Question for Dwellar musicians
 

Here's something I just don't get and I wonder if the collective dwellar brain can 'splain me:

In music people talk about things being 3/4 time or 4/4 time etc.

I've looked at wikipedia and had people tell me it's the number of beats per measure.

Great, but the word time throws me off as does measure. Is there a set length of time, i.e. seconds that a measure lasts? if so, why not say it is 4 beats per second? or can 4/4 time be played fast or slow? How can it help you if 4/4 time can be fast or slow, then it would be sort of meaningless, I imagine to have a time signature at all.

from wiki: "In musical notation, a bar (or measure) is a segment of time defined as a given number of beats of a given duration"

OK, so what is the duration? how can a beat be drawn out? I think of a beat as being the musical equivalent of a point in space only slightly chubbier.

I understand that 8/4 time is faster than 3/4 time but I don't get where the actual time is.

they should go metric, too many fractions

The "time" has nothing to do with the tempo. Sure, that may make it a dumb word to use, but it is what it is.

8/4 time isn't necessarily faster than 3/4 time. It just says there are 8 beats before the composer is going to put another little vertical line on the staff. Measures really only exist as a reference to help musicians play together with each other, kind of like page numbers. You can transcribe music into a different time scale if you want to, just like you can transcribe into a different clef. Some time scales inherently suggest an accented beat, like 3/4 time is expected to have that familiar "DUN dun dun" waltz sound, but you could write that same waltz in 4/4 if you really wanted to, and just put egregious accent marks on every third note as necessary.

OK, still have no idea. in 8/4 time or 4/4 time how fast are those beats?

Try counting. (My ex tried to teach me this same stuff.)

I remember most songs being one...two...three...four...
one...two...three...four...
one...two...three...four...
(4/4 time?)

but some were one..two..three..four..five
one..two..three..four..five
one..two..three..four..five
(5/4 time?)

Yeah, probably no help either.

I should know this stuff. We covered it in "clapping for credit" in college. Fundamentals of Music. 101

ta ta ti ti ti ti ta ta

Can't remember it at all, but I remember it made sense and had logic at the time.

It is not a measurement of the passage of chronological time between beats, it is a measurement of what fraction of one "measure" or "bar" each beat occupies. The measurement of the passage of chronological time would be the tempo.

I think what I have said is accurate, but let me reflect and give a better answer at a later time (busy now). Search for the thread "Stuff I Don't Know" by BigV, where I explain what syncopation is and I think therein lies an explanation of what time signatures mean.

As fast as you want them to be. If you play it at a tempo of 60 beats/minute, then the beats will come at 1 beat per second, which means if your music is written down in 8/4 time then each measure will be 8 seconds long. Or if it's written in 4/4 time, you'll have twice as many measures. If your tempo is 120 beats/minute, then the beats will come every half second, regardless of how it's written.

What you're asking is kind of like: if I translate Don Quixote into English, will it be faster or slower than the Spanish version? You can read either language as fast or as slow as you want, and you can write a book in whatever language you want. They are independent variables.

So can a measure be empty of notes?

Wait, let's say we're singing "do re mi fa so la ti do" That's eight notes.

How many measures is that? or Bars?

So, if in 4/4 time, there'd be 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4 and in those four beats how many of the notes get sung?

And in 8/4 time there'd be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and the same number of notes get sung as in 4/4 time, just more beats?

Measures = bars.

If each of the do, re, me... was a quarter note ( a one beat note) in 4/4 it would be two measures. In 8/4 it would be one measure.

It would be the same number of notes and the same number of beats just divided differently.



One can have empty space in music they are known as rests, periods of silence.

Like Mendelsshon's Song Without Notes.

i slay me

SN - you're looking at only one half of the information which defines "time" in written music. The time signature (3/4, for example) tells you how many beats there are in a bar. 3/4 is a waltz time so you'd count, giving each beat an equal length in time, but stressing the first beat
ONE two three ONE two three ONE two three ONE two three ...
The "tempo mark" for this waltz example would be shown as the symbol for a quarter-note = 180. This means that there are 180 quarter-notes in a minute, or (coincidentally) one bar is one second long.
You could play the music much more slowly, but then it would be difficult to dance to :). It might become a lovely lyrical tune, instead ...
Yes. This would represent a set period of time (defined by the time signature and the tempo mark) in which that voice or instrument does not make a noise.
The eight notes you have named are the names of note pitches, how high or low they sound. They do not in your example given above have any rhythm or time value assigned to them.
The emphasis would be slightly (ever so slightly) different in the two examples you have given
1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4
vs
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
I've taken the spaces out as the beats are regularly spaced in time. The time signature shows where the emphasis should fall.
I have no idea if this is helpful at all ...

