The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation fo ...
to specify how many
beat
Beat, beats or beating may refer to:
Common uses
* Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area
** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols
** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men
* Battery (c ...
s (pulses) are contained in each measure (
bar
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar (u ...
), and which
note value
In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the texture or shape of the '' notehead'', the presence or absence of a ''stem'', and the presence or absence of ''flags/ beams/hooks/tails''. Unmodified note valu ...
is equivalent to a beat.
In a music score, the time signature appears at the beginning as a time symbol or stacked numerals, such as or (read ''common time'' or ''four-four time'', respectively), immediately following the
key signature
In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (), flat (), or rarely, natural () symbols placed on the staff at the beginning of a section of music. The initial key signature in a piece is placed immediately after the clef at ...
(or immediately following the
clef
A clef (from French: 'key') is a Musical notation, musical symbol used to indicate which Musical note, notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical staff (music), stave. Placing a clef on a stave assigns a particular pitch to ...
symbol if the key signature is empty). A mid-score time signature, usually immediately following a
barline
In musical notation, a bar (or measure) is a segment of time corresponding to a specific number of beats in which each beat is represented by a particular note value and the boundaries of the bar are indicated by vertical bar lines. Dividing m ...
, indicates a change of
meter
The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...
.
There are various types of time signatures, depending on whether the music follows regular (or symmetrical) beat patterns, including
simple
Simple or SIMPLE may refer to:
*Simplicity, the state or quality of being simple
Arts and entertainment
* ''Simple'' (album), by Andy Yorke, 2008, and its title track
* "Simple" (Florida Georgia Line song), 2018
* "Simple", a song by Johnn ...
(e.g., and ), and
compound
Compound may refer to:
Architecture and built environments
* Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall
** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struc ...
(e.g., and ); or involves shifting beat patterns, including
complex
Complex commonly refers to:
* Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe
** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...
(e.g., or ),
mixed (e.g., & or & ),
additive
Additive may refer to:
Mathematics
* Additive function, a function in number theory
* Additive map, a function that preserves the addition operation
* Additive set-functionn see Sigma additivity
* Additive category, a preadditive category with f ...
(e.g., ),
fractional (e.g., ), and
irrational meters
Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking, or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate use of reason, or through emotional distress or cognitive deficiency. T ...
(e.g., or ).
Frequently used time signatures
Simple vs. compound
Simple
Simple time signatures consist of two numerals, one stacked above the other:
* The ''lower'' numeral indicates the note value that represents one beat (the ''beat unit''). This number is typically a
power of 2
A power of two is a number of the form where is an integer, that is, the result of exponentiation with number two as the base and integer as the exponent.
In a context where only integers are considered, is restricted to non-negative ...
.
* The ''upper'' numeral indicates how many such beats constitute a
bar
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar (u ...
.
For instance, means two
quarter-note
A quarter note (American) or crotchet ( ) (British) is a musical note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note (or semibreve). Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight, flagless stem. The stem us ...
(crotchet) beats per bar, while means three
eighth-note
180px, Figure 1. An eighth note with stem extending up, an eighth note with stem extending down, and an eighth rest.
180px, Figure 2. Four eighth notes beamed together.
An eighth note (American) or a quaver (British) is a musical note play ...
s (quavers) per bar, which are beats at slower tempos (but at faster tempos, becomes compound time, with one beat per bar). The most common simple time signatures are , , and .
By convention, two special symbols are sometimes used for and :
* The symbol is sometimes used for time, also called ''common time'' or ''imperfect time''. The symbol is derived from a
broken circle used in music notation from the 14th through 16th centuries, where a full circle represented what today would be written in or time and was called ''tempus perfectum'' (perfect time). See
Mensural time signatures below.
* The symbol is also a legacy from the notational practice of late-
Medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
and
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
music, where it signified ''tempus imperfectum diminutum'' (diminished imperfect time)—more precisely, a doubling of the speed, or ''proportio dupla'', in duple meter. In modern notation, it is used in place of and is called ''
alla breve
''Alla breve'' also known as cut time or cut common timeis a musical meter notated by the time signature symbol (a C with a vertical line through it), which is the equivalent of . The term is Italian for "on the breve", originally meaning th ...
'' or, colloquially, ''cut time'' or ''cut common time''.
Compound
In
compound meter, subdivisions (which are what the upper number represents in these meters) of the beat are in three equal parts, so that a
dotted note
In Western musical notation, a dotted note is a note with a small dot written after it. In modern practice, the first dot increases the duration of the basic note by half (the original note with an extra beam) of its original value. This means ...
(half again longer than a regular note) becomes the beat. The upper numeral of compound time signatures is commonly 6, 9, or 12 (multiples of 3 in each beat). The lower number is most commonly an 8 (an eighth-note or quaver): as in or .
Examples
In the examples below, bold denotes a more-stressed beat, and ''italics'' denotes a less-stressed beat.
''Simple'': is a simple
triple meter
Triple metre (or Am. triple meter, also known as triple time) is a musical metre characterized by a ''primary'' division of 3 beats to the bar, usually indicated by 3 (simple) or 9 ( compound) in the upper figure of the time signature, with , , ...
time signature that represents three quarter notes (crotchets). It is felt as
::: one and ''two'' and ''three'' and ...
