Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie
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Musical questions and answers thread
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Four / four time & Common time
Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere.
Currently around Grade 5 in music theory, I’m still unclear about the difference between 4/4 and C (Common time). While both have four crotchets per bar, are they only different in terms of pulse, or accents, or emphasis, and always dependent on the music?
If I were a composer (which I’m not), what would make me write the music in one form rather than the other?
And then there’s the further complication of, what’s a C with a vertical line through it - Cut time? I believe this is a beat of minims, i.e. two in a bar. I know that 4/4 and C are quadruple meters, and Cut time is duple, but beyond that…?
Mario
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Mario
This might help:
By the way, and there's no need to apologise for not knowing about it, we have this thread
for asking Musical questions, and you'll usually find lots of people happy to answer!
A friendly host might even move this thread there.
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Originally posted by Pulcinella View PostMario
This might help:
By the way, and there's no need to apologise for not knowing about it, we have this thread
for asking Musical questions, and you'll usually find lots of people happy to answer!
A friendly host might even move this thread there.
Mario
[Moved - ff]
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Originally posted by Auferstehen View PostApologies if this has been covered elsewhere.
Currently around Grade 5 in music theory, I’m still unclear about the difference between 4/4 and C (Common time). While both have four crotchets per bar, are they only different in terms of pulse, or accents, or emphasis, and always dependent on the music?
If I were a composer (which I’m not), what would make me write the music in one form rather than the other?
And then there’s the further complication of, what’s a C with a vertical line through it - Cut time? I believe this is a beat of minims, i.e. two in a bar. I know that 4/4 and C are quadruple meters, and Cut time is duple, but beyond that…?
Mario
The new critical edition of the concerto, edited by Jonathan del Mar, restores the alla breve time signature. Very few pianists as yet observe the alla breve. The closest on disc is probably Melvyn Tann, with the LCP and Roger Norrington. They also take their lead from Czerny's metronome marks for the work.
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Originally posted by Auferstehen View PostI’m still unclear about the difference between 4/4 and C (Common time)...
And then there’s the further complication of, what’s a C with a vertical line through it - Cut time? I believe this is a beat of minims, i.e. two in a bar. I know that 4/4 and C are quadruple meters, and o
Split common time = 2/2
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Originally posted by Auferstehen View PostApologies if this has been covered elsewhere.
... If I were a composer (which I’m not), what would make me write the music in one form rather than the other? ...
Mario
Today you just use what you're comfortable with.
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Originally posted by Pabmusic View PostToday you just use what you're comfortable with.
Going through all my studies (I'm about to embark on Grade 6, whose syllabus looks a little foreboding), there was no clear cut answer such as yours.
Apart from saving time reading all those semiquavers and demisemiquavers, I didn't really see much difference.
So Pabmusic, I owe you one! Thank you,
Mario
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Originally posted by Richard Barrett View PostThe second beat is played slightly early. That's just how all Austrian musicians (and not just them) know that waltzes are played. Of course it has to be learned, but it's no more telepathic than jazz musicians knowing how to swing or Japanese gagaku musicians knowing how to speed up gradually over the course of a piece. None of this is any more difficult than playing equal beats!
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Modes - current conventions?
Modes - many of us have heard of modes, and are aware that some composers, such as VW had tendencies to use modal forms. Now I see that some jazz and popular musicians are also talking (occasionally at least) about modes.
Clearly modes as they are now, are somewhat different from what they were in medieval times, or even in some periods much closer to our own.
What I want to know is whether they are generally now considered as absolute, or whether they are relative to a key or tonic centre.
What I mean here is if we take an accepted pattern of modes - Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian, are these always related to a tonic on C (or approximately there - allowing for tuning variations), or does it make sense to talk about E:Ionian or E: Phrygian, for example - which would have the notes E - Fsharp - Gsharp - A - B - Csharp and Dsharp and then G sharp - A - B - Csharp - D sharp - Gsharp - F sharp - Gsharp respectively?
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Originally posted by Dave2002 View PostWhat I mean here is if we take an accepted pattern of modes - Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian, are these always related to a tonic on C (or approximately there - allowing for tuning variations), or does it make sense to talk about E:Ionian or E: Phrygian, for example - which would have the notes E - Fsharp - Gsharp - A - B - Csharp and Dsharp and then G sharp - A - B - Csharp - D sharp - Gsharp - F sharp - Gsharp respectively?
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Originally posted by Joseph K View PostThe latter these days.
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Originally posted by Richard Barrett View PostSome members may have heard of a useful site called "Wikipedia" which contains much handy information on many subjects including music theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(music)
The ambiguity still exists from other sources - such as this https://www.britannica.com/art/Locrian-mode and one can obfuscate further by digging into pages such as this - https://www.britannica.com/art/church-mode
Maybe hardly anybody talks about these things anyway - or uses them - so the answer to the question is really not needed - but I wasn't sure.
Do you use them, or talk about them?
Then of course there is this - https://leonardbernstein.com/lecture...what-is-a-mode
and maybe - a completely different form of mode - https://medical-dictionary.thefreedi...on%20frequency.
or this one - https://www.bing.com/images/search?v...RST&ajaxhist=0
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Originally posted by Richard Barrett View PostSome members may have heard of a useful site called "Wikipedia" which contains much handy information on many subjects including music theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(music)
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