Nontraditional time signatures

L

LCbaseball22

Member
Mengu said:
The music is 4/4. But it does have that waltz feel to it, so I can see how one could be deceived. I would try a foxtrot, incorporating maybe some waltz elements. Starting at 0:53, you could start a Viennese and dance that for about 16 measures, slowing it down to hesitations for the last 4 measures, switching back to foxtrot afterwards. There is a similar section around 2:00 (edit: and 2:43). So if you wanted to incorporate both dances, you could. Or you can dance foxtrot to the whole thing.

It's an interesting song for sure, and would make a good song for a show dance.

Oh and welcome to the boards.
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Hmm, really not seeing that being suitable for foxtrot but it is 4/4 timing? :confused:

Ok, I was pretty confused by this one, my gut telling me it was 4/4 but then it sounded 3/4 starting around the :50 second mark you mentioned as well as the other points. Actually I thought it was transitioning back and forth between 4/4 and 3/4 but I guess from :50 to like 1:08 it's just hard to hear the full beat due to the increased volume of the lyrics and then after that the piano speeds up in certain sections such that I didn't think I was hearing a 4th beat any longer. Oh, and then as you said there was the "it has the Waltz feel" and can't think what else I'd dance to it notion, lol.

This elicits a question...are there any songs with multiple rhythms or do any & all songs stay consistent throughout? I listen to music all the time but I'm not a musical person. In other words I have never played an instrument behind a little piano when I was younger, so I haven't really acquired the ability to read and understand music composition like some have. Probably would be quite useful for dance I imagine if you do have this knowledge...
 
LCbaseball22 said:
Ok, I was pretty confused by this one, my gut telling me it was 4/4 but then it sounded 3/4 starting around the :50 second mark you mentioned as well as the other points. Actually I thought it was transitioning back and forth between 4/4 and 3/4 but I guess the piano just sped up in 4/4 such I didn't think I was hearing a 4th beat any longer. And then there was the it "has the Waltz feel" and can't think what else I'd dance to it notion, lol.
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If you listen to the little bit of piano in those trouble sections, the music is 4/4 even in those areas I said you could dance VW to. But there is enough "silence" in there to turn it into VW.

LCbaseball22 said:
This elicits a question...are there any songs with multiple rhythms or do and all songs stay consistent throughout? I listen to music all the time but I'm not a musical person. In other words I have never played an instrument behind a little piano when I was younger, so I haven't really acquired the ability to read and understand music composition like some have. Probably would be quite useful for dance I imagine if you do have this knowledge...
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Yes, there certainly are many songs with rhythm and tempo changes, frequent measure changes, odd phrases, non-strict tempo, and with unusual measures. You can find examples from jazz to heavy metal to broadway. Take a listen to America from West Side Story for a fun measure jumble (I guess the technical term is mixed meter).
 
Mengu said:
Yes, there certainly are many songs with rhythm and tempo changes, frequent measure changes, odd phrases, non-strict tempo, and with unusual measures. You can find examples from jazz to heavy metal to broadway.
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Are there any specifically which transition between 3/4 and 4/4 though?

I'm aware there are songs that aren't suitable for a particular dance the whole way through (ie we did a Rumba/Cha Cha routine to a song called Derroche) but I have not actually encountered any with timing changes far as I know...just tempo and such. I apologize if I am confused on the terminology and whatnot btw. And also if it seems like I've hijacked this thread. It's just that the confusion made this question pop into my head.

I'm glad it seems someone more knowledgeable has answered the OP's question at least.
 
I would put money on the song being in 4/4. A very, very slim outside chance that it's in 12/8...which I realize doesn't really help you if you're not familiar with musical time signatures to begin with. ;) The reason you're thinking VW is because there are triplets (very roughly speaking, those sets of three notes played quickly together) scattered throughout.

I'm sure there are songs which transition between different time signatures. Granted, off the top of my head I can't think of any right now...which includes not being able to think of those switching between 3/4 and 4/4. But, yes, it does happen.
 
LCbaseball22 said:
Are there any specifically which transition between 3/4 and 4/4 though?
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Back and forth? Yeah some. Beatles has a few I think. We Can Work It Out is mainly 4/4, small bit of the chorus goes to 3/4. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is 3/4 and the chorus goes 4/4. All You Need Is Love does something weird I can't quite work out.

I can try to look for others if you need more specific examples. I'm sure there are some more modern ones. There is a bunch of rock songs that transition 5/4 to 4/4, or 7/4 to 4/4.

Edit: Here is another one, Some Velvet Morning.
 
tangential question

Can someone point me to a reference that explains what these time signatures mean (3/4, 4/4) etc. I understand them at a rudimentary level (to the extent it is presented on Wikipedia :)), but for a music-theory-layman, that wasn't quite enough. Thanks :)
 
Well, the simplest explanation: Musical staves are divided into measures. The top number is the number of beats/notes per measure, while the lower number indicate what note is counted as one. In 3/4 time (said aloud, "three-quarter" time, though you'd call 4/4 'four-four', usually) there are three notes per measure with the single count being a quarter note. You can have time-signature changes in a single piece, though that's usually monkeying with variations on things like 6/8 or 12/8 time and is more likely to come up if you're an instrumentalist.