''Compound'': In principle, comprises not three groups of two eighth notes (quavers) but two groups of three eighth-note (quaver) subdivisions. It is felt as
::: one two three ''four'' five six ...
Duple, triple, etc.
Time signatures indicating ''two'' beats per bar (whether in simple or compound meter) are called
''duple meter'', while those with ''three'' beats to the bar are
''triple meter''. Terms such as ''
quadruple
Quadruple may refer to:
* 4-tuple, an ordered list of elements, with four elements
* Quad (figure skating), a figure skating jump
* Quadruple (computing), a term used as alternative for nibble in some contexts
* Quadruple-precision floating-point ...
'' (4), ''
quintuple
In mathematics, a tuple is a finite ordered list (sequence) of elements. An -tuple is a sequence (or ordered list) of elements, where is a non-negative integer. There is only one 0-tuple, referred to as ''the empty tuple''. An -tuple is def ...
'' (5), and so on, are also occasionally used.
Tempo giusto
While changing the bottom number and keeping the top number fixed only formally changes notation, without changing meaning – , , , and are all three beats to a meter, just noted with eighth notes, quarter notes, half notes, or whole notes – these conventionally imply different performance and different tempi. Conventionally, larger numbers in the bottom correspond to faster tempi and smaller numbers correspond to slower tempi. This convention is known as ''
tempo giusto
''Tempo giusto'' () is a musical term that literally means 'in exact time', often directing a return to strict time following a period of rubato. It most commonly indicates a return to the main tempo after a temporary change (e.g. a rallentando). ...
'', and means that the tempo of each note remains in a narrower, "normal" range. For illustration, a quarter note might correspond to 60–120 bpm, a half note to 30–60 bpm, a whole note to 15–30 bpm, and an eighth note to 120–240 bpm; these are not strict, but show an example of "normal" ranges.
This convention dates to the
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
era, when tempo changes were indicated by changing time signature during the piece, rather than by using a single time signature and changing tempo marking. For example, while , , , and have the same beat pattern, they would conventionally be used for increasingly slow music. A 20th century example is "
O Fortuna
"O Fortuna" is a medieval Latin Goliardic poem which is part of the collection known as the ''Carmina Burana'', written early in the 13th century. It is a complaint about Fortuna, the inexorable fate that rules both gods and mortals in Roman an ...
" (1935–1936) by
Carl Orff
Carl Orff (; 10 July 1895 – 29 March 1982) was a German composer and music educator, best known for his cantata '' Carmina Burana'' (1937). The concepts of his Schulwerk were influential for children's music education.
Life
Early life
Carl ...
, which begins slowly in , and then speeds up and changes to .
Beating time signatures
To the ear, a bar may seem like one singular beat. For example, a fast waltz, notated in time, may be described as being ''one in a bar''. Correspondingly, at slow tempos, the beat indicated by the time signature could in actual performance be divided into smaller units.
On a formal mathematical level, the time signatures of, e.g., and are interchangeable. In a sense, ''all'' simple triple time signatures, such as , , , etc.—and all compound duple times, such as , and so on, are equivalent. A piece in can be easily rewritten in , simply by halving the length of the notes.
:
\new Staff <<
\new voice \relative c'
\new voice \relative c''
>>
Other time signature rewritings are possible: most commonly a simple time signature with triplets translates into a compound meter.
:
\new Staff <<
\new voice \relative c'
\new voice \relative c''
>>
Though formally interchangeable, for a composer or performing musician, by convention, different time signatures often have different connotations. First, a smaller note value in the beat unit implies a more complex notation, which can affect ease of performance. Second, beaming affects the choice of actual beat divisions. It is, for example, more natural to use the quarter note/crotchet as a beat unit in or than the eighth note/quaver in or . Third, time signatures are traditionally associated with different music styles—it would seem strange to notate a conventional
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
song in or , rather than .
Characteristics
The table below shows the characteristics of the most frequently used time signatures.
Complex time signatures
Signatures that do not fit the usual duple or triple categories are called ''complex'', ''asymmetric'', ''irregular'', ''unusual'', or ''odd''—though these are broad terms, and usually a more specific description is appropriate. The term ''odd meter'', however, sometimes describes time signatures in which the upper number is simply odd rather than even, including and .
[Tim Emmons, ''Odd Meter Bass: Playing Odd Time Signatures Made Easy'' (Van Nuys: Alfred Publishing, 2008): 4. . "What is an 'odd meter'?...A complete definition would begin with the idea of music organized in repeating rhythmic groups of three, five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen, fifteen, etc."]
The irregular meters (not fitting duple or triple categories) are common in some non-Western music, but rarely appeared in formal written Western music until the 19th century. Early anomalous examples appeared in Spain between 1516 and 1520,
but the
Delphic Hymns
The Delphic Hymns are two musical compositions from Ancient Greece, which survive in substantial fragments. They were long regarded as being dated circa 138 BC and 128 BC, respectively, but recent scholarship has shown it likely they wer ...
to
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
(one by
Athenaeus
Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of th ...
is entirely in quintuple meter, the other by
Limenius
Limenius ( grc-gre, Λιμήνιος; fl. 2nd century BC) was an Athenian musician and the creator of the Second Delphic Hymn in 128 BC. He is the earliest known composer in recorded history for a surviving piece of music, or one of the two earli ...
predominantly so), carved on the exterior walls of the
Athenian Treasury
The Athenian Treasury (Greek: Θησαυρός των Αθηναίων) at Delphi was constructed by the Athenians to house dedications and votive offerings made by their city and citizens to the sanctuary of Apollo. The entire treasury including ...
at
Delphi
Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracle ...
in 128 BC, are in the relatively common
cretic
A cretic (; also Cretic, amphimacer and sometimes paeon diagyios)Squire, pp. 142, 384. is a metrical foot containing three syllables: long, short, long ( ). In Greek poetry, the cretic was usually a form of paeonic or aeolic verse. ...
meter, with five beats to a foot.
