6/4 vs. 6/8

[Roger Hare]

One for the English Country Dance experts, I think?

 

I recently came across a rendering in 6/8 of a tune which I had previously seen with a time sig. of 6/4.

 

The first version was in a modern tune book, the second was a transcription of the tune in Playford,

where I can see many more tunes in 6/4.

 

I now realise that 6/8 was not in common use until after  ~1700(?).

 

My question: Is it 'valid' to convert a tune from 6/4 to 6/8 like this? Certainly when I've tried it with a

few more 6/4 tune from Playford, it seems to 'work' - but only some of the time...

 

Thank you in advance for any advice/insight into this - my limited knowledge of music 'theory' has let

me down badly in this instance...

 

 

Edited May 3 by Roger Hare

[Mikefule]

My understanding is that 6/4 and 6/8 sound the same.  It is just the choice of a different standard length note for notation purposes.  If a tune is in simple triplets (did-er-ley did-er-ley) then either would do, but if the notes are often smaller (d-did-d-der-l-ley...) then it may be easier to write it in 6/4.

[Little John]

Both 6/4 and 6/8 indicate six beats to the bar, so at one level they are interchangeable. Conventionally, though, 6/4 is used when the bar is divided into three groups of two beats (compound triple) and 6/8 is used when the bar is divided into two groups of three beats (compound duple). Whatever time signature is used, the music should make it obvious which treatment is intended: triple-time hornpipe or Irish jig.

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

I have a collection on the Playford in 6/4 presentation ( and other tunes also. I find it makes you consider the rhythm in another way to usual. A broader and wider scheme in the notes, and can work quite well on some tunes.

[David Barnert]

5 hours ago, Little John said:

Both 6/4 and 6/8 indicate six beats to the bar, so at one level they are interchangeable. Conventionally, though, 6/4 is used when the bar is divided into three groups of two beats (compound triple) and 6/8 is used when the bar is divided into two groups of three beats (compound duple). Whatever time signature is used, the music should make it obvious which treatment is intended: triple-time hornpipe or Irish jig.

 

I’m not sure I agree. I’ve been dancing to and playing English Country Dance music (Playford, etc.) for over 40 years (I know: I’m not English, so what do I know?). When the bar is divided into three groups of two beats in this kind of music it is generally notated as 3/2. The difference I’ve noticed between 6/4 and 6/8 is that tunes in 6/4 are played at a more stately pace, while tunes in 6/8 are played like jigs. But both are played as two groups of three beats.

[Roger Hare]

Thanks all!

 

Quite a lot to absorb and reflect on there...

 

Picking up on some of those points:

 

It is easier under some circumstances to use L:1/4 rather than L:1/8, but (as it happens), I'm not generally bothered by the 'hit' which can mean typing a few extra characters when using L:1/8. Not immediately relevant here because I'm dealing with existing ABC files where some-one else has done the work of typing the stuff in, but Ido  take the point...

 

If I do 'experiment' by converting 6/4 to 6/8, this isn't relevant as in these circumstances, this is a purely mechanical editing process - for example:

 

M:6/4

L:1/4

Q:3/4=90

 

becomes:

 

M:6/8

L:1/8

Q:3/8=90

and the tune is magically converted from 6/4 to 6/8 without touching the actual music code. Whether it's 'legitimate' is another matter...

 

The point about 6/4 tunes being played at a more 'stately' pace hadn't occurred to me - clearly, it's important and I need to consider that.

 

The background to this is that I've looked recently at several printed/MSS collections from the 19th century, and the presence of 6/4 tunes wasn't really a problem because there were so few of them. It was only when I started to look at the (earlier) Playford volumes that I realised that there were enough 6/4 tunes to give me a headache.

 

The tunes do sound the same whether played back as a 6/4 or a 6/8 tune - until I add basic accompaniment chords - after which they do (or can) sound completely different, and I've had difficulty deciding which sounds better.

 

I never even considered the 3/2 (hornpipe?) angle - even more to think about...

 

I'd love to know how those 18th century dance bands really sounded. Presumably they just 'knew' that one 6/4 tune was played slowish, and another 6/4 tune was played faster like a jig...

 

Thanks all - enough there to keep me off the streets, and out of the public houses for a while longer!

