They key signature governs the distribution of strong beats: every bar gets one and only one of the strongest beats. Usually, these occur in a regular pattern through the piece - ie, the time between each of the strongest beats is always the same. On the score, the unit between one strong beat + all the intervening lesser beats and passing notes and the next strong beat is one bar.
Sometimes, there is an intervening beat between the very strongest beats that is stronger than the passing notes, but not as strong as the main beats. This usually occurs at the mid point of the bar; again in a regular pattern. This pattern sometimes gets called ‘compound time’, and it is very common in ITM. It’s the basis of jigs, for instance. The pattern I showed you before was 3/4 (waltz time),
| One two three | one two three | One two three |
This is simple rather than compound time–there’s no ‘half beat’ between the strongest beats. If you take that pattern, however, and make every second strong beat a bit weaker, this becomes a 6/8 jig:
| ONE two three one two three | ONE two three one two three |
In this, the ONE beats are stronger than the intervening one beats, but those in turn are stronger than the remaining beats. Followig the rule the time between the strongest notes being a bar, we remove the bar line before one.
How can one say how long a crotchet is, when it’s all dependant on BPM?
Length is relative to all the other notes. You can sing or play a song or melody fast or slow, but when you do so, each beat/note’s time in relation to the others is the same.
Thanks, I think I get it now. Bottom digit and BPM correspond to different “layers” of speed/length. The BPM speeds up or down the whole song (sets how long a whole note is), but the bottom digit may vary between parts in the song. And 4 as bottom digit for example means that each beat is a quarter-note in length. So if the BPM is 60, a whole note is 1 second, a half-note is 0.5 sec and quarter-note is 0.25 sec?
Probably will buy “Music Theory for Dummies” if new questions arise.
Now, for an on-topic… err.. topic.
Since I don’t have a whistle lower than C this is hard to pick out, I wonder about the notes for The Gael (so I can transpose them to D whistle)?
o BPM 60 = 60 beats per minute = 1 beat per second = 1 second per beat.
o 4/4 means that a quarter-note gets one beat.
o So a quarter note has a duration of 1 second (= one beat @ 60 BPM).
o A half note is twice (2x) the length of a quarter note. So a half note has a duration of 2 seconds.
o A whole note is four times (4x) the length of a quarter note. So a whole note has a duration of 4 seconds.
Rhadge, can you find a local music teacher or a musician friend to sit with you for a few minutes and give you a lesson about time-signatures and rhythm? Sometimes, musical concepts like this are difficult to explain in writing, but very easy to demonstrate in person. And when the light bulb appears over your head, you will wonder why it seemed so difficult.
You need to give up the idea that speed is determined by the time signature. It’s not, not at all.
You can sing twinkle twinkle little star fast or you can sing it slow, and the time signature & the melody in standard notation would be exactly the same each time. Time signatures tell you the duration of notes in relation to each other (ie, the other notes in that piece), and that’s it. Any piece of written music can be played at any speed with no effect on the time signature or the score.
Yeah, I’ll do that. I feel I am getting closer to understanding at least.
But I’m correct that the idea of the bottom digit is to be able to have tempo variations within the song, while BPM governs the whole song speed?
No. The bottom digit tells you nothing about tempo. It tells you how many off-beats there are in each bar; ie between the heaviest beats that occur only once a bar.
But in 3/4, there are only three beats each bar. So how can the bottom digit (4) have four off-beats? You mean off-beats lie between the beats that you hear with metronome?
Or maybe I have gotten it all wrong now… three maybe means that every third beat there is a strong beat, and each bar has four beats?
3/4 = three crotchet beats per bar |BAM bam bam|BAM bam bam|
think of the tune “Happy Birthday to you” (ignore the lead in notes on “Happy”). Or think of a waltz, or “God save the Queen” (the original, not Jonny Rotten’s version).
Yeah, I think we should leave this subject since I still don’t get it.
I’ll find out from another source. Thanks for your answers, I appreciate your efforts.
What you are describing here is syncopation - an important concept, but not directly relevant here.
As Simon said before, the time signature only describes the way the written notes are organized in measures on the page. It doesn’t tell you anything directly about the actual speed or beats of the music.
Here’s another approach. A time signature of x/y simply means that the length of each measure is “x notes of type y”.
x = the number of notes per measure
y = the type/length of those notes
Really, that’s ALL there is to it. Nothing more.
The actual speed (BPM), and the interpretation of strong and weak beats are not inherent in the time signature. Those come from your understanding of the music, not from the time signature. You just have to know.
Here is another Gedankenexperiment (though experiment) you can try.
Take a piece of normal sheet music. Erase all the bar lines and the time signature. Now you have only a sequence of different notes on the page, one after the other.
Can you still play the music now? Yes! Does it change the sound of the music? No, not at all! The music is exactly the same. You play each note the same as before. Play it fast or play it slow. Play the beats so that the music sounds right.
The only difference now is that it is more difficult to “see” the organization of the music on the page. The bar lines and time signature are simply a visual and mental aid to organize the notes into convenient groups. Nothing more.
In fact, Renaissance music can be like this - with no bar lines and no time signature. Later editors may add bar lines and time signature to make the music easier to read. But that doesn’t change the original music. If you understand how the music is supposed to sound, you play it exactly the same.
That performance is basically in C minor. So you can play it using E minor fingering on a Bb whistle.
I have a question that I’ve wondered about for a while. What is the difference, if any between 4/4 and 4/2 time? If I played either time signature at, say, 60 bpm, I’d get 4 beats/one measure every fifteen seconds. If I played eight notes in a measure, on the 4/4 sheet of music, those notes would be eighth notes while on the 4/2 sheet those would be quarter notes. I don’t see where the listener could tell the difference. Is it just convention that we use 4/4 and not 4/2 (or 4/8 or 4/16)?
