How many of us really think about rhythms and time signatures?
OK - we know that a lot of music is in 4/4 and that waltzes and minuets are in 3/4, and that some more "complex" music, such as by Bartók and Dave Brubeck might be notated in other time signatures, but to what extent does the notation determine the music? Maybe a composer's intentions get shoehorned into a representation which is perhaps only an approximation of what was really hoped for. Maybe many people don't even think about time signatures at all - they just listen to the music - and don't try to analyse it at all. Try asking a "man or woman in the street" if a particular song is in 3/4 or 4/4 and I reckon many people would give an uncomprehending stare in response. I might be wrong, but I have a strong suspicion that I wouldn't be.
This article shows that things aren't always simple - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature
Before reading it I didn't know that Tchaikovsky used two time signatures together in his second string quartet - 2nd movement, though I was familiar with the 5/4 Pathetique symphony movement.
These days quite a lot of music might be generated dynamically, by a performer playing directly using a midi keyboard, but the notated results may turn out to be rather odd. The notation for many pieces of popular music often looks really weird to me. I suspect it's because someone tried to notate something that was played - rather than forcing the representation into a formal straight jacket. There isn't necessarily a single way to notate a piece of music anyway, though there can be small and subtle differences between different representations of the same piece, and the way the notation would be interpreted by different performers.
I tried to notate some ideas recently, and have been slightly surprised to discover that the best approximation I've found so far to what I imagined is actually a 7/4 representatation.
OK - we know that a lot of music is in 4/4 and that waltzes and minuets are in 3/4, and that some more "complex" music, such as by Bartók and Dave Brubeck might be notated in other time signatures, but to what extent does the notation determine the music? Maybe a composer's intentions get shoehorned into a representation which is perhaps only an approximation of what was really hoped for. Maybe many people don't even think about time signatures at all - they just listen to the music - and don't try to analyse it at all. Try asking a "man or woman in the street" if a particular song is in 3/4 or 4/4 and I reckon many people would give an uncomprehending stare in response. I might be wrong, but I have a strong suspicion that I wouldn't be.
This article shows that things aren't always simple - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature
Before reading it I didn't know that Tchaikovsky used two time signatures together in his second string quartet - 2nd movement, though I was familiar with the 5/4 Pathetique symphony movement.
These days quite a lot of music might be generated dynamically, by a performer playing directly using a midi keyboard, but the notated results may turn out to be rather odd. The notation for many pieces of popular music often looks really weird to me. I suspect it's because someone tried to notate something that was played - rather than forcing the representation into a formal straight jacket. There isn't necessarily a single way to notate a piece of music anyway, though there can be small and subtle differences between different representations of the same piece, and the way the notation would be interpreted by different performers.
I tried to notate some ideas recently, and have been slightly surprised to discover that the best approximation I've found so far to what I imagined is actually a 7/4 representatation.
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