 

 

Edited May 4 by Roger Hare

[Paul_Hardy]

It does annoy me that we still seem to be continuing the multi-century inflation in tempos, and deflation of typical note lengths. We are making yet more use of semiquavers and demisemiquavers (16th and 32th notes in USA), and less of semibreves and minims (whole notes and half notes).  In original stave-based musical notation, the breve (US Double note) was the shortest note (breve = brief), with longer ones being the Lunga and the Maxima. Now the breve is the longest one used.

 

It seems that people writing music wanted to hear it faster, so wrote it with shorter note lengths. However the singers and players wanted it slower, so they stretched the played length of a crotchet, quaver etc. Over time we had to use shorter and shorter written notes for the same sound!

 

When I was building my Paul Hardy's Session Tunebook (https://pghardy.net/tunebooks/), I quite often rescaled tunes (doubling the unit) so that it used minims, crotchets and quavers for easier readability, avoiding demisemiquavers etc.

[SIMON GABRIELOW]

I have some of the Fluyten lust hof books based upon 17th century Jacob van eyck ( written for recorder originally).. and reproduced in the pages are kept all the older use of breves, and minims, and few bar lines, based upon the ancient technique..which is interesting to play from as the sound expands in a less rigid manner to a definite fixed structure.( Interestingly..Most of these are often based upon old  choral traditional tunes).

[Roger Hare]

9 hours ago, Paul_Hardy said:

...When I was building my Paul Hardy's Session Tunebook (https://pghardy.net/tunebooks/), I quite often rescaled tunes (doubling the unit) so that it used minims, crotchets and quavers for easier readability, avoiding demisemiquavers etc.

My emphasis in the above quote.

 

On occasion, I think I've done precisely the same thing for precisely the same reason. Not restricted to 6/4 and/or 6/8 tunes.

 

It was a purely empirical/mechanical operation by a (very) amateurish musician, but it's sort of comforting to know that a real musician does the same sort of thing (if I've understood PH's post correctly, that is)...

 

Aside: David Barnert's earlier suggestion relating to playing 6/4 tunes at a more 'stately' pace works like a dream - slowing the whole thing down by simply reducing the tempo yields a far more attractive tune in many cases - without having to mess about converting 6/4 to 6/8. It looks as if 'Slow is More' (Jodi Kruskal in a recent thread) is 'good medicine'...

Edited May 5 by Roger Hare

[RAc]

FWIW:

 

I have a paper copy of this very recommendable collection:

 

https://www.orcadian.co.uk/shop/music/122-the-orkney-collection-55-tunes-from-the-orkney-isles.html

 

It does not get much more "authentic" than that in the days of the internet. 

One of my favorite sets from that collection is the March set Flett from Flotta/Gairsay:

 

In the collection, both are written on the same page, both are set in 4/4 - but the second one in half time (I include parts of the screen shot of the page to illustrate that, but do not wish to publish the whole score in respect of copyright). So in the transcription of Gairsay, there are 16 bars to each part, but in FFF just 8. I take it that the transcriptions were taken from different sources.

 

That appears to prove again that written music (in particular in folk contexts) needs to be taken with a grain of salt. 

 

Edited May 5 by RAc

[John Wild]

The notation I have for Gairsay is written as 2/4 time. See PDF below. Edited to add: This was found in the book Fiddle music from Northern Lands. The notes in the book tell us "Although it was composed as a march, it has a ring to it that is reminiscent of of a Ganglat. It also makes a fine slow air."

Gairsay.pdf

Edited May 5 by John Wild
additional information added.

[Little John]

On 5/4/2025 at 1:16 AM, David Barnert said:

When the bar is divided into three groups of two beats in this kind of music it is generally notated as 3/2.

 

As ever, David, you are right. 3/2, not 6/4 as I said without thinking enough! Interestingly, though, I've just flicked through a book of Anglo-Scottish Triple Hornpipes. Most of them don't have a time signature at all, which sort of reinforces the other point I made:

 

On 5/3/2025 at 7:18 PM, Little John said:

Whatever time signature is used, the music should make it obvious which treatment is intended: triple-time hornpipe or Irish jig.

 

I was also careful to refer to "Irish jig", which implies 6/8 time. In England a jig is just a solo dance (or occasionally a dance for two as a "double jig") irrespective of the time signature. The Radstock Jig, for example is in 4/4 while Kemp's Jig appears in 2/2, 2/4 and 6/4 times in different places.