The third movement of
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leadin ...
's
Piano Sonata No. 1 (1828) is an early, but by no means the earliest, example of time in solo piano music.
Anton Reicha
Anton (Antonín, Antoine) Joseph Reicha (Rejcha) (26 February 1770 – 28 May 1836) was a Czech-born, Bavarian-educated, later naturalized French composer and music theorist. A contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven, he is now best reme ...
's Fugue No. 20 from his ''
Thirty-six Fugues'', published in 1803, is also for piano and is in . The
waltz
The waltz ( ), meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple ( time), performed primarily in closed position.
History
There are many references to a sliding or gliding dance that would evolve into the wa ...
-like second movement of Tchaikovsky's
''Pathétique'' Symphony (shown below), often described as a "limping waltz", is a notable example of time in orchestral music.
:
\relative c
Examples from
20th-century classical music
20th-century classical music describes art music that was written nominally from 1901 to 2000, inclusive. Musical style diverged during the 20th century as it never had previously. So this century was without a dominant style. Modernism, impressio ...
include:
*
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...
's "Mars, the Bringer of War" and "Neptune, the Mystic" from ''
The Planets
''The Planets'', Op. 32, is a seven- movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1917. In the last movement the orchestra is joined by a wordless female chorus. Each movement of the suite is name ...
'' (both in )
*
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith (; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the ''Ne ...
's "Fuga secunda" in G from ''
Ludus Tonalis
''Ludus Tonalis'' ("Play of Tones", "Tonal Game", or "Tonal Primary School" after the Latin ''Ludus Litterarius''), subtitled ''Kontrapunktische, tonale, und Klaviertechnische Übungen'' (''Counterpoint, tonal and technical studies for the piano ...
'' ()
* the ending of
Stravinsky's ''
The Firebird
''The Firebird'' (french: L'Oiseau de feu, link=no; russian: Жар-птица, Zhar-ptitsa, link=no) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's ...
'' ()
* the fugue from
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos (March 5, 1887November 17, 1959) was a Brazilian composer, conductor, cellist, and classical guitarist described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the ...
's ''
Bachianas Brasileiras No. 9'' ()
* the themes for the ''
Mission: Impossible'' television series by
Lalo Schifrin
Boris Claudio "Lalo" Schifrin (born June 21, 1932) is an Argentine-American pianist, composer, arranger and conductor. He is best known for his large body of film and TV scores since the 1950s, incorporating jazz and Latin American musical elemen ...
(in ) and for ''
Room 222
''Room 222'' is an American comedy-drama television series produced by 20th Century Fox Television that aired on ABC for 112 episodes, from September 17, 1969 until January 11, 1974. The show was broadcast on Wednesday evenings at 8:30 ( EST) fo ...
'' by
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith (February 10, 1929July 21, 2004) was an American composer and conductor known for his work in film and television scoring. He composed scores for five films in the ''Star Trek'' franchise and three in the Rambo (franchise) ...
(in )
In the Western popular music tradition, unusual time signatures occur as well, with
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
in particular making frequent use of them. The use of shifting meters in
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
' "
Strawberry Fields Forever
"Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was released on 13 February 1967 as a double A-side single with "Penny Lane". It represented a departur ...
" and the use of
quintuple meter
Quintuple meter or quintuple time is a musical meter characterized by five beats in a measure.
They may consist of any combination of variably stressed or equally stressed beats.
Like the more common duple, triple, and quadruple meters, it may ...
in their "
Within You, Without You
"Within You Without You" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1967 album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. Written by lead guitarist George Harrison, it was his second composition in the Indian classical music, Ind ...
" are well-known examples,
[Edward Macan, ''Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997): 48. .] as is
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass) ...
's "
Paranoid Android
"Paranoid Android" is a song by English alternative rock band Radiohead, released as the lead single from their third studio album '' OK Computer'' (1997) on 26 May 1997. The lyrics were written by singer Thom Yorke following an unpleasant exp ...
" (includes ).
Paul Desmond
Paul Desmond (born Paul Emil Breitenfeld; November 25, 1924 – May 30, 1977) was an American jazz alto saxophone, alto saxophonist and composer, best known for his work with the Dave Brubeck Quartet and for composing that group's biggest hit, " ...
's
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
composition "
Take Five
"Take Five" is a jazz standard composed by saxophonist Paul Desmond and originally recorded by the Dave Brubeck Quartet for their album ''Time Out'' at Columbia Records' 30th Street Studios in New York City on July 1, 1959. Two years later it b ...
", in time, was one of a number of irregular-meter compositions that
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
David Warren Brubeck (; December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Often regarded as a foremost exponent of cool jazz, Brubeck's work is characterized by unusual time signatures and superimposing contrasti ...
played. They played other compositions in ("Eleven Four"), ("
Unsquare Dance
"Unsquare Dance" is a composition by jazz pianist Dave Brubeck that was released as a single in 1961. Included on Brubeck's album ''Time Further Out'', the piece reached No. 93 on the ''Cash Box'' chart on December 16, 1961.
