I’m dabbling with a tune, “The Shepard’s Flute” in 5/4. The written advice with the sheet music suggests one should hold his foot down counting 1,2,3, and raise it for 4 and 5 to get the feel of the rhythm. How does this differ from just counting 1 to 5 with one’s foot down?
Think about tunes in 3/4 and 6/8. Each time signature involves 6 eighth notes (or quavers, if you’re one of those people) to the bar. However, they have very different feels because of grouping. 3/4 organizes them into groups of 2, making 3 beats to the bar, each with 2 eighth notes. That’s where you get the “1, 2, 3” feel of a waltz. 6/8, on the other hand, groups them into groups of 3, making 2 beats to the bar, each with 3 eighth notes. This is where the jig feeling comes in, a quicker “1-2-3, 4-5-6.”
Technically, you could tap both of them like “1-2-3-4-5-6,” but it wouldn’t convey the right feel.
Your conundrum falls along the same lines. Yes, you could tap all 5 beats out equally. Chances are, though, that they are really in some kind of grouping. For 5/4, it’s usually a group of 2 followed by a group of 3, or vice versa. Check out the Mission Impossible Theme to see what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAYhNHhxN0A. You could tap it out “1, 2, 3, 4, 5,” but it really feels like a grouping of 3, then 2, like “1-2-3, 1-2.”
I don’t know the tune, so I can’t tell you what exactly the best way to tap it out would be. But I hope this is at least a little enlightening.
When I see 5/4 I always think of Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’, a classic tune that first introduced me to 5/4 time. 
Whenever I hear “5/4” mentioned , I’m reminded of a story the Glasgow trade union leader and newspaper columnist, the late Jimmy Reid used to tell. It doesn’t really make musical sense but goes like this :
There was a bar in Glasgow which had a jazz band playing, and a guy gets up out of the audience and asks if he can sing a song. “No problem”, says the band, “what are you going to sing ?” “Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries”, but I’ll do it in 5/4 time. Can yez play in 5/4 ?".
Wondering how he’s going to do this, they tell him to start off and they’ll join in. Yer man goes up to the mic, and sings, " Life, is just a bowl of f***in’ cherries… "
@bigsciota - The first 6 lines, each of 4 bars, follows this pattern: 3 bars of 5 quarter notes, 1 half note. The final line 2 bars of 3 quarter notes, 1 half. Final 2 bars dotted half, half. I can paly through the notes well enough but don’t find the rhythm to be exciting, as the attached note promises, nor does it have the Eastern European feel it should. I’m missing something. And the tap eludes me. Whether my foot is up or down the pace of counting remains the same, no?
And “quavers”. The religious group centered in PA known for a brand of quick oats?
Dunno if this helps or not, but for 1960s jazzy 5/4 like Mission Impossible, Take Five, or Everything’s Alright, I hear it as actually having four beats in a measure – two long ones to start the measure (counting eighths, 1-2-3, 1-2-3) followed by two short ones (1-2, 1-2). Like instead of switching back and forth between 3/4 and 6/8 (think “America” from West Side Story) it’s switching back and forth between 6/8 and 2/4 (where each bar of 5/4 is a 6/8 + a 3/4).
I’d say there’s potential danger in treating syncopated 3/4 as 6/8. So, while you might get away with 6/8 + 2/4 for the opening of Mission Impossible, I just can’t hear Take Five that way and regard it as firmly 3/4 + 2/4. Most 5/4s resolve to 3 + 2 or 2 + 3 rather than anything more complex.
My favourite irregular beat is probably the 9/8 of Blue Rondo à la Turk, where you get three bars of 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 (or perhaps more properly a lopsided 4 with the fourth beat longer) followed by one of 3 + 3 + 3, and think you have to count the quavers or eighth notes here.
This has confused me. I think we need a link to the music or music score, somehow. What you’re describing for the first six lines appears to be in 7/4, not 5/4, and only going into 5/4 in the final line. 
I don’t know anything about that tune (shepherd’s flute) but I will say that there are different types of 5/4 as one would expect.
Brubeck’s 5/4 (well actually not Brubeck’s, the sax player wrote it IIRC) is a bar of jazz waltz with two extra beats, 3+2 if you will.
Bulgarian dance has a 5/4 that’s 2+3, called Paidushko. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJu-W9JSOCo
There’s a Scottish Highland pipe march called Cullen Bay that’s 5/4, which is essentially 4/4 with the fourth beat of each bar held one beat longer, 4+1 if you will. Many years ago when I was an avid Scottish Country Dancer we would dance to Cullen Bay sometimes; special steps had to be created. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HLIf_gRG6o
In that limited sampling there’s no “one size fits all” approach to 5/4.
