[nitpick]I believe Blue Rondo a la Turk is in 9/8 not 7/8. With a bluesy bridge in 4/4. [/nitpick]
Can you have an 8-1/2 beat time signature? I’ve heard of references to half-beat meters in Indian music but I’ve never been able to follow it myself. My guess is that what you are actually hearing is 17/8 time.
The king of odd-time jazz is Don Ellis (a tagline of his is that the only song he played in 4/4 was Brubeck’s Take Five ). I remember an album of his with a title that I’m misremembering as Jazz in 33-3/4 Time
Then odd-time stuff is all over works by avant-garde jazzers, Anthony Braxton and Ken Vandermark coming to mind, with several odd-time changes within compositions.
It should be obvious that the time signature isnot just a device to make music ‘easier’ to write down otherwise you wouldn’t have time signature changes in the middle of songs.
By the way, this was happening WAY before the 1960s in classical music. Ever hear the 5/4 waltz in Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony?
I have played some music (unhappily, of course) where the numbskull composer pulled a trick like this. 5 1/2 over 8 or something like that. It really sucks to perform, but it does happen.
My take on the debate over /4 and /8 time (years of experience talking here):
When you see a /4 time signature, the top number usually denotes the number of beats felt in a bar. In other words, 5/4 time really has 5 distinct beats. /2 or /1 work the same way.
In /8 time signatures, there are usually less than the top number of beats felt in the bar. As an example, 5/8 time almost always implies some subdivision like 3+2 or 2+3. 7/8 could be 3+2+2. Meters written in /16 or /32 work the same way.
I feel the MI theme with 5 distinct beats. So I’d think it more proper to write it as 5/4. Less possible could be 10/8, with the eighth notes beamed 3+3+2+2.
I gave up playing my instrument a few years ago and with the tenor horn (English horn) you unlikely to encounter tricky beats (I remember playing a piece either in 15/8 or 17/8 time and the conducter was having a fit because we simply could not get the time signature excatly right). I still play the guitar, but in rock music even 3/4 time is considered ‘exotic’.
Very interesting discussion on the rationals for choice of signatures. My mind’s eye can certainly visualize the M:I theme in 5/4, so it’s all good.
On a related note, I’ve noticed the odd rock band (Genesis and Rush leap to mind) who fiddle with really goofy times as well. IIRC “Turn It On Again” is in 15/4 time, although to hear Phil Collins tell it, it’s not because they were experimenting with meters so much as Mike Rutherford’s inability to count to four consistently.
Of course you’re right about Blue Rondo being in 9/8, not 7/8.
Good call on the 8-1/2 beat being Indian. In the Flecktones’ album Outbound, the percussionist playing the tabla is Indian (Bela also plays sitar on a couple of tracks). It’s definitely 8-1/2 beats. It counts 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-1-2…, except the space between 8 and the next 1 is only a half beat. It’s a pretty cool sound, but I imagine it would be pretty much impossible to play for anyone other than the top-notch Flecktones. I’ve tried playing some of Bela’s stuff on the banjo, and even his slow, simple stuff is really tough.
You’re right that it’s actuall 7-1/2 beats per measure, but it’s called “eight and a half beat” according to the liner notes. You could write it as 15/8, but the beat of the song is such that it’s not 15 beats - there’s a half-beat per measure. The tempo is around 130 or 140.
MC, first off you could always correct any issues with accents by using accent markings, and that might even be considered analagous to using triplets in, say, 2/4 instead writing the same piece in 6/8 with eighth notes in that it is simply 2 different ways of documenting and communicating the same piece with the simpler one being preferably for obvious reasons.
But OK, let’s say that’s cheating. Just for kicks, I put Mary Had a Little Lamb into Finale (notation program) in 4/4 and then simply changed its time sig to 12/8. Sounded exactly the same. What does that prove? Well, admittedly not much, since I then put it in 5/4, 5/8, 15/8, and a few others I think. All sounded the same. Finale is, of course, not a musician and has no clue of where the accents should be unless you use accent marks. But with accent marks you most certainly could put any melody into any time sig and have it sound exactly the same (if it wasn’t for human “error”). It’s like calling the number “2”, “the cubic root of 125 minus 3” (did I do that right?). These alternate time sigs wouldn’t be “wrong” so much as extremely unconventional (and incidentally in the 20th century just about every convention imaginable has been severely challenged).
Now, what I meant by “human error”, is probably better stated as “human interpretation”. That is to say that there is a “feel” aspect which people bring to the table. They have certain expectations based on certain conventions. Thus in 4/4, the expectation is 4 beats with the following strengths: S w M w
12/8 is the same thing but with each beat divided into triplets:
S . . w . . M . . w . .
However this is not always the case. A great example is the hemiola, mentioned earlier, which drastically changes where the accents are without necessarily changing the time sig in the score (though sometimes it does, e.g. “America” from West Side Story).
Reading back, I’m actually still not sure what exactly you meant by your post I quoted above. In both cases the first beat of the bar would be the exact same strong beat. The only thing that changes are the subdivisions.
Aren’t time signatures just a convention to abstract and approximate all possible rhythms? Once you’ve been trained to believe that all music is notated, then you mis-interpret non-Western, non-classical music.
Here’s a revealing quote from a classically trained violinist who tried to learn traditional Irish music. It took him a long time to realize that he was playing the music exactly as it was written, but nothing like it was actually played. In essence, the music has its own Irish accent.
“The truth is that there is a huge amount to learn, and also a lot to unlearn. Folk music may be relatively simple, but it has its own rules and subtleties. You will have to learn to hear rhythms that don’t exist in classical or rock music, and then to find a way of reproducing them on your instrument. You will have to realize that the written music is only the barest guide to a tune, and makes no attempt to notate rhythmic subtleties. You will have to understand that the tune on the page is only one example of how this tune can be played.” (cite).
FranticMad brings up a very good point. The music is so much more than what’s on the page.
I’d just like to point out, though, that much of what we Westerners might consider ethnic “folk” music is every bit as rigorously constructed and notated as ours. Especially in the case of Indian classical music, which is extremely rhythmically precise and complicated. Gamelan also comes to mind.
Certainly notated, but what about notatable?
One of the skills I practiced in music school was trying to notate rather primitive “folk” music in standard western style. It can be extremely difficult and even pointless, since some of the rhythms I encountered were not purposefully complicated but rather haphazard in construction and performance. But it is possible, I think.
My point is, in the right hands, our familiar Western system of notation is not so handicapped as some like to claim, IMHO.
Moe, most notation programs I’ve seen the time signature is irrelevant so it doesn’t prove anything as there not programed with measures. I orgimnally did think the time signature was irrelevant, but if you change the time signature you change the measure, there is a definite difference between 2/2 and 4/4 time even though they both have the same number of crochets in a bar. The bottom number does affect the measure too.
Thanks for the insight on 5/4 and 12/8. I do believe I’ve finally grasped the ideas/reasoning.