Now to actually discuss time signatures. All time signatures with a top number greater than 3 are divided up somehow. Thing is, certain numbers are standardized. A 4 on top mean 2 + 2. A 6 on top means 3 + 3. A 12 on top means 6 + 6 or 3 + 3 + 3 + 3.
Other numbers can be any group of 2 or 3. For example, a 5 on top must be either 2 + 3 or 3 + 2. A 7 on top must be either 2 + 2 + 3, 2 + 3 + 2, or 3 + 2 + 2.
We could always write it out, but usually it’s pretty obvious on the score. In the rare cases where it’s not, you’ll see time signatures written as, say:
(2 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 3)
8
It still would not be wrong to call that 13/8, however.
To add to the “This Little Light of Mine” side discussion, there are two popular tunes for the song. The differences are similar to the differences between the traditional and rock versions of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”. In the gospel sounding version the claps naturally fall on the backbeat, but in the other version, which is usually sung by children, it feels more natural to clap on every beat.
Here’s a great way of showing the difference between clapping on and off the beat. It’s a video of Harry Connick playing a tune, and the French audience (to his apparent amusement) is clapping on the beat. Somewhere around 0:40 he adds a beat and puts them on the backbeat. (You can see someone standing onstage behind him raise his arms in triumph!)
Got it, and it makes sense. It’s like trying to synch lyrics to music. It’s about putting syllables into beat patterns. If you’re putting two syllables per beat, you count the half beats.
Ah, accents, that’s what I’m missing.
You know, I may be confusing emphasis of syllables with clapping. Or as others have said, it can be done either way, and school yard version is typically done on the beat, which is why that sounds natural. But yeah, I can see it the other way now.
Thanks for the link. Very helpful.
This is what accents are about, right? Very helpful.
One complication is 6/8 time, which can be “slow six” or “fast six”. In a slow six, all six of the beats feel like “real beats”, and the effect is the same as a waltz time where the odd-numbered measures have slightly more emphasis. You can dance to it, but you can’t really march to it. In a fast six, there are only two “real” beats in the measure, but each of those two beats is frequently divided into a triplet. Many marches have this form, but you can’t waltz to it. Perhaps the best example is “Seventy-Six Trombones” from The Music Man. It’s not usually marked which is meant by “6/8”; you have to figure out what kind of song it’s supposed to be.
I did have a marching band director in high school who didn’t understand this, and had us play “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go” (from Snow White) as a slow six. It was completely unrecognizable.
Um, so how does that work? 2/2 vs 4/4 is twice as fast? Why?
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Often Cut Time (2/2) is used for the convenience of the conductor. Because a fast 4/4 can be hard to conduct, but if you conduct it half as fast in 2/2, the band will play the same as if it were a fast four. It’s similar to your clapping example. If the band is playing
One Two Three Four One Two Three Four
The conductor can either conduct each beat (swinging his stick eight times in the above line) or he can conduct in 2/2 where the band will play the same but he’ll swing his stick four times
ONE two THREE four ONE two THREE four
To further complicate matters, on a fast waltz (3/4 time signature) conductors may either conduct in One (only on the downbeat of each measure) or in four (treating each measure as its own beat, in patterns of four)