Question about time signatures...

Soulman wrote: Man I just started picking up on the world of abstract rhythms and time signatures. It's freaking amazing . I'm finally starting to understand songs like "Starless and Bible Black" and "By-Tor the Snow Dog" and being able to apply it to my own playing. I think this entire thread has answered the majority of my thoughts on this topic. Yet I'm still puzzled by what are "traditional" or "non-traditional" ways to play certain compound time signatures. I think my only question is if anybody has seen a time signature like 7/10 or 16/9...and what do those denominators represent.

Those time signatures are "impossible" with the traditional notation system:

1/1 represents a Semibreve

1/2 represents a Minim

1/4 represents a Crotchet

1/8 represents a Quaver

1/16 represents a Semiquaver

...and so on.

The current (ancient) system used in Western Music splits beats from the Semibreve, or whole note, as it is bizarrely known, and treats other note lengths as fractions of Semibreves.

So the top number is the number of beats in a bar, and the bottom number represents the length of the beat in terms of fractions of a Semibreve.

The dividing line can be seen as the mathematical symbol for division - e.g. 4/4 is 4 "quarter" beats per bar.

This attempt to explain everything (including why 7/4 is simple time and 7/8 is compound time) - but still leaves a lot of questions unanswered: http://www.answers.com/topic/time-signature#copyright

However, I think the system itself is confusing, misleading, misunderstood - even by academics - and not appropriate for the way that people write music these days.

If the system was changed to a decimalised notation, and a multiplier used instead of a divider, then you could have 4X0.25 instead of 4/4, which would open up the use of dotted crotchets as beats in their own right, instead of the current limited use of dotted crotchets in compound time. So 4 dotted crotchets in a bar could be represented by 4X0.375.

Doesn't really trip off the tongue like 12/8, does it?

But really, the whole system should be overhauled, IMO, so the the Breve regains its proper status as 1, and every other note is a fraction of that - ie, a crotchet should really be 1/8, not 1/4.

As it currently stands, a SEMIbreve represents a whole note, purely because common time became more widely accepted as groupings of semibreve bars rather than breve bars, which were felt to be too long for quick music, which was more popular outside the church.

/ends ramble and hopes it's useful...