Time signature
Wri ...
"), and ("
Blue Rondo à la Turk
"Blue Rondo à la Turk" is a jazz standard composition by Dave Brubeck. It appeared on the album '' Time Out'' in 1959. It is written in time, with one side theme in and the choice of rhythm was inspired by the Turkish aksak time signatures. I ...
"), expressed as . This last is an example of a work in a signature that, despite appearing merely compound triple, is actually more complex. Brubeck's title refers to the characteristic ''
aksak
In Ottoman musical theory, ''aksak'' is a rhythmic system in which pieces or sequences, executed in a fast tempo, are based on the uninterrupted reiteration of a matrix, which results from the juxtaposition of rhythmic cells based on the alternati ...
'' meter of the Turkish ''
karşılama
Karsilamas (From tr, karşılama, in Greek: ) is a Turkish folk dance spread all over Northwest Turkey and carried to Greece by Anatolian Greek immigrants. The term "karşılama" means "encounter, welcoming, greeting" in Turkish.
The dance is po ...
'' dance.
However, such time signatures are only unusual in most Western music. Traditional
music of the Balkans
Balkan music is a type of music found in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. The music is characterised by complex rhythm. Famous bands in Balkan music include Taraf de Haïdouks, Fanfare Ciocărlia, and No Smoking Orchestra.
Historical ...
uses such meters extensively.
Bulgarian dances
Bulgarian folk dances are intimately related to the music of Bulgaria. This distinctive feature of Balkan folk music is the asymmetrical meter, built up around various combinations of 'quick' and 'slow' beats. The music, in Western musical notat ...
, for example, include forms with 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 22, 25 and other numbers of beats per measure. These rhythms are notated as ''
additive rhythm
In music, the terms ''additive'' and ''divisive'' are used to distinguish two types of both rhythm and meter (music), meter:
* A divisive (or, alternately, multiplicative) rhythm is a rhythm in which a larger period of time is divided into smalle ...
s'' based on simple units, usually 2, 3 and 4 beats, though the notation fails to describe the
metric
Metric or metrical may refer to:
* Metric system, an internationally adopted decimal system of measurement
* An adjective indicating relation to measurement in general, or a noun describing a specific type of measurement
Mathematics
In mathem ...
"time bending" taking place, or
compound meters. See
Additive meters
Additive may refer to:
Mathematics
* Additive function, a function in number theory
* Additive map, a function that preserves the addition operation
* Additive set-functionn see Sigma additivity
* Additive category, a preadditive category with f ...
below.
Some video samples are shown below.
Mixed meters
While time signatures usually express a regular pattern of beat stresses continuing through a piece (or at least a section), sometimes composers place a different time signature at the beginning of each bar, resulting in music with an extremely irregular rhythmic feel. In this case, the time signatures are an aid to the performers and not ''necessarily'' an indication of meter. The Promenade from
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky ( rus, link=no, Модест Петрович Мусоргский, Modest Petrovich Musorgsky , mɐˈdɛst pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈmusərkskʲɪj, Ru-Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky version.ogg; – ) was a Russian compo ...
's ''
Pictures at an Exhibition
''Pictures at an Exhibition'', french: Tableaux d'une exposition, link=no is a suite (music), suite of ten piano pieces, plus a recurring, varied Promenade theme, composed by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874. The piece is Mussorgsky's ...
'' (1874) is a good example. The opening measures are shown below:
:
:
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...
's ''
The Rite of Spring
''The Rite of Spring''. Full name: ''The Rite of Spring: Pictures from Pagan Russia in Two Parts'' (french: Le Sacre du printemps: tableaux de la Russie païenne en deux parties) (french: Le Sacre du printemps, link=no) is a ballet and orchestral ...
'' (1913) is famous for its "savage" rhythms. Five measures from "Sacrificial Dance" are shown below:
:
In such cases, a convention that some composers follow (e.g.,
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically ...
, in his ''
La Nativité du Seigneur
''La Nativité du Seigneur'' (''The Nativity of the Lord'' or ''The Birth of the Saviour'') is a work for organ, written by the French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1935.
''La Nativité du Seigneur'' is a testament to Messiaen's Christian faith, ...
'' and ''
Quatuor pour la fin du temps
''Quatuor pour la fin du temps'' (), originally ''Quatuor de la fin du temps'' ("''Quartet of the End of Time''"), also known by its English title ''Quartet for the End of Time'', is an eight-movement piece of chamber music by the French composer ...
'') is to simply omit the time signature.
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...
's ''
Concord Sonata
The Piano Sonata No. 2, ''Concord, Mass., 1840–60'' (commonly known as the ''Concord Sonata'') is a piano sonata by Charles Ives. It is one of the composer's best-known and most highly regarded pieces. A typical performance of the piece lasts ar ...
'' has measure bars for select passages, but the majority of the work is unbarred.
Some pieces have no time signature, as there is no discernible meter. This is sometimes known as
''free time''. Sometimes one is provided (usually ) so that the performer finds the piece easier to read, and simply has "free time" written as a direction. Sometimes the word ''FREE'' is written downwards on the staff to indicate the piece is in free time.
Erik Satie
Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (, ; ; 17 May 18661 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an und ...
wrote many compositions that are ostensibly in free time but actually follow an unstated and unchanging simple time signature. Later composers used this device more effectively, writing music almost devoid of a discernibly regular pulse.
If two time signatures alternate repeatedly, sometimes the two signatures are placed together at the beginning of the piece or section, as shown below:
:
Additive meters
To indicate more complex patterns of stresses, such as
additive rhythm
In music, the terms ''additive'' and ''divisive'' are used to distinguish two types of both rhythm and meter (music), meter:
* A divisive (or, alternately, multiplicative) rhythm is a rhythm in which a larger period of time is divided into smalle ...
s, more complex time signatures can be used. Additive meters have a pattern of
beats that subdivide into smaller, irregular groups. Such meters are sometimes called ''imperfect'', in contrast to ''perfect meters'', in which the
bar
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar (u ...
is first divided into equal units.
For example, the time signature means that there are 8 quaver beats in the bar, divided as the first of a group of three eighth notes (quavers) that are stressed, then the first of a group of two, then first of a group of three again. The stress pattern is usually counted as
:: : one two three ''one'' two ''one'' two three ...
This kind of time signature is commonly used to notate folk and non-Western types of music. In classical music,
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...
and
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically ...
have used such time signatures in their works. The first movement of
Maurice Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...
's
Piano Trio in A Minor is written in , in which the beats are likewise subdivided into to reflect
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
dance rhythms.
Romanian
musicologist
Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...
Constantin Brăiloiu
Constantin Brăiloiu (13 August 1893 in Bucharest – 20 December 1958 in Geneva) was a Romanian composer and internationally known ethnomusicologist.
Brăiloiu was born in Bucharest. He studied in Bucharest (1901–1907), Vienna (1907–190 ...
had a special interest in compound time signatures, developed while studying the
traditional music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
of certain regions in his country. While investigating the origins of such unusual meters, he learned that they were even more characteristic of the traditional music of neighboring peoples (e.g., the
Bulgarians
Bulgarians ( bg, българи, Bǎlgari, ) are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and the rest of Southeast Europe.
Etymology
Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars. Their name is not completely understo ...
). He suggested that such timings can be regarded as compounds of simple two-beat and three-beat meters, where an accent falls on every first beat, even though, for example in
Bulgarian music
The music of Bulgaria refers to all forms of music associated with the country of Bulgaria, including classical, folk, popular music, and other forms.
Classical music, opera, and ballet are represented by composers Emanuil Manolov, Pancho Vladig ...
, beat lengths of 1, 2, 3, 4 are used in the metric description. In addition, when focused only on stressed beats, simple time signatures can count as beats in a slower, compound time. However, there are two different-length beats in this resulting compound time, a one half-again longer than the short beat (or conversely, the short beat is the value of the long). This type of meter is called ''
aksak
In Ottoman musical theory, ''aksak'' is a rhythmic system in which pieces or sequences, executed in a fast tempo, are based on the uninterrupted reiteration of a matrix, which results from the juxtaposition of rhythmic cells based on the alternati ...
'' (the Turkish word for "limping"), ''impeded'', ''jolting'', or ''shaking'', and is described as an ''irregular bichronic rhythm''. A certain amount of confusion for Western musicians is inevitable, since a measure they would likely regard as , for example, is a three-beat measure in ''aksak'', with one long and two short beats (with subdivisions of , , or ).
Folk music may make use of metric time bends, so that the proportions of the performed metric beat time lengths differ from the exact proportions indicated by the metric. Depending on playing style of the same meter, the time bend can vary from non-existent to considerable; in the latter case, some musicologists may want to assign a different meter. For example, the Bulgarian tune "
Eleno Mome" is written in one of three forms: (1) , (2) , or (3) , but an actual performance (e.g., "Eleno Mome") may be closer to . The Macedonian meter is even more complicated, with heavier time bends, and use of quadruples on the threes. The metric beat time proportions may vary with the speed that the tune is played. The Swedish
Boda Polska (Polska from the parish Boda) has a typical elongated second beat.
In Western classical music, metric time bend is used in the performance of the
Viennese waltz
Viennese waltz (german: Wiener Walzer) is a genre of ballroom dance. At least four different meanings are recognized. In the historically first sense, the name may refer to several versions of the waltz, including the earliest waltzes done in b ...
. Most Western music uses metric ratios of 2:1, 3:1, or 4:1 (two-, three- or four-beat time signatures)—in other words, integer ratios that make all beats equal in time length. So, relative to that, 3:2 and 4:3 ratios correspond to very distinctive metric rhythm profiles. Complex accentuation occurs in Western music, but as
syncopation
In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "place ...
rather than as part of the metric accentuation.
Brăiloiu borrowed a term from
Turkish
Turkish may refer to:
*a Turkic language spoken by the Turks
* of or about Turkey
** Turkish language
*** Turkish alphabet
** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
*** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey
*** Turkish communities and mi ...
medieval music theory: ''aksak''. Such compound time signatures fall under the "aksak rhythm" category that he introduced along with a couple more that should describe the rhythm figures in traditional music.
