What time signatures are "Golden Brown" and "One Of These Things First"?

Cafe Society
1

This is a question about two of my favorite songs, by very different artists, the Stranglers’ “Golden Brown” and Nick Drake’s “One Of These Things First”. First, I only wanted to ask for the time signature of “Golden Brown”, but then I remembered that “One Of These Things First” has a very similar, but not completely the same beat. They also both remind me of “Take Five”, but again they’re not 100% the same. OOTTF hasn’t got a wiki page, but this is what wiki says about GB:

So it seems still controversial, but even my untrained ears can spot the difference between the signature in the sung verses and the instrumental parts.

What do my musically educated friends here at the Dope say?

2

Golden Brown is 3/4 for three measures, then 4/4. I think that’s the best way to think about it.

ETA: Saw the rest of your post. Most of GB is 3/4 (all the singing parts). The instrumental parts are 3/4 3/4 3/4 4/4

ETA2: The second song seems to be all in 3/4

3

I have a hard time to grasp that both songs are in 3/4. As mentioned before, I have no musical education, but I had dance lessons in my youth and also learned the waltz, but I have difficulties imaging dancing it to these songs. There are just more and shorter notes in the bars than the 3/4 waltz songs I know.

ETA: I have no musical notation, but what I hear:

“Golden Brown”:

Doo-dap-da-da, doo-dap-da-da

Typical waltz song in 3/4:

Doo-dap-da, doo-dap-da

Hope that helps.

4

Interesting. They both seem very waltz-y to me.

What you’re describing in your ETA seems like a shuffle beat, which can be considered 6/8 time, related to 3/4 time, but those short notes just sound like a little extra flair to me and don’t take away from the 3/4 feel, in my opinion.

There are many people on this board more versed in this stuff than I am.

5

This.

If I understand you correctly, you hear 4 notes, so you think 4 beats but in fact the last two notes are short and only add up to one beat, making it 3 in total :

(Doo)-(dap)-(da-da)

6

When I hear the triplet with the first and fourth beats emphasized, I think of that as 6/8. Do I have that wrong?

I just read a couple of instances online of people claiming its 12/8, and that’s actually feeling more intuitive to me. i’m not touching the 13/8 part though.

7

The tempo would be like super-fast at 6/8, like over 350. It just doesn’t feel that fast to me.

8

This brings up a question that has always bugged me: Is there really a difference between 3/4 and 6/8?

(A difference in what is heard, that is, not how it is written on the page)

mmm

ETA: Perhaps, as @Maserschmidt indicates, it is in the emphasis of the beats:

3/4 = one TWO THREE one TWO THREE
6/8 = ONE two three four five six ONE two three four five six

9

I assume yes: at least by definition, 3/4 is simple triple metre, while 6/8 is compound duple metre. So they are not even written the same (beaming, etc.) on the page: 3/4 has three beats while 6/8 has two.

10

I have nothing helpful to say but I think both those songs are wonderful.

11

At least in popular music, to me 3/4 would have a waltz feel and 6/8 would have a Blues/shuffle beat feel.

12

6/8? A very fast waltz?

13

The difference is subtle, but it is there. Generally the “downbeat” (first beat of the bar) is the strongest beat, but there can also be an internal beat that is stronger than the other internal beats, but not as strong as the downbeat. You can hear this in 4/4, where beat three is stronger than 2 or 4, but not as strong as 1. 6/8 has its primary accent on 1 and the secondary accent on 4. 3/4 will have an equally strong beat every three counts.

Usually fewer strong beats results in a more fluid feel.