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Je Voyage Tout Partout


Owen Anderson

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>>On 11/13/2021 at 6:05 AM, lachenal74693 said:

>>I think I may also start using 4/4 and 2/2 and drop C and C| completely - it's 'clearer'...

>1 hour ago Paul Hardy said:

>Hear hear - I systematically switched tunes to numeric ratios when including them in my tunebook.

 

Good! I appear to be doing something 'right'. Not before time...😎

 

I note also your use of the word 'ratios'. I've always been a little uncomfortable about the reduction of

the 'meter ratio' to a decimal fraction (as used to determine the 'default' note length in ABC). Never

seemed quite right to me...

Edited by lachenal74693
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1 hour ago, Paul_Hardy said:

I think that "plays twice as fast" is wrong/confusing. A bar of 2/2 and a bar of 4/4 should both take the same amount of time, so no faster. The beats are twice as *slow* in 2/2.

Time signature does not, by itself, determine speed. Music in any time signature might be played at any speed. However, if you play much for dancing (as many of us here do), then the speed of the beat is determined by the dance. So if a measure of music has two beats it will go by twice as quickly as the same notes in the same notation if that measure is considered to have four beats.

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I'm not sure why I didn't think of this earlier. Another example of two time signatures being "equal" mathematically but very different musically is the case of 3/4 and 6/8. Each measure has a duration of six eights notes, but those eight-note-durations are grouped differently. In 3/4 there are 3 beats (each consisting of 2 eight notes), and in 6/8 there are two beats (each consisting of 3 eight notes). A good way to hear the very obvious difference is by listening to the song "America" from the musical West Side Story, where measures of 3/4 and 6/8 alternate. This alternating of 3/4 and 6/8 is sometimes called guajiras rhythm.

Here is a youtube link. The guajiras rhythm starts at about one minute in.

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Jim2010 said:

This alternating of 3/4 and 6/8 is sometimes called guajiras rhythm.

In classical music (particularly in “early” music) it’s called a hemiola. Three measures of two taking the place of two measures of three. A friend of mine, the late Dr. David Goldstein, wrote this limerick to illustrate:

 

If playing’s your joy and delight

But triple time gets you uptight,

   I’d suggest on the whole, a

   Discreet hemiola

Will make the rhythm come out right.

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3 hours ago, Jim2010 said:

The guajiras rhythm starts at about one minute in.

So "ev-ry thi-ngs ri-ght" is 6/8 and "in Amer-ica" is 3/4? No, See Jim2010's reply below.

 

Are the actual note durations the same?  The same tempo but a different rhythm? 

 

Edited by Don Taylor
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6/8                      3/4

I   like to  be in A | me ri   ca

1  2     3   4   5   6   1    2    3

O kay by me in A | me ri   ca

 

Think of the 1/8 notes as grouped like this. In the example, there are no 1/8 notes in the 3/4, so I just wrote 1 2 3

I could have written 1 3 5, meaning the notes start on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th 1/8 notes in the measure.

 

6/8            3/4

                               

123 456 |  12 34 56

                  1    2   3

                  1    3   5

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Saying the same thing a different way: “I like to be in A-“ are all 8th notes, phrased as in 6/8 (123 123).

 

“Me-Ri-Ca” are quarter notes, phrased as in 3/4 (12 12 12).

 

As you can hear in the video, the speed at which the 8th notes go by (and therefore the duration of the measures) never changes.

 

143569_detail-01.jpg

Edited by David Barnert
add music image
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56 minutes ago, David Barnert said:

143569_detail-01.jpg

This score as written above does not alternate between 6/8 and 3/4, it stays in 6/8 alternating between measures of six 1/8 notes (stacatto) and then of three 1/4 notes (tenuto).

 

Listening to the video I think that I hear an emphasis on the first and third notes, me-ri-ca!, of the three note measures so is that really 3/4 time?

 

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5 hours ago, Don Taylor said:

This score as written above does not alternate between 6/8 and 3/4, it stays in 6/8 alternating between measures of six 1/8 notes (stacatto) and then of three 1/4 notes (tenuto).

 

Listening to the video I think that I hear an emphasis on the first and third notes, me-ri-ca!, of the three note measures so is that really 3/4 time?

 

Look at the accent marks (like inverted v’s) in the left hand of the piano part. This signifies that regardless of the time signature and what it implies about where the accents should usually fall, this is where the composer wants accents.

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9 hours ago, Don Taylor said:

This score as written above does not alternate between 6/8 and 3/4, it stays in 6/8 alternating between measures of six 1/8 notes (stacatto) and then of three 1/4 notes (tenuto).

 

Listening to the video I think that I hear an emphasis on the first and third notes, me-ri-ca!, of the three note measures so is that really 3/4 time?

 

Music notation (all the various kinds) is a kind of shorthand that uses numbers, letters, and symbols in an attempt communicate what a particular piece of music should sound like. Each type of notation has various strengths and weaknesses when it comes to knowing exactly how the music should be played. A performer's familiarity with the various styles of music fills in what might be considered "missing information."

Here is a non-musical example.

If someone is visiting at your house, they might see a piece of paper on the kitchen table with the following symbols marked on it: bread, milk, bananas, paper towels.

If the person can read English, they will likely know what these symbols represent. And they can probably guess that they are looking at a shopping list. But there is a lot missing on the list, what kind of bread and how much? What store or stores will have these items? Who is to use this list, you or someone else in the household? When do you need the items? Your visitor may not be able to answer these questions, but you know all the answers. You don't need everything spelled out in detail.

If we were in a house in France, the list might have completely different symbols pain, lait, bananes, serviettes en papier. But a person who can read French would still know that it was a shopping list.

The symbols aren't what's important, what they represent is important.

The score that David provided has symbols that provide enough information for orchestral musicians to have a pretty good idea of what the music should sound like. When they get together to rehearse, the conductor will give them most specifics (how fast, how loud or soft, etc.)

But the symbols could have been written differently. In the section of the music we are talking about, the composer could have written the 6/8 time signature in each measure that he (Leonard Bernstein) wanted to sound like 6/8, and written the 3/4 time signature in each measure that he (wanted to sound like 3/4. But that would be cumbersome and the musicians for whom these particular symbols were written don't need all that.

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