Time Signature
Rick Murray (539) 13850 posts |
I started composing (term used extremely loosely) something using Rhapsody4 and it just sounded weird. I had a semibreve (4 beats) followed by two crotchets (one beat each) and that should have been a bar, with six beats per bar. To try to work out what was happening, I turned on the metrognome and played the bar. Huh? Granted, my music lessons were 33 years ago, but if I can remember the names of the notes you’d have thought I’d remember the length. And why was that last chord not even synchronised with the ticker? Turns out, I had chosen 6/8 time. This means six beats in a bar, sure enough, but the bar timing is twice the regular (or six eighth notes per bar). This is “compound duple time”, which means a crotchet, to remain with the beat, needs to be a dotted crotchet (the dot makes it 1.5). Gah! Note: Common time or 4/4 is the traditional 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4…. Thankfully I found the option to set a time signature of 6/4, which means the beats run at the expected regular time, there’s just six of them per bar, like I wanted: 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6… Entering music using Rhapsody is a bit irksome. I think I’ll need to make myself a cheat sheet to remember the keypresses as it is a lot less faffy than using the icons. PS: For any Americans reading: Semibreve = whole note, Crotchet = quarter note, Quaver = eighth note. I prefer the British naming as the American one only makes sense if you’re using 4/4 time. In my 6/4, a minim (two beats) wouldn’t be a half note, it would be a third! |
Steve Pampling (1551) 8172 posts |
Various groups have done unusual signatures, two examples: Genesis before they went pop style, and notably King Crimson (checkout the content of the Disciple album particularly the title track Query “king crimson discipline time signature”) |
Chris Mahoney (1684) 2165 posts |
There was a piece from a game, in 4/4. A copy on YouTube, which I can’t find now, was apparently recorded from a buggy MIDI sequencer because one particular bar had an extra quaver and was therefore 4.5/4! That error didn’t occur in the actual game, and it messed with my head until I realised what was going on. |
Jean-Michel BRUCK (3009) 362 posts |
Glad to hear from a Rhapsody user :-) Reminder: A time signature has two numbers, it is not a ratio. the second number indicates the time unit and the first the number of time units in a bar I use the panel to enter music, it takes some getting used to, but it’s quite logical. For information in the Doc.KStrip directory of the package there are 2 Draw files that I made to use keyboard shortcuts. the first is a keystrip and the second is in the format used by the card supplied with !Sibelius. |
Jean-Michel BRUCK (3009) 362 posts |
@Chris |
Steve Pampling (1551) 8172 posts |
Of “Discipline”: “During the piece the two guitars of Belew and Fripp, respectively, move through the following sequence of pairs of time signatures: 5/8 and 5/8, 5/8 and 4/4, 5/8 and 9/8, 15/16 and 15/16, 15/16 and 14/16, 10/8 and 20/16, 15/16 and 15/16, 15/16 and 14/16, 12/16 and 12/16, 12/16 and 11/16, 15/16 and 15/16, 15/16 and 14/16. “Throughout the drums play in 17/16 – the Bill Bruford drumming video, ‘Bruford and the Beat,’ builds up to an explanation of the 17/16 pattern used (including the fact that the 4/4 bass drum pattern is maintained as a ‘dance groove’) and includes a live performance of the track interleaved with an interview with Robert Fripp about aspects of the track. IIRC there is something like a 13 bar cycle for the guitars being in synch. |
Rick Murray (539) 13850 posts |
“Happiness Is a Warm Gun” (Beatles) has some interesting time signatures, but the weirdest mindscrew (if you try to count it out) is “Schism” (Tool). Even things that seem simpler can hide surprises. “Wuthering Heights” (Kate Bush) seems like it’s simple common time, except for the chorus that changes to 3/4. |
Rick Murray (539) 13850 posts |
Jean-Michel: I can enter music via the (piano) keyboard, but the timing is messed up (not a surprise, I’m not actually using any timing here) and I’ve not yet found the way to change a note from this to that. Thanks for the pointers for the keypresses. |
Steve Pampling (1551) 8172 posts |
Genesis: “Keep It Dark” – rarely ever played live as it was so difficult for each member to avoid playing the other part. Anyone noticed that this is a progressive rock? Prog tends to equal “standard? why would I do that?” |
Rick Murray (539) 13850 posts |
Prog rock is what you can do when you know more than four chords. ;) Speaking of which: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ |
Steve Pampling (1551) 8172 posts |
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André Timmermans (100) 655 posts |
Reminds me of what a colleague was a fan of Led Zeppelin. He told me that there is one of their popular songs that they never played live. The drummer never remembered how he played it while they were recording the song. He knew was was a certain trick to it but never figured it out. |
Steve Pampling (1551) 8172 posts |
That would be Four Sticks from Led Zeppelin IV, but it wasn’t a specific trick he couldn’t remember. |
Rick Murray (539) 13850 posts |
That’s something I’ve been paying a little more attention to recently. For music I’m not so keen on, the drum is basically tish, tish, tish, tish, all the way through. Maybe a full in before the chorus, but meh, ’80s keyboards had a button that could do that. ;) Music I do like has the drum being a lot more expressive and subtly varying the pattern from one bar to the next, plus changing tempo and rhythm at various points in the song. Examples: “Human” (Beyond The Black) and “Harvest” (Nightwish). |
Paolo Fabio Zaino (28) 1882 posts |
@ Rick An important element for time signatures (as you’ve mentioned) is how one wish to express the accents in a melody, however when things get Prog (I played and composed prog tracks for years), things becomes more complex. For instance, a 7/8 could be played both as a 2+2+3 OR as a 3+2+2 in terms of accents, or 7/8 time signature has 2 simple beats and 1 compund beat. This also allows very interesting possibilities BTW, but that is a story for another time. For the note length’s names, I still love the way I have learned music composition back in Italy an dusing the Italian names, but I guess I am biased on this, however for the record: Breve, semibreve, minima, semiminima, croma, semicroma, biscroma, semibiscroma, centoventottavo. |
Jean-Michel BRUCK (3009) 362 posts |
@ All |
Rick Murray (539) 13850 posts |
I might be able to, but since it’s Rhapsody that is doing it… (play options → play beat via MIDI) ;) |