Question about time signatures...

Mike, I think you're talking at cross-purposes a bit there. You've obviously learned in a different, less traditional way to me, and I happen to like the traditions because I see more skill in re-interpreting the old than in the illusion of attempting to create something new.

I was trained in the Italian methods - which, since that country has the greatest musical heritage in terms of the development of music, and was the source of teaching for the great Austrian and German composers, has got to be good for something. Please note, I am not trying to use this as "stripes", just background.

A Semibreve is a whole note when we are considering Common Time (4/4, 2/2, etc). In other circumstances, other notes are whole notes - hence the existence of the Breve, which you could never use in Common Time. It's known in some circles as a Double Note - but to what purpose? In other Times it is a whole note - so one should be careful about the use of the term, and when referring to fractions of whole notes.

A crotchet is a quarter of a Semibreve and an eighth of a Breve - that's why the names are important; to get a handle on what the time signatures mean. Fractions are used all over the place in music - why obfuscate matters by using more of them?

If you just say 1/4  then I think it's confusing (assuming you pronounce it one quarter). One quarter of a beat is not necessarily a crotchet, nor is one quarter of a bar - and a crotchet is not one quarter of a minim. That's why I think it's important to keep a handle on what it is a quarter of!

If you say that 3/4 is three quarters, then that's confusing, because it doesn't say anything musically, and you then have to explain the system and then relate it back to beats in the bar.

If you say that 3/4 is three crotchet beats to the bar, you're half way there, and only then need to explain the place of the crotchet in the scheme of things.

To extend that to 6/8, if you say it's six eighths, then you have to go around the houses to explain why it's (typically) not 6 beats in a bar, and why you couldn't just say three quarters, as you would in mathematics.

If you say that 6/8 has six quavers to a bar, but is compound time, and you simply divide the top number by 3 to get the number of beats to the bar - then that's a shorter and easier explanation, IMO.

The point of the Stravinsky example is to show how a master of composition used both 7/8 and 7/4 within 10 bars of the same piece as a slightly complex illustration of the difference between the two.

It's an easy example to follow, if you already read music well, and are schooled in the Italian traditions - all you need to do is find a score, and they're not expensive. "The Rite of Spring" should be of great interest to someone who likes complicated music full of wierd and savage time signatures and loads of time changes - and it's undergraduate stuff, not post grad.

If you're just going to use quavers as the beats you might just as well not bother, because aurally you couldn't tell the difference, and it becomes just an act of show rather than of skill and craft - which is why I feel that it's often used inappropriately and in an uneducated way - much like poor grammar shows lack of education in language.

I don't believe it's so hard to explain this to 20+ year-olds - I've had no problems getting 8-18 year-olds through their music theory examinations

Certif1ed wrote: But go ahead - count what you like

I understand what you mean by simple vs. compound:

http://www.dims.co.uk/id74.htm and http://www.dims.co.uk/id75.htm

they illustrate the definitions with notation examples, which makes it far more obvious (but you also explained it well, of course).

But what the hell does that change? Ok, so I know that 7/8 is not simple time. one bar consists of 7 quavers, at least in 99% of all the (non-classical) songs that I know to use 7/8. And as to how it can be grouped ... I think that there are two popular uses:

• 6/8 + 1/8: Rhythm section plays a 6/8 beat with one additional quaver
• 4/4 - 1/8: Rhythm section plays a standard 4/4 beat but omitts the last quaver (combines the last quaver with the first quaver of the following bar)

There are other groupings as well - 3 + 2 + 2 or 2 + 2 + 3, but why confuse people? Let them count to 7 (or 1 and 2 and 3 and 4) first, that's all I'm saying.

maidenrulez wrote: Is there something as a 29/16 time signature? I never heard about it but i belivie Mr Jon Theodore of TMV used that once...

29 = 16 + 13.

=> 4/4 + 13/16, and 13/16 is 6/8 + 1/16.

The question is: Why would he use such a signature? The weirder the signature, the more difficult it is for the artist to reason for the use of it. 29/16 seems to me like "let's try to impress the listener and use the most complex signatures".

Sometimes less definitely is more ...

You guys should see the chart for Captain Beefheart's "Peon". It's ridiculous!  You gotta love the Captain.

http://www.beefheart.com/datharp/tab/tabpeon.zip

Certif1ed wrote: Simple time (simplified ) is anything over 4, because that's the number of beats you count in a bar.

I thought that simple time was anything that can be counted in crotchets, without using dotted notes. So 2/4 or 3/4 would also be simple time.