Hi all. I’m wondering why it is that musical time is marked the way it is. Everything I’ve encountered is in powers of 2 - I’ve seen whole notes, half-notes, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, etc. on down. Likewise, pieces are in X/4, X/8… I’m told some music is in (whatever)/2 time or (whatever)/1 time, though I haven’t seen it personally. Dividing it this way seems logical enough to me, but does anybody know why it’s done this way? Is there anything else to it?
Also, although I’m pretty sure I know the answer to this, is music EVER divided any other way? Can you write a piece in, say, 2/3 time, or 5/5?
My experience is with Western music, so if any of these things change in other cultures, I’d love to hear about it.
the top number is the number of beats per measure. the bottom number is the definition of a beat. So, 4/4 time is four quarter notes per measure. 5/8 time is Five eighth notes per measure.
The top number is typically a multiple of 4, but doesn’t have to be, and in fact it’s often other things. Well, maybe not “often,” but certainly plenty. The bottom number it really doesn’t make sense to make it something other then 2/4/8/16, etc. Here’s something to read: http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory4.htm
I did know most of the above, but my knowledge of musical terminology isn’t great - so, thanks to Bill H, I can probably phrase my question more technically now. I understand that the number of beats can be anything. My question is this:
“Is the lower, or note, sign ever not a multiple of 2?” I’ve never seen it, but can it be done?
The bottom number has to be 2, 4, 8, 16, etc, since it indicates what sort of note gets the beat, and is therefore limited to the types of notes that exist. It isn’t unusual, however, to see the top number be something really strange (i.e. 7/8).
Most popular music today is, musically, extremely simple, with 90% of it being in 4/4 time and the rest in 3/4, and all of it using only three chords.
You’re probably exaggerating for effect here, but just in case you’re not: most popular music today uses quite a few more than just three chords. Even the Beatles used more than three chords. Hell, even Avril Lavigne uses more than three chords, as do the Backstreet Boys and Green Day.
Possible, but not practical, with one exception. A time sig of X/1 is possible, and has been used (3/1 and 2/1 I have seen, which means 3 or 2 beats, with a whole note getting one beat).
Having a sig of 4/3 would mean a third-note gets one beat, and there really is no such thing. You could say that 1/3 of a triplet is a third-note, but that starts to get pretty clumsy, and there really is no point – the music wouldn’t sound any different, just be difficult to read.
BTW, the use of X/4 instead of X/8, X/16 or whatever, is merely a convention, and does not indicate the speed which a piece is played. Things have changed over the centuries; 200 years ago, a composer might write a 4/16 piece, but nowadays would probably settle for the more conventional 4/4. The sound wouldn’t be any different at all.
There’s probably been at least one avant-garde composer who decided to shake the foundations of traditional Western music just for the sake of being different. But it would be like writing music for more than 7 sharps or flats; you have to come up with a whole new method of tone generation.
If you wanted to write music in new time signatures, you’d have to make a whole new system of notation. To use your examples, a tune in 5/5 time could be the same as one in 5/4, you just can’t use quarter notes anymore. It doesn’t strike me as particularly difficult to do, just unnecessary, as we already have a perfectly good system.
Yes, yes. Very true. I sing in my university’s chamber singers. This past semster we sang a song called Epitaph for Moonlight, which is probably the most avant garde piece that I’ve ever laid eyes on. It is written on a grid rather than a staff, and is counted by seconds rather than beats, and has all sorgs of lines and squigles instead of notes. Interesting if you are a musician, boring and irritating if you aren’t.
BellaVoce, I too have sung that piece. Definitely interesting, with a unique notation. 
The time signature in music can basically be whatever the heck you want it to be, as long as you put the correct amount of notes/rests according to that time signature into the measures.
I played a piece called Lincolnshire Posey by Percy Grainger, one movement of the piece has 2 and 1/2 over 4 for the time signature at some points, as well as many other uncommon time signatures.
I sang in Orff’s Carmina Burrana last fall. That has some goofy time signatures, as well. So many changes that they are written above the staff, and things like 3/8 one measure, 1/1 the next, etc.
Ah…Lincolnshire Posey. I played that back in '94. We only played Mvts 1,2,4,6, though.
I see no reason why a composer would use 2.5 / 4 except sheer perversity. A 5/4 sig would sound the same, and a 5/8 sig could be used without changing any of the note values.
It’s possible the composer was trying to indicate the subdivision of the measure as 4 + 1 (= 2 + 1/2) rather than some other scheme like 3 + 2 (Brubeck’s Take Five used that subdivision). But there are more conventional ways to indicate that without inventing an obtuse time signature.
Example: Dave Brubeck – who experimented with many different time sigs, but never found it necessary to invent new ones – used a 9/8 sig for Blue Rondo a la Turk, but he wanted it to be subdivided not as 3 + 3 + 3, as is common, but 2 + 2 + 2 + 3. Just describing this in a short text note is sufficient, and it becomes obvious anyway as soon as you hear or play it.
Another way to indicate a subdivision is to use alternating time sigs. (Ex: 4/4, then 1/4, then 4/4, then 1/4…) This can be notated with a change each measure, or just indicated once at the start of the piece, with the two sigs side-by-side, and leave it up to the performer to apply the right one to each measure. This is still harder to read than the perfectly usable standard convention.
Yet another notation method is to use dotted barlines as sub-bar lines if you must. I’ve seen this used when the measure was very long, like 6/2, and the subdivisions were made clearer with dotted barlines indicating the minor divisions between the main ones.
Musiccat - I’ve seen odd subdivisions like 4/4 divided into 3,3,2 indicated as 3+3+2 over 8. I suppose Brubeck could have written 2+2+2+3 over 8, but it does start looking silly after awhile.
Pulykamell, I’ve seen those kinds of notation, too. I guess the question for the composer/notator is do we need to put the odd divisions on the staff, imbedded as part of the time signature or just above the line as an advisory, explanatory note to a more conventional sig.