Honestly, you don't need much/any music theory for dance, mostly just the ability to hear the beat and count it out. Playing an instrument or singing you need to understand the time, also the tempo notation, repeats, codas, etc. Even there you don't necessarily NEED any more theory (lord knows I never took theory, I just played.) And sometimes having too much experience playing/reading music can mess you up a bit--I don't listen to or play a piece on the flute the way I listen to it for danc.
 
danceronice said:
Well, the simplest explanation: Musical staves are divided into measures. The top number is the number of beats/notes per measure, while the lower number indicate what note is counted as one. In 3/4 time (said aloud, "three-quarter" time, though you'd call 4/4 'four-four', usually) there are three notes per measure with the single count being a quarter note. You can have time-signature changes in a single piece, though that's usually monkeying with variations on things like 6/8 or 12/8 time and is more likely to come up if you're an instrumentalist.
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I have to disagree. Notes and beat are not, in any way, interchangeable. So 3/4 time means there are three beats in a meausre, with a quarter not having one beat. It does not mean there are three notes in a measure.
 
quixotedlm said:
Can someone point me to a reference that explains what these time signatures mean (3/4, 4/4) etc. I understand them at a rudimentary level (to the extent it is presented on Wikipedia :)), but for a music-theory-layman, that wasn't quite enough. Thanks :)
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Peach and doi have already started to explain, but I will go one layer back...

In western music, there are two basic meters.

STRONG, weak

And

STRONG, weak, weak

All time signatures come from combinations of these two patterns. For example, in 4/4, the pattern is STRONG, weak, STRONG, weak. Traditional waltz time (3/4) is STRONG, weak, weak. As dancers, to represent the music, we typically try to hit the strong beats of the measure.

Now what this thread is talking about are mixed combinations of the two basic meters. For example, Pink Floyd's Money starts out in 7/4. If you listen closely to the strong beats, you will hear STRONG, weak, STRONG, weak, STRONG, weak, weak.

Make sense?
 
Reminding me of Hollis Taylor's "Unsquare Dances" recorded after she spent time in Paris and Budpest.

The music we grow up with tends toward utter rhythmic simplicity, mostly based on four beats to the measure ("common time," with a signature of 4/4) or three ("waltz time," 3/4); sure, we all know examples of metrical diversity, but to say that we're familiar with compound meter because we can groove on Paul Desmond's "Take Five" is like saying we're conversant in Malay because we use the word "bamboo." The music Taylor collected was in time signatures that would defy most musicians' ability to count and play at the same time: 11/8, 7/16, 9/4, 21/8. Yet these are not mathematical exercises—they're dances, which is part of what made them compelling for her; she says of her musical explorations in general, "I was determined to seek out the danceability in things."

Though some of the music that provided the basis for Unsquare Dances came from Western Europe (Brittany, Portugal, the Basque Country), the Balkan influence is predominant. "A typical rhythm in Bulgaria is anything but business-as-usual for the rest of the world," Taylor says in her notes, and the same can be said of most of the region.

Hollis Taylor by James McQuillen
 
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Steve Pastor said:
Reminding me of Hollis Taylor's "Unsquare Dances" recorded after she spent time in Paris and Budpest.

The music we grow up with tends toward utter rhythmic simplicity, mostly based on four beats to the measure ("common time," with a signature of 4/4) or three ("waltz time," 3/4); sure, we all know examples of metrical diversity, but to say that we're familiar with compound meter because we can groove on Paul Desmond's "Take Five" is like saying we're conversant in Malay because we use the word "bamboo." The music Taylor collected was in time signatures that would defy most musicians' ability to count and play at the same time: 11/8, 7/16, 9/4, 21/8. Yet these are not mathematical exercises—they're dances, which is part of what made them compelling for her; she says of her musical explorations in general, "I was determined to seek out the danceability in things."

Though some of the music that provided the basis for Unsquare Dances came from Western Europe (Brittany, Portugal, the Basque Country), the Balkan influence is predominant. "A typical rhythm in Bulgaria is anything but business-as-usual for the rest of the world," Taylor says in her notes, and the same can be said of most of the region.

http://web.archive.org/web/20130524023646/http://www.dunav.org.il/dunav_video_index.html#all
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Once you get the feel for dancing in odd rhythms, finding the "1" in 4/4 or 3/4 is a piece of cake. Though Balkan musicians tend to use a pronounced drum beat most of the time, which helps.

Here's a video of ordinary people dancing to 11/16 (Gankino) http://web.archive.org/web/20130524023646/http://www.dunav.org.il/dunav_video_index.html#alll. Edited to add: you have to click on the link to Gankino. The synchronization between audio and video looks a little off ... it looks like the dancers are a hair behind the beat.)

Tonight I'm being handed opportunities to insert shameless plugs for folk dancing (see http://www.folkdance.com/).
 
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