Perhaps it may be easier for you to understand if you ask someone who knows music and explain it to you in person. Or if you have a music sheet in question, show it to us and perhaps the answer may be better exemplified.

In broad terms, the accents for 4/4 time are loud soft medium soft (or so my piano teacher had me believe), then there's 3/4 which is loud soft soft, and if you want to get really tricky and confuse the issue further, you could look at 6/8 time which usually comes out like a fast waltz time beat because you're changing the base note (4) to an 8th note which of course in musical terms it a shorter beat (in comparison to a 4th note).

eta: I hope I've got that right. It's been a while since I played much classical music and had to think about the time. I'm sure limey can correct me if I'm wrong. :)

Subdivisions (such as quarter, eighth, or sixteenth notes) are the numerator in the fraction which states the time signature. It is incorrect to think of subdivisions as occuring faster or slower. Literally (chronologically) this is accurate, but this is not compatible with the system of how music is constructed. There is no value system to measure the faster or slower rate of different subdivisions--except as fraction values of a measure which moves forward at a BPM (beats-per-minute) tempo (the beats in a measure being the denominator of the fraction which states the time signature).

Incidentally, there have been statements made regarding certain kinds of accents occuring in various time signatures. It would be more accurate to state that these accents are commonly used in those situations. Accents are not defined in time signatures (3/4 doesn't have to be a Waltz).

Point taken. Perhaps I should have said "3/4 could be a waltz time", but let's keep things simple for now, eh? Not that that's really possible ...

You gotta feel it!! And there's the issue of how many "beats" are in the measure, on paper, vs. how you feel, or count, or conduct it when you perform it.

A piece in 3/4 time will always have three quarter-notes' worth of music in each measure. But you may play some of those pieces in one beat per measure (example: Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker). Or three beats per measure (example: AMazing Grace). Or six beats to the measure (example: 2nd movement of Beethoven's 4th symphony). And that's strictly down to how fast the piece moves.

Could you do the Tchaikovsky in 3? Sure, but it would either be 3 really fast beats (awkward to conduct and to follow), or it would be slower than most people would want it. ("Most"--there's no accounting for taste.) Could you do Amazing Grace in 1? Sure, but again, that's not how it's most comfortable to most people.

One of the trickiest pieces I've played lately was the Cello Concerto by Victor Herbert. It's in 3/4, but it's too fast to be entirely comfortable in 3, and not fast enough to be entirely comfortable in 1. One could argue that this was strictly down to our soloist's choice of tempo, but IMO that tension was a big part of what made the piece interesting.

The best way to explain is with some audio examples, but I don't have any at hand.

Good point. How you "write" a piece of music, or how you "count" it, is simply an aid to performing it.

Another kind of example: the intro to Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll is best written/counted as starting on "the and of three" (that is: one ee and a two ee and a three e AND). You play the first note on the AND of three. You COULD count that note as 1 (there is no "law" against that). But if you did, the count wouldn't make sense for any of the measures in the rest of the song.

Engineer sez: "Music is hard!" :dunce:

Thanks for your answers I am digesting them now.

I'll ask my voice teacher next time I have a lesson and when I hear it I should be able to understand. It's hard because I don't really know what the words mean. know = experience

I consulted my ex-pert. Dave Brubeck, Take 5, is an example of 5/4 time.



The Blue Danube is an example of 3/4 time.


Most songs are 4/4 time.

If you can hear/count along...it makes more sense. I'm just a layperson, but I can "hear" the counts.

Duh. Here's a better example of The Blue Danube.

It doesn't start until 4:12.

Right. People say you have to "feel it" and that is literally true. Music involves theory which is absorbed via muscle memory.

Here is a good example of what note subdivisions are. The song starts with 8 quarter notes, two measures (bars) of 4/4. If they kept doing this for one full minute, you could count up all the quarter notes to get the beats-per-minute tempo.

INTRO (bar 1), quarter notes..|..INTRO (bar 2), quarter notes......
tick......tick......tick......tick...|...tick......tick......tick......tick.......
1..........2..........3..........4....|....1..........2..........3..........4.......

When the song kicks in (0:06), the hi-hat goes to 8th notes (the hi-hat is being struck twice as often, but the song hasn't increased in tempo). The quarter notes are now being played alternately between the bass drum and snare drum. Bass drum takes the 1 and 3, snare drum takes the 2 and 4.

Bass/Snare, quarter notes
boom....CRACK....boom....CRACK
1..........2..........3..........4........
Hi-Hat, eighth notes
1....2....3....4....5....6....7....8....
tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick

As I usually say, we're all ignorants but we don't ignore the same things.

