What time signature is this?

Cafe Society
1

I’m working on a side project transcribing some African rhythms to Western notation. It’s been decades since I last had anything to do with sheet music (African percussion is an oral (aural?) tradition), so figuring out a few things is a bit difficult. Forgetting for the moment differentiation between notes (i.e., tone/bass/slap), the rhythm is: six eighth notes, one eighth rest, one eighth note, one eighth rest, two eighth notes. Counting, I think that would that be 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6, but again, it’s a different language.

As for my wildly guessing, there’s a six count phrase, make up of eighth notes, but since the six is arrived at by combining two eighths into a quarter note, would the time be 6/4? Are there Web-based or downloadable (pref. free) that could help with this? I’m fairly certain much will come back to me with some practice, but without feedback as to whether I’m doing it right or not I’ll have no idea if I’m right or not.

Thanks,

Rhythm

2

Based purely on your description it seems like it is 11/8. It consists of 11 eight notes, that can’t be broken down into a smaller fraction unless you do something funny like make it two bars with different time signatures. 6/8 and 5/8 for instance.

3

To clarify, it is not a six count phrase, it is a 5 1/2 count phrase, your final 6 doesn’t have a corresponding & so it is only half a beat. Seeing as I don’t think 5 1/2 / 4 is very tidy looking, you’re left with calling it 11/8.

4

Yeah, I count 11 beats there, too. So you’re looking at an 11/8 time signature. I’m pretty sure Sibelius will let you do custom time signatures.

Or else is there supposed to be another eighth rest at the end? Tapping it out on the computer hutch here, and assuming that your beat is going to be based on “fours”, it feels like there oughta be another beat there…

BEAT BEAT BEAT BEAT
BEAT BEAT rest BEAT
rest BEAT BEAT rest

…which would make it 12/8 time.

A time signature of 6/4 signals to musicians, “play this overall more slowly than you would if it were in 12/8 time”. So you probably don’t wanna use 6/4. Hymn arrangements come in 6/4 time, not drumline material. :smiley:

5

Remember, a time signature (like 6/4) is read as “6 beats to the measure, the Quarter note gets the beat”. 11/8 would be “11 beats to the measure, the eighthnote gets the beat”. But 11 is a really weird number to me musically, . . . Not that I’m any kind of musical expert, especially with non-Western music.

Yes, two eighths make a quarter note, but I’m with Duck Duck Goose, 3/4 and 6/8 could be written the same way, but I’m going to have different expectations about how to play it. (3/4-- Strong, light, light–think waltz. 6/8 Strong, light, light, Strongish, light, light. alternatively, 1 & 2 & 3 & vs. 1 2 3 4 5 6)

6

hmmm… there is a slight pause at the end of the rhythm–it doesn’t quite repeat itself so as to be rephrased as eight eighths, eighth rest, eighth note, eighth rest, but I’m hesitant to say the last pause is a full stop.
Ah, on preview, it looks like DDG just addressed this. So it’s 12/8 because in an undifferentiated stretch there are 12 eighth notes. If there is a part that has, say two quarter notes then a stretch of eighth notes, would it matter if it was called 6/4 or 12/8? Is it just a tempo-hinting markup?

7

Changing time signatures in one piece of music is BAD. It can be done, if neccessary, but don’t do it just because you see a quarter note or two. Think about the feel of the music.

8

6/4 implies duple meter, 12/8 implies triple meter. I can’t tell you the time signature without hearing the clip and where the accents fall. A 12/8 meter would be broken in threes, using your example:

1&a 2&a 3**&a 4&**a

6/4 would be broken up:

1& 2& 3& 4**&** 5**& 6**&

9

“Bad” by what measure (no pun intended)? If a song actually changes time signature, you need to account for it by changing it in the music (think, say, The Beatles’ “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey,” that goes from 4/4 to 3/4 and back every so often, or “Strawberry Fields Forever,” which has 4/4 interspersed with 6/8, or “Here Comes The Sun,” which famously intersperses measures of 11/8 and 7/8 in the bridges with the predominant 4/4 of the song.)

edit: To add to the post before this one, a question to the OP, for every cycle of the pattern, how many times are you tapping your foot to it? That can help you figure out whether to notate it as 6/4 or 12/8. 6/4 will have you tapping your foot 3 times to each cycle, 12/8 the natural pulse would have you tap your foot 4 times to each cycle (assuming full measures of 6/4 and 12/8, not a groove of 11/8).

10

While this thread is doing ok in General Questions, I bet it will thrive in Cafe Society. I’m going to move it there.

Gfactor
General Questions Moderator

11

grr–hamsters ate my post. Short version-- changing time signatures is irritating and confusing to the amateur musician (singer and handbell player type). But really, I should have said arbitrary or capricious time signature changes are bad. And I think changing the time signature from 12/8 to 6/4 on the basis of a couple of quarter notes is a bad idea.

12

I agree. It doesn’t sound like the time signature is actually changing in the OP’s situation, but I didn’t want to leave anyone with the impression that this is some sort of hard rule. If the underlying pulse and/or beat count changes, you often have no choice but to notate this by a time signature change. Try as you might, if a measure of 3/4 appears in a 4/4 song, there’s no other way I could think of to account for it.

But I’m digressing. Back to the OP.

If the two consecutive quarter notes feel on-beat (in other words, not accenting any off beats), I suspect we’re dealing with 6/4 for the overall piece instead of 12/8. But, once again, it’s difficult to tell without hearing a sound sample. I mean, heck, you can write 12/8 as 4/4 if you wanted to (and this is not terribly unusual either when you see transcriptions of swing and blues tunes, which have more of a 12/8 feel than 4/4, but are quite often written in common time.)

13

I agree. Although time sigs suggest by convention a measure division, they by no means require it. If you want to divvy up a 12/8 bar into 2+3+4+3, go right ahead. Just give the player a hint if necessary. Putting “2+3+4+3” as a comment at the start of the passage is one way.

If you switch from 12/8 to 6/4, you will have to indicate which note value gets the one, constant beat across the division. Does a quarter note get the same time duration in the 6/4 as an eighth note did in the 12/8? OTOH, if you are making a permanent switch in the middle of a tune, you might as well get it over with. For a few bars, probably not.

14

Wanna second this. My expectation as a singer and a musician is that 12/8 time is like…
Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada.

And that 6/4 time is like…
Ponder slowly, maiden.

And that 3/4 time is like…
Dance with me!

So if you wrote out the rhythm in the OP in 12/8 time, what’s probably going to come out would be a very fast…

BEAT BEAT BEAT
BEAT BEAT BEAT
rest BEAT rest
BEAT BEAT rest

Was that what you had in mind?

Otherwise, if you want it in a duple rhythm, as…

BEAT BEAT BEAT BEAT
BEAT BEAT rest BEAT
rest BEAT BEAT rest

…then you might as well put it in 2/2 time. That makes each one of those three lines a single measure, so your overall rhythm pattern occupies three measures.

Is there some particular reason you need to have the rhythm pattern in a single measure? If you’re using software, you can just copy and paste the entire three-measure block.

ETA: And no, don’t try to change back and forth from 12/8 to 6/4 every couple of measures. We have a handbells piece that goes from 6/8 @ 112 to 3/4 @ 56 in the middle, only that one time, and it’s a major PITA, because it’s not really a tempo change, it’s a rhythm change, and our heads all explode every time we get to that part. I can’t imagine a composer being so evil (other than the avant-garde folks) as to ask us to swap back and forth every couple of measures. I’d think, “There must be SOME way to annotate this so our heads don’t explode, and this composer’s either too lazy or too stupid to figure it out…”)

15

…no offense. :smiley:

16

Isn’t 6/4 compound duple, and 12/8 compound quadruple?

Edit: to clarify for if this means nothing to some people, 6/4 is used to indicate that there are two larger groupings of three quarter-notes, analagous to 6/8 having two groups of eighth-notes. 12/8 implies such groups.

17

Missed the timeout for a second edit: Brahms’ second symphony opens in 6/4.

18

Im going to say its 12/8, I have played a lot of the music from ghana, and 3 is a magic number in that music(and all music) which can create some really crazy feels and grooves which can throw anyone off. It can be felt as a big 3, as 4 beats (12/8)
as a groove in 6, even in a big 2…

Is it Atsiagbekor by any chance?

Which in counting to 12, would sound

1 3 56 8 10 12

or

1 3 23 2 1 3

19

wrong account

20

:smack: Wow, I’m being an idiot this morning. You’re absolutely right. And 6/4 would normally be divided into two groupings (like 6/8), like you said. I’m not sure what I was thinking. Blame it on lack of coffee.

And add to that posting under the wrong account.