[Gheorghe Oprea, ''Folclorul muzical românesc'' (Bucharest: Ed. Muzicala, 2002), ] The term Brăiloiu revived had moderate success worldwide, but in Eastern Europe it is still frequently used. However, aksak rhythm figures occur not only in a few European countries, but on all continents, featuring various combinations of the two and three sequences. The longest are in Bulgaria. The shortest aksak rhythm figures follow the five-beat timing, comprising a two and a three (or three and two).
Some video samples are shown below.
A method to create meters of lengths of any length has been published in the Journal of Anaphoria Music Theory and Xenharmonikon 16 using both those based on the Horograms of
Erv Wilson
Ervin Wilson (June 11, 1928 – December 8, 2016) was a Mexico, Mexican/United States, American (dual citizen) music theory, music theorist.
Early life
Ervin Wilson was born in a remote area of northwest Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua, Mexico, wher ...
and Viggo Brun's algorithm written by
Kraig Grady
Kraig Grady (born 1952) is a US-Australian composer/sound artist. He has composed and performed with an ensemble of microtonal instruments of his own design and also worked as a shadow puppeteer, tuning theorist, filmmaker, world music radio DJ ...
.
Irrational meters
Irrational time signatures (rarely, "non-dyadic time signatures") are used for so-called ''irrational bar lengths'',
["Brian Ferneyhough"](_blank)
''The Ensemble Sospeso'' that have a
denominator
A fraction (from la, fractus, "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight ...
that is not a
power of two
A power of two is a number of the form where is an integer, that is, the result of exponentiation with number two as the base and integer as the exponent.
In a context where only integers are considered, is restricted to non-negative ...
(1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.). These are based on beats expressed in terms of fractions of full beats in the prevailing tempo—for example or .
For example, where implies a bar construction of four quarter-parts of a whole note (i.e., four quarter notes), implies a bar construction of four third-parts of it. These signatures are of utility only when juxtaposed with other signatures with varying denominators; a piece written entirely in , say, could be more legibly written out in .
According to
Brian Ferneyhough
Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and ...
,
metric modulation
In music, metric modulation is a change in pulse rate (tempo) and/or pulse grouping ( subdivision) which is derived from a note value or grouping heard before the change. Examples of metric modulation may include changes in time signature across ...
is "a somewhat distant analogy" to his own use of "irrational time signatures" as a sort of rhythmic dissonance.
It is disputed whether the use of these signatures makes metric relationships clearer or more obscure to the musician; it is always possible to write a passage using non-irrational signatures by specifying a relationship between some note length in the previous bar and some other in the succeeding one. Sometimes, successive metric relationships between bars are so convoluted that the pure use of irrational signatures would quickly render the notation extremely hard to penetrate. Good examples, written entirely in conventional signatures with the aid of between-bar specified metric relationships, occur a number of times in
John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...
' opera ''
Nixon in China
''Nixon in China'' is an opera in three acts by John Adams with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams's first opera, it was inspired by U.S. president Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China. The work premiered at the Houston G ...
'' (1987), where the sole use of irrational signatures would quickly produce massive numerators and denominators.
Historically, this device has been prefigured wherever composers wrote
tuplet
In music, a tuplet (also irrational rhythm or groupings, artificial division or groupings, abnormal divisions, irregular rhythm, gruppetto, extra-metric groupings, or, rarely, contrametric rhythm) is "any rhythm that involves dividing the beat i ...
s. For example, a bar of 3 triplet quarter notes could be written as a bar of .
Henry Cowell
Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 202 ...
's piano piece ''Fabric'' (1920) employs separate divisions of the bar (1 to 9) for the three
contrapuntal
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...
parts, using a scheme of shaped
notehead
In music, a notehead is the part of a note, usually elliptical in shape, whose placement on the staff indicates the pitch, to which modifications are made that indicate duration. Noteheads may be the same shape but colored completely bl ...
s to visually clarify the differences, but the pioneering of these signatures is largely due to
Brian Ferneyhough
Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and ...
, who says that he finds that "such 'irrational' measures serve as a useful buffer between local changes of event density and actual changes of base
tempo
In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...
".
Thomas Adès
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès (born 1 March 1971) is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: '' The Tempest'' (2004), ''V ...
has also used them extensively—for example in ''
Traced Overhead
''Traced Overhead'' is a composition for piano by the British composer Thomas Adès. The work was commissioned by the pianist Imogen Cooper and the Cheltenham Music Festival with additional funding from Arts Council England. Its world premiere w ...
'' (1996), the second movement of which contains, among more conventional meters, bars in such signatures as , and .
A gradual process of diffusion into less rarefied musical circles seems underway. For example,
John Pickard's ''Eden'', commissioned for the 2005 finals of the
National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain
There are five main brass band sections in the United Kingdom: Championship, First, Second, Third, and Fourth. Sometimes, a Youth section is also used, but this is not graded.
Championship section
This is the section containing the very best ban ...
, contains bars of and .
Notationally, rather than using Cowell's elaborate series of notehead shapes, the same convention has been invoked as when normal tuplets are written; for example, one beat in is written as a normal quarter note, four quarter notes complete the bar, but the whole bar lasts only of a reference
whole note
A whole note (American) or semibreve (British) in musical notation is a single note equivalent to or lasting as long as two half notes or four quarter notes. Description
The whole note or semibreve has a note head in the shape of a hollow ov ...
, and a beat of one (or of a normal quarter note). This is notated in exactly the same way that one would write if one were writing the first four quarter notes of five quintuplet quarter notes.
Some video samples are shown below.
These video samples show two time signatures combined to make a
polymeter
In music, metre ( Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling) refers to regularly recurring patterns and accents such as bars and beats. Unlike rhythm, metric onsets are not necessarily sounded, but are nevertheless implied by the perfo ...
, since , say, in isolation, is identical to .
Variants
Some composers have used fractional beats: for example, the time signature appears in
Carlos Chávez
Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez (13 June 1899 – 2 August 1978) was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by nativ ...
's Piano Sonata No. 3 (1928) IV, m. 1. Both and appear in the fifth movement of
Percy Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy
''Lincolnshire Posy'' is a musical composition by Percy Grainger for concert band commissioned in 1937 by the American Bandmasters Association. Considered by John Bird, the author of Grainger's biography, to be his masterpiece, the work has six ...
.
Music educator
Carl Orff
Carl Orff (; 10 July 1895 – 29 March 1982) was a German composer and music educator, best known for his cantata '' Carmina Burana'' (1937). The concepts of his Schulwerk were influential for children's music education.
Life
Early life
Carl ...
proposed replacing the lower number of the time signature with an actual note image, as shown at right. This system eliminates the need for compound time signatures, which are confusing to beginners. While this notation has not been adopted by music publishers generally (except in Orff's own compositions), it is used extensively in music education textbooks. Similarly, American composers
George Crumb
George Henry Crumb Jr. (24 October 1929 – 6 February 2022) was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical ...
and
Joseph Schwantner
Joseph Clyde Schwantner (born March 22, 1943, Chicago, Illinois) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer, educator and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 2002. He was awarded the 1970 Charles Ives Prize.
Schwantner ...
, among others, have used this system in many of their works.
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (6 July 1865 – 1 July 1950) was a Swiss composer, musician, and music educator who developed Dalcroze eurhythmics, an approach to learning and experiencing music through movement. Dalcroze eurhythmics influenced Carl Or ...
proposed this in his 1920 collection, ''Le Rythme, la musique et l'éducation''.
Another possibility is to extend the barline where a time change is to take place above the top instrument's line in a score and to write the time signature there, and there only, saving the ink and effort that would have been spent writing it in each instrument's staff.
Henryk Górecki
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki ( , ; 6 December 1933 – 12 November 2010) was a Polish composer of contemporary classical music. According to critic Alex Ross, no recent classical composer has had as much commercial success as Górecki. He became a l ...
's ''Beatus Vir'' is an example of this. Alternatively, music in a large score sometimes has time signatures written as very long, thin numbers covering the whole height of the score rather than replicating it on each staff; this is an aid to the conductor, who can see signature changes more easily.
Early music usage
Mensural time signatures
In the
mensural notation
Mensural notation is the musical notation system used for European vocal polyphonic music from the later part of the 13th century until about 1600. The term "mensural" refers to the ability of this system to describe precisely measured rhythm ...
of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries there are no
bar
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar (u ...
lines, and the four basic ''mensuration signs'' indicate the normal ratio of
duration
Duration may refer to:
* The amount of time elapsed between two events
* Duration (music) – an amount of time or a particular time interval, often cited as one of the fundamental aspects of music
* Duration (philosophy) – a theory of time and ...
between different
note value
In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the texture or shape of the '' notehead'', the presence or absence of a ''stem'', and the presence or absence of ''flags/ beams/hooks/tails''. Unmodified note valu ...
s. Unlike modern notation, the subdivisions could be either 2:1 or 3:1. The relation between the ''
breve
A breve (, less often , neuter form of the Latin "short, brief") is the diacritic mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called , . It resembles the caron (the wedge or in Czech, in Slo ...
'' and the ''
semibreve'' was called tempus, and could be perfect (
triple
Triple is used in several contexts to mean "threefold" or a " treble":
Sports
* Triple (baseball), a three-base hit
* A basketball three-point field goal
* A figure skating jump with three rotations
* In bowling terms, three strikes in a row
* ...
3:1 indicated by circle) or imperfect (
duple 2:1, with broken circle), while the relation between the ''semibreve'' and the ''
minim'' was called prolatio and could be major (3:1 or
compound
Compound may refer to:
Architecture and built environments
* Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall
** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struct ...
, indicated by dot) or minor (2:1 or
simple meter
In music, metre ( Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling) refers to regularly recurring patterns and accents such as bars and beats. Unlike rhythm, metric onsets are not necessarily sounded, but are nevertheless implied by the perfo ...
).
Modern transcriptions often reduce note values 4:1, such that
* corresponds to meter;
* corresponds to meter;
* corresponds to meter;
* corresponds to meter.
N.B.: In mensural notation actual note values depend not only on the prevailing mensuration, but on rules for
imperfection and alteration, with ambiguous cases using a dot of separation, similar in appearance but not always in effect to the modern
dot of augmentation.
Proportions
Besides showing the organization of beats with
musical meter
In music, metre (British English, Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, American spelling) refers to regularly recurring patterns and accents such as bar (music), bars and Beat (music), beats ...