Tonight, I'll sleep with a bit more of knowledge than when I got up this morning.

4/4 time walks, hup two three four. The Caisson Song, and Marines' Hymn.
3/4 time waltzes, or ice-skates. Roller skates too. Also one heckuva lotta country music about cheatin' hearts, broke country singers, and pickup trucks. You Picked A Fine Time To Leave Me Lucille.
6/8 time walks/marches with a swing and a swagger. It helps to be in a kilt, and strutting hard enough to make your horsehair sporran go "swingity swingity," which is the 1 2 3, 4 5 6 beat of 6/8. A lot of jigs are also in 6/8.
5/4 is the Mission Impossible theme. True story.
9/8 is slip-jig, which is a jig time takes half again as long to come round to the beginning of the cycle as a 6/8. I think it's also the meter for the baritone solo in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

5/4 is also Take Five by Dave Brubeck, and the opening of Rush's YYZ.

Most of "Turn It On Again" is 13/8 and this may be the oddest time signature for a hit single ever.

Pink Floyd - "Money" - 7/4 until Gilmour's solo, which is 4/4, and then it returns to 7/4. I think Gilmour joked that they changed it to 4/4 because it was too hard for him otherwise.

Watching people try to dance to Pink Floyd's Money is always fun.

Max Roach had a whole album called, plainly enough, "Jazz in 3/4 Time."

When I want to play double bass as "123,123,123,123" instead of "1234,1234,1234,1234" I always think of this song: Dream Theater - Take The Time (this could be written with either a 3 or a 6 as the numerator in the fraction which states the time signature).

That's what she (I) said.

Hey Flint!

And all y'all.... of course.



I love this song. I have listened to it countless times. I find myself unable to reliably hit the beat you're hearing from the hi-hat. I have tried counting...


1...2...3...4AND1...2...3...4AND1...2...3...4
AND1...2...3...4AND1...2...3...4
AND1...2...3...4AND1...2...3...4
AND1...2...3...4AND1...2...3...4.....


I tried counting on the very first beat Nina starts with, tapping her foot, putting the "AND" between 2 and 3, but it really feels like it belongs between 4 and 1.

This counting represents a bit of a breakthrough for me. I initially was going to ask about syncopation, in the thread you referenced up there ^^^, but that search revealed this thread which is better suited to my question. Having reread this thread, I think Nina's performance is in 4/4 time, at a moderate tempo. That goddamn, brilliant hi-hat though... I could not corner it.

I guess I don't have an actual question anymore... but please enjoy Nina's performance.

The song doesn't start on 1, it starts on 3. That's the confusion. In order to process the song in your head, you have to imagine that the 1... 2... happened in the musician's heads.

If you beat 1... 2... and then start the video, it will work.

Hi UT!

Yes, I did imagine that.

(internal monologue for the incomparable Miss Simone.... one, two --starts tapping foot--, three, four) *song begins*

This still puts the hi-hat between 4 and 1, doesn't it?


And as I continue to listen to the song, her verses begin in a reliable pattern. *I* imagine that pattern to begin on the 1. Does that make sense to you too?

Yes, and I can't remember any other particular pop song that does this, puts heavy emphasis on the AND of the 4. There must be one though

I like that very much.

Stewart Copeland's backwards (ascending) tom fill, coming out of the chorus of Wrapped Around Your Finger, ends on an open hi-hat on the & of 4, which closes on the 1, where *nothing* happens-- because he's pushing that Reggae feel where *nothing* happens on the 1.

Close but no cigar: in Steve Miller's Swingtown there is always an open hi-hat on the & of 4, with the only snare hit in the measure on 4.

I would venture to say the *most common* place for an open hi-hat is on the & of 4, but it's usually a grace note for a bass drum.

There's got to be more examples where & of 4 is followed by *nothing* ...

Yeah this is an infuriating question, innit? There must be more songs that do this!

Yeah we grew up on open hi-hat on & of 4! I still remember the first song where I realised there was this interesting percussive sound that clamps off: "Who Loves You", the Four Seasons. For a long time I was like "what is that sound", until I finally saw someone play one on TV. Oh that's what does that!

1...2...3...AND:devil:

Miss Nina positively rocked.

Loved that clip, V. Thanks.

pretty cool how we are conditioned, and then come across something that defies one little assumption, and we get taken aback... and if you can't figure it out, it can make you twitch.
this one gets firmly lodged in my heid every time because it doesn't gratify with an octave drop where it should. except sometimes it does.


I never even considered whether the drums had anything to do wit it.... but now that you guys are talking about it, I'm wondering if they are wonky too. All I know is that if I try to tap my foot to it, I look like I've got something in my shoe.

bonus: