Notation - multiple time signatures

[Serial_Apologist]

Is that as opposed to using contra-puntal methods?

Now, THAT took me a few seconds to figure!

[Dave2002]

2. If a degree of aleatoric performance is intended, then a conductor will have to work out (and agree with his players) when to stop e.g. the first violins playing 500 repetitions of a phrase in 7/16 against the horns playing one 300 times in 11/16

484 vs 308 works better, otherwise one part willl slip versus the other - but maybe that can be done. There probably are pieces where both groups start together, and somehow manage to finish a section together, and everything is just "anything goes" in the middle, but managing to co-ordinate it might be tricky.

[Serial_Apologist]

There are two issues here.

1. If a piece is meant always to hang together, the multiple time signatures will allow meeting points for everyone. (A very simple example would be when 3/4 is used against 6/8 where every bar-line synchronises.) No excuse for bad conducting there.

2. If a degree of aleatoric performance is intended, then a conductor will have to work out (and agree with his players) when to stop e.g. the first viiolins playing 500 repetitions of a phrase in 7/16 against the horns playing one 300 times in 11/16

A slight side issue is that I have always been fascinated by music written in two or more different keys. An early example is Elgar's There is Sweet Music where the T&B sing in one sharp while the S&A sing in four flats.

Really??? Elgar - polytonal composer!!!

[MrGongGong]

484 vs 308 works better, otherwise one part willl slip versus the other - but maybe that can be done. There probably are pieces where both groups start together, and somehow manage to finish a section together, and everything is just "anything goes" in the middle, but managing to co-ordinate it might be tricky.

That's about "Grade 3" Tabla

[ardcarp]

Really??? Elgar - polytonal composer!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_UnMrzDsCY

It's an accurate but slightly foursquare performance. Whoever sings it, the last four bars are worth waiting for.

[Serial_Apologist]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_UnMrzDsCY

It's an accurate but slightly foursquare performance. Whoever sings it, the last four bars are worth waiting for.

And anticipative of Holst's late canons.

[Jonathan]

Liszt used it in his "Grosse Konzertfantasie über spanische Weisen" as did Tausig in "Das Geisterschiff"

[Dave2002]

I've just been trying this deliberately - though only a one-off experiment so far. Download a piece - say in Musescore - such as a waltz. Then download another one - say a march. Then modify one or both so that they are in the same key, and if necessary adjust the start bar and the tempo. Output both into midi, and then import both into a DAW of your choice.

The results are probably not going to be too pleasant, and one or the other piece will tend to dominate. This can be adjusted a bit by changing the volume levels of the different parts.

I think sometimes it is possible to get "good" or pleasant results, but that may be quite uncommon.

I'll maybe check this out a few more times - just to convince myself that this is probably not really worth doing!

As an effect it might be most useful in short fragments - but trying to do a whole piece is probably just too much.

[Pulcinella]

There's a fairly straightforward example in Belshazzar's Feast, rehearsal number 74 (Then sing, sing aloud).
The chorus parts are written in 4/2 and the orchestra is in four 9/8 bars (previously everything has been in 9/8) for each chorus 4/2 bar.
The long bars are split into the four main (minim) beats with dotted bar lines, with a helpful 1 2 3 4 marked in the first long one.

[Pulcinella]

Stravinsky uses multiple time signatures in his Requiem canticles.

Bar 4 of the Prelude has the violin solo signature written as 2/8 = 5/16 (Violins 1 and 2 are playing in 5/16).

Score available here:

https://youtu.be/HzR6NK2YMwE

[Pulcinella]

Just found another example: the ensemble at the end of Act 1 of Verdi's Falstaff (I watched the Glyndebourne production last night, and I've just been looking at the entry in Kobbé).
The men sing alla breve and the women 6/8.

[Dave2002]

Stravinsky uses multiple time signatures in his Requiem canticles.

Bar 4 of the Prelude has the violin solo signature written as 2/8 = 5/16 (Violins 1 and 2 are playing in 5/16).

Score available here:
https://youtu.be/HzR6NK2YMwE

Indeed, but what does that mean? I looked at the score, and it seems to me that if the counting is in semiquavers it works - or is the marking intended to give the player more freedom to vary the way he or she plays the notes? 2/8 should, "of course" be 4/16.

[Pulcinella]

Indeed, but what does that mean? I looked at the score, and it seems to me that if the counting is in semiquavers it works - or is the marking intended to give the player more freedom to vary the way he or she plays the notes? 2/8 should, "of course" be 4/16.

Surely that's just Stravinsky's way of saying that the two solo violin quavers (hence he uses 2/8, not 4/16, I guess) should take up as much time as the 5 semiquavers of the first and second violins.
I'm not sure what other notation (other than writing those notes as dotted quavers and keeping the 5/16 signature) would work. When we see a triplet or a quintuplet, say, played in the time of two or four 'regular' beats, the notation is usually a 3 or 5 underneath (in the middle of) the overlying bracket (? is there a better/proper word) connecting the notes; bar 6 of the work has such a triplet (so still in 2/8) for the solo violin part. I guess we sometimes see a 2 in such a place where two notes are to be played in the time of 3, for instance, so maybe he could have done something like that, and simply used a 2, especially since he DOES use the usual triplet designation in bar 6.

[Dave2002]

Just found another example: the ensemble at the end of Act 1 of Verdi's Falstaff (I watched the Glyndebourne production last night, and I've just been looking at the entry in Kobbé).
The men sing alla breve and the women 6/8.

page 118 - here http://ks.petruccimusiclibrary.org/f...ull_score).pdf

Effectively 8 beats versus 6, or 4 versus 3. Slightly different from triplets versus quavers, which are 3 versus 2.

[Pulcinella]

Parts of the scherzo of RVW's symphony 5 are notated in two different time signatures simultaneously for different instruments: 2/4 and 3/4, with the dotted minim in the latter case being identified as equivalent to a minim in the former.