4/4 song.

Interesting comments by all. All I'm going to say is that I honestly don't care what the time signature is; I don't care what key the song is in; and I most certainly don't care how difficult it is for the musician to play; all I care about is how good it sounds and how it affects me, the listener. Nothing else matters.

Now if switching rapidly from 13/8 to 7/4 to 3/8 to 5/4 and playing in the keys of Fsharp7 and Dsharp7 (those are keys, right?) makes the song sound better, than go right ahead. However, I think that too many people here on PA overanalyze the music to find things that really aren't important, because for some reason it's important to them that the musician kill himself playing this song correctly.

BTW, I'm not insulting anyone who responded to this thread; I'm talking about other things that I have seen here on PA.

Scrambled_Eggs wrote: Zoso wrote: Right, it's all about feeling the rhythm. Listen to "Money" by Pink Floyd, a song that's in 7/8. Tap your foot along with the bassline, and you'll see that there are 7 beats for every time through the phrase. It will be obvious once you do it. Actually, I think the time signature for "Money" is in 7/4 not 7/8.  At least that's what I 'ear. Does anyone know for sure?

Read my post:

Moatilliatta wrote: Money has a triplet feel. It is one measure of 12/8 followed by one measure of 9/8, or 21/8. You can tap the triplets between the beats easier than doing 16th notes.

It is more like 7/4 than 7/8 though, because it's basically a 7/4 only with triplets.

Edited by Moatilliatta

Zoso wrote: Right, it's all about feeling the rhythm. Listen to "Money" by Pink Floyd, a song that's in 7/8. Tap your foot along with the bassline, and you'll see that there are 7 beats for every time through the phrase. It will be obvious once you do it.

Actually, I think the time signature for "Money" is in 7/4 not 7/8.  At least that's what I 'ear. Does anyone know for sure?