@Richard - Thanks for the reply. I had played GHB for some years and often played Cullen Bay The sheet music signature is 4/4 so I never considered it as a 5/4. But going back to the sheet music and counting, it is a 5/4 to my surprise. I also found, Radical Road on The Session, another 5/4. In comparing these to The Shepard’s Flute they are rhythmically more interesting. Perhaps TSF is a poor example of a 5/4. See the description in a previous post.
Could you link to sheet music, though? Because, as I said, from your previous description, it doesn’t sound like 5/4 at all (except for a very few bars at the end).
I find it easier to break down complicated time signatures into one and two-beat sections like this: 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3. Wrong Foot Forward by Flook is in 7/8. The bodhran player emphasizes the 1, 1, 1 of the 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvtBvSAoS30
Here’s the sheet music so you can see how it plays out: https://thesession.org/tunes/5411
At least for me it’s a lot easier to think 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3 rather than 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. Same applies to 5/4, 9/8, etc.
-Peter
@Moderator - The tune is in a recorder tutorial, but fits a D whistle, which is why I’m pursuing it here. I’m a Luddite and far behind the technological times. If someone could explain how to post the sheet music form a book, I’d give it a try. Or for anyone who plays recorder the source I’m using is, “Basic Recorder Lessons Omnibus Edition” Wm. Zeitlin.
9/8 is normally just compound triple time, meaning three beats dividing into three, so more 1 & a 2 & a 3 & a than 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3.
The one I quoted above is an obvious exception.
I don’t know where sheet music in 4/4 would have come from. Because according to the Pekaar Encyclopedia of Tunes for the Great Highland Bagpipe, Cullen Bay has only been published in two books (the SPBA Tutor Vol 1 and Scots Guards Vol II) and both versions are in 5/4.
So a sheet music version in 4/4 would be somebody’s manuscript.
This being a whistle forum, here’s Cullen Bay on whistle!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4NYf-eg-qA
Now, the tune Cullen Bay (by Ian Duncan) had its debut AFAIK on the album of the same name by Shotts & Dykehead.
Their arrangement started with a solo piper playing a slow air version of the tune, which was in 4/4.
Then the drum corps played an elaborate segue which led to the whole band playing the march in 5/4.
So yes sheet music to the slow air would be 4/4.
For sure that’s how Bulgarian (and Macedonian) dance music works: bars are thought of as groups of 2 and groups of 3, the 2’s being the short beats and the 3’s being the long beats.
So 5/4 (Paidushko) is 2+3, “short LONG”.
7/8 (Ruchenitsa) is 2+2+3, “short-short-LONG”. But there’s also a reversed Ruchenitsa that goes 3+2+2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRpSrCCrPoE
9/8 in Scottish and Irish music is usually 3+3+3. In eductated music terminology this is called “compound triple time”.
But 9/8 in Bulgarian dance music (Daichovo) is 2+2+2+3 “short-short-short-LONG”. The feel is completely different from the “Celtic” 9/8.
There are longer Bulgarian things like Buchimish 15/8 2+2+2+2+3+2+2 “short short short short LONG short short” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is66ko2CTgY&t=24s
The longest I’ve played is Sandansko 22/8 2+2+2+3+2+2+2+3+2+2 “short-short-short-LONG-short-short-short-LONG-short-short” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5tSEbTsrQM&t=20s
The point is that non-Balkans usually find these rhythms complicated but if you set the theory aside you can see schoolchildren and dancers having no trouble feeling them.
@Richard - I have checked the band’s sheet music and indeed it is noted as 5/4. My recollection of 4/4 is from two postings on The Session which are signed as 4/4 but in both I count 5 beats.
Here is a link to a 5/4 tune from The Folk Tune Finder. Were the half notes at the end of the measure it would be the same counting as the tune I’m asking about. I listened to the tune in the link and it seems a quick tempo is what is required to make it lively. http://www.folktunefinder.com/tunes/53297
And just for fun a tune from the same site in 87/8! http://www.folktunefinder.com/tunes/57190
That’s just shorthand for alternating 8s and 7s here, so fortunately not a true 87!
Should be written 8+7 over 8. Not sure if that’s legal in ABC, though.
@psoutwood - Ha! Your tune link made me laugh. I had played GHB for several years and could never really get the hang of marching. I could play tines with the rest of the band but in photos I’m usually on the wrong foot. I could not make a connection between my feet and fingers. Once I was walking about playing jigs and a bandmate said, “You don’t march while playing jigs.” Well, I guess at least one person did.