, the mensuration signs discussed above have a second function, which is showing tempo relationships between one section to another, which modern notation can only specify with
tuplet
In music, a tuplet (also irrational rhythm or groupings, artificial division or groupings, abnormal divisions, irregular rhythm, gruppetto, extra-metric groupings, or, rarely, contrametric rhythm) is "any rhythm that involves dividing the beat i ...
s or
metric modulation
In music, metric modulation is a change in pulse rate (tempo) and/or pulse grouping ( subdivision) which is derived from a note value or grouping heard before the change. Examples of metric modulation may include changes in time signature across ...
s. This is a fraught subject, because the usage has varied with both time and place:
Charles Hamm
Charles Edward Hamm (April 21, 1925 – October 16, 2011) was an American musicologist, writer, composer, and music educator. He is credited with being the first music historian to seriously study and write about American popular music. He al ...
was even able to establish a rough chronology of works based on three distinct usages of mensural signs over the career of
Guillaume Dufay
Guillaume Du Fay ( , ; also Dufay, Du Fayt; 5 August 1397(?) – 27 November 1474) was a French composer and music theorist of the early Renaissance. Considered the leading European composer of his time, his music was widely performed and repr ...
(1397(?) – 1474). By the end of the sixteenth century
Thomas Morley
Thomas Morley (1557 – early October 1602) was an English composer, theorist, singer and organist of the Renaissance. He was one of the foremost members of the English Madrigal School. Referring to the strong Italian influence on the Englis ...
was able to satirize the confusion in an imagined dialogue:
it was a world to hear them wrangle, every one defending his own for the best. "What? You keep not time in your proportions." "You sing them false. What proportion is this?" "Sesquipaltry." "Nay, you sing you know not what; it would seem you came lately from a barber's shop where you had 'Gregory Walker' or a Curranta played in the new Proportions by them lately found out, called 'Sesquiblinda' and 'Sesquihearkenafter'."
::''Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke'' (1597)
In general though, a slash or the numeral 2 shows a doubling of tempo, and paired numbers (either side by side or one atop another) show ratios instead of beats per measure over note value: in early music contexts for example is unrelated to 'third-notes'.
A few common signs are shown:
* ''tempus imperfectum diminutum'', 1:2 proportion (twice as fast);
* ''tempus perfectum diminutum'', 1:2 proportion (twice as fast);
* or ''proportio tripla'', 1:3 proportion (three times as fast, similar to triplets).
In particular, when the sign was encountered, the
tactus (beat) changed from the usual whole note (semibreve) to the double whole note (breve), a circumstance called ''
alla breve
''Alla breve'' also known as cut time or cut common timeis a musical meter notated by the time signature symbol (a C with a vertical line through it), which is the equivalent of . The term is Italian for "on the breve", originally meaning th ...
''. This term has been sustained to the present day, and though now it means the beat is a
half note
''Half Note'' is a live album by saxophonist Clifford Jordan which was recorded in 1974 and first released on the SteepleChase label in 1985.puzzle
A puzzle is a game, Problem solving, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together (Disentanglement puzzle, or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at th ...
" compositions that were intentionally difficult to decipher.
Irregular Bar
Irregular bars are a change in time signature normally for only one bar. Such a bar is most often a bar of
3/4,
5/4 or
2/4 in a 4/4 composition, or a bar of 4/4 in a 3/4 composition, or a bar of 5/8 in a 6/8 composition.
If a song is entirely in 4/4 a change to 3/4 will make the song feel like it has skipped a beat, the opposite is true for 5/4 where it feels like the song adds a beat. If a song changes to 2/4 is will make it feel like that bar is half as long as all the others
Some popular examples include "
Golden Brown
"Golden Brown" is a song by the English rock band the Stranglers released as a 7-inch single on EMI's Liberty label in 1982, noted for its distinctive harpsichord instrumentation. It was the second single released from the band's sixth studio ...
" by
The Stranglers
The Stranglers are an English rock band who emerged via the punk rock scene. Scoring 23 UK top 40 singles and 19 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving bands to have origina ...
(4/4 in a 3/4 composition), "
I Love Rock 'n' Roll
"I Love Rock 'n' Roll" is a rock song written by Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker and first recorded by the Arrows, a British rock band, in 1975. A 1981 cover version by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, released as the first single from her album of ...
" originally by the
Arrows (3/4 in a 4/4 composition), "
Hey Ya!
"Hey Ya!" is a song performed by American hip-hop duo Outkast, specifically group member André 3000, who wrote and produced the song. Along with "The Way You Move", recorded by Outkast's other member Big Boi, "Hey Ya!" was released by Arista ...
" by
Outkast (2/4 in a 4/4 composition), and "
Wuthering Heights
''Wuthering Heights'' is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under her pen name Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moorland, moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their tur ...
" by
Kate Bush
Catherine Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and dancer. In 1978, at the age of 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single "Wuthering Heights (song), Wuthering Heights", ...
(different kinds of irregular bars in a 4/4 composition).
See also
*
Schaffel
Schaffel (the German spelling to match the English pronunciation of "shuffle") is a fusion style of techno and rock in which minimal techno's straight-up drum kick shuffled to offbeat emphasis. Often triplet eighths are used to create swinging ...
, a kind of swing in rock and techno music
*
Tala, meter in Indian music
*
Colotomy
''Colotomy'' is an Indonesian description of the rhythmic and metric patterns of gamelan music. It refers to the use of specific instruments to mark off nested time intervals, or the process of dividing rhythmic time into such nested cycles. In ...
, a coinage by Jap Kunst to describe the metric structure of gamelan music.
References
Sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Time Signature
Musical notation
*
Articles containing video clips
Music theory