[RAc]

2 hours ago, John Wild said:

The notation I have for Gairsay is written as 2/4 time. See PDF below. Edited to add: This was found in the book Fiddle music from Northern Lands. The notes in the book tell us "Although it was composed as a march, it has a ring to it that is reminiscent of of a Ganglat. It also makes a fine slow air."

Gairsay.pdf 20.96 kB · 1 download

 

Interesting, thanks!

 

This leads me to the one issue where I would see a difference between the time signatures: For this set, I tend to play my oom-pahs on the LH on every beat of the 4/4 Gairsay version (ie the oom on 1 and 3 and the pah on 2 and 4), so once the time signature has the function to determine where the beats go, the 4/4 Gairsay version reflects this best. Of course for pure melody instruments like the fiddle, this is less relevant.

  

[Roger Hare]

20 hours ago, RAc said:

...One of my favorite sets from that collection is the March set Flett from Flotta/Gairsay...

In the collection, both are written on the same page, both are set in 4/4

...

That appears to prove again that written music (in particular in folk contexts) needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

16 hours ago, John Wild said:

...The notation I have for Gairsay is written as 2/4 time...

My original question was about 6/4 and 6/8 tunes in the context of Playford, but it had the potential to be a wider-ranging question.

 

wrt those two tunes, I have a copy of both in 4/4. I don't know the provenance of the two transcriptions, but I can see the effect mentioned by RAc in the scores.

 

I can see other tunes in my collection which appear in 2/4, 4/4 and 2/2 versions - all of which does indeed prove (yet) again that "written music (in particular in folk contexts) needs to be taken with a grain of salt.". 

 

I'm usually fairly relaxed about this, and will proceed on the basis that 'if it sounds OK, it probably is OK', but occasionally I have a minor crisis of confidence and need to ask a question like my original 64 vs. 6/8 question...

Edited May 6 by Roger Hare

[John Wild]

7 hours ago, Roger Hare said:

 

My original question was about 6/4 and 6/8 tunes in the context of Playford, but it had the potential to be a wider-ranging question.

Sorry if I was leading the topic away from the original intention.

[Roger Hare]

1 hour ago, John Wild said:

Sorry if I was leading the topic away from the original intention.

Not at all! I mentioned 6/4 and 6/8 because I had started doing a quick-and-dirty trawl through Playford looking for 'good tunes' I hadn't come across before, and I encountered a few problems with those specific time signatures.

 

At an almost subconscious level, I've been aware for some time that there can be inconsistencies (ie: stuff I don't understand as well as I should!🙁/🙂) with other time signatures. Some of this is in transcriptions of earlier printed books/MSS (eg: Playford), but there are inconsistencies in later material - I've merely become more aware of this since starting to look at Playford. I've seen stuff which puzzles me in both 19th and 20th century tune books in the last few days - in all sorts of time signatures.

 

Input from folks who know more than me (ie: everybody else🙂) has been extremely helpful...

Edited May 6 by Roger Hare

[Pianist]

On 5/4/2025 at 7:52 PM, Paul_Hardy said:

It does annoy me that we still seem to be continuing the multi-century inflation in tempos, and deflation of typical note lengths. We are making yet more use of semiquavers and demisemiquavers (16th and 32th notes in USA), and less of semibreves and minims (whole notes and half notes).  In original stave-based musical notation, the breve (US Double note) was the shortest note (breve = brief), with longer ones being the Lunga and the Maxima. Now the breve is the longest one used.

 

It seems that people writing music wanted to hear it faster, so wrote it with shorter note lengths. However the singers and players wanted it slower, so they stretched the played length of a crotchet, quaver etc. Over time we had to use shorter and shorter written notes for the same sound!

 

 

Hmm. Look at something like the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book or any decent book of divisions.The tune may start in mininims or whole notes but after three divisions it's quavers (8th notes) after four divisions it's semiquavers (16th notes) and the final divison would be  demisemiquavers (32nd notes).  Nothing to do with wanting it faster, just a natural development of the tune.

[Paul_Hardy]

On 5/6/2025 at 5:11 PM, Pianist said:

Nothing to do with wanting it faster, just a natural development of the tune.

 

Yeah, but these days most tunes that don't rely on divisions and keep at the same rate are set starting off with quavers and semiquavers! I've no objection to divisions when needed, but not unnecessarily.

 

Aside: I live about 5 miles from the FVB, just outside Cambridge, and have a card for the University Library.