I know what you mean. Do you think that's because so much tango music that is phrased that way? Perhaps that's why the 8CB caught on...
Rodriguez's 'Bailando todas los ritmos'
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I know what you mean. Do you think that's because so much tango music that is phrased that way? Perhaps that's why the 8CB caught on...
tangomonkey
Active Member
4/8 or 4/4 have the same pulse, there is no difference. The pulse, or beat, will be determined by how the music is played. Bandoneons, piano,etc. accenting beats 1 & 3 in either time signature will produce an identical pulse. In 2/4 both beats 1 and 2 will be emphasized, not 1 strong, 2 weak. Regardless of the time signature the pulse is the same.
During rehearsals I believe there was printed music. Perhaps the musicians memorized their parts for performance, I don't know. Early tango was in 2/4, carried over from the habanera and milonga. Music looks the same in 2/4 or 4/8 and I think that is why tango's were later written in 4/8 not 4/4.
There is no pulse difference between 2/4 with subdivided beats, 4/8 and 4/4 when actually played by the musicians.
No. Of course 4/8 & 4/4 have the same pulse, but pulse and rhythm are not the same thing. How notes are actually accented (or not) in performance determines what you hear, but accenting beats 1 & 2 equally does not represent playing in 2/4, regardless of the notation. What you usually have (and typically in BR tango) is actually an underlying pulse that is twice the indicated speed, so that 1& 2& gives you STRONG, weak, STRONG, weak.
For me, Yes.
The story I heard about the 8CB, is that it was made up to teach some dancers in the US (many years ago), who insisted couldn't learn the dance without a "basic step". He also said that they originally tried it by going into cross system (after step 2), but that also confused too many people at the time, so it was changed to be done entirely in parallel system. No clue how much of that is actually true or not, though.
tangomonkey
Active Member
It is not as simple as that. Metre - where the emphasis is played within the bar - is mostly a theoretical construct. In practice it may or may not be audible. It depends on how the music is written and how the musicians interpret it. For example, if the instruments functioning as the rhythm section are playing continuous eighth notes in 2/4 there is no difference between that and continuous eight notes in 4/8. The rhythm and pulse are the same.
Can you tell if D'Arienzo's El Choclo is in 2/4 or 4/8. I can't. I hear "four" but the time signature is 2/4, at least in the sheet music I used. And the phrasing of the melody will be determined by its shape and character, regardless of the underlying, theoretical, metre.
tangomonkey
Active Member
Thinking of the dos por cuatro... The assumption is there are 4 counts and we step on 1 and 3. In 2/4, each beat would have to be subdivided into two eights. So although the beat is 1-2,1-2, there is a four feeling, 1234,1234, and we step on 1 and 3 of those counts. In 4/8 we still hear 1234,1234 and step on 1 and 3. Regardless whether 2/4 or 4/8, as dancers we hear "four". If we count 1234,1234, or 1&2&1&2& it doesn't matter, although 1&2&1&2 is more natural because we step when the primary count changes. We will step at the same time regardless, and the feel will be the same.
It is simple if you accept the premise that the notated music is the servant of the musician, and not the other way around.
A ticking clock (or, better, a metronome) has a pulse, but no rhythm. Every tick has the same stress (or more accurately, lack of stress), but Western music doesn't work that way. We group those beats, and the way that we organise the beats is by marking certain beats with stress, relative to the other(s). Usually, the pattern will repeat, sometimes for the whole of a short piece, and sometimes it will change often, but when it changes, it does so to some new and recognisable pattern of stressed and not-stressed beats.
In conventional musical theory, there is NO pattern of beats that has no stress at all. That is the absence of pattern. You can't group beats, unable to differentiate between them. So you can't have your suggested 2/4 with beats 1 and 2 stressed. Stressed relative to what, exactly? There are no other beats, and they can't both be stressed relative to each other, that would just be LOUD. By convention, Western music stresses (but not necessarily very much) the first beat of any bar. The simplest grouping is of two beats (Strong, weak). This is March Time, and is easily recognised, and sounds the closest to a heartbeat (which might be why we take it as being the most natural pattern). If we double things up, and have four beats, there must be a new level of accentation, or we just have the two beat pattern twice, and by convention we have primary stress on 1 and a secondary stress on 3 (Strongest, weak, Strong, weak).
We have all sorts of other patterns too: and syncopation is an important ingredient in much music, particularly dance music. But dancers can be very sloppy in their usage of the term (and will often mean, incorrectly, just the division of a beat into smaller parts), but the normal usage of syncopation is to stress particular beats (or parts of beats), within a regular pattern, that would not normally be stressed. Probably the two most common patterns of syncopation in dance music are the Habanera rhythm and the Clave rhythm, but there are plenty more.
So, we must remember that there are competing claims by the composer of a piece (the original intention), and subsequent arrangements by performing musicians. Giving stress to certain beats shapes the music and makes it danceable (you could dance to a metronome's regular tick, but you probably wouldn't bother, even if it could play tunes). If music is to be preserved for posterity, it is notated (and lots hasn't been, sadly), and once the music is to be notated, decisions have to be made over how to express the intention of the musicians.
Lots of tango music is notated with a quaver (eigth-note) pulse. It needn't be: in an earlier age, tango might well have been written in alla breve (2/2) with a minim (half-note) pulse. It is the pulse that matters: how frequently the beats occur. (If in doubt, ask the drummer: he's the one beating it (and yes, I know that an orquesta tipa doesn't have one..)).
The basic rhythmic pattern of most tango music is Strong, weak, and that pattern can be notated in any type of note length. I don't often hear, in tango, the pattern of 4 beats (in the sense of a primary stress and a secondary stress). I hear patterns of 2 beats. Looking at the score of El Choclo (http://www.todotango.com/english/las_obras/partitura.aspx?id=24) I see a time signature of 2/4, but the notation is 4/8 - such is obvious from the markings. But I don't hear 4/8, I hear 2/8, and while I am probably in a minority of one (nothing unusual there...), I think that the score would make more sense if it were notated in crochets, not quavers, in 2/4 metre and at twice the indicated pulse.
Just as an aside, I've heard it said that Techno is "in-one" (1 beat/measure?), not implying that it's conventional, but it has a name. If you've ever heard it, you would believe it.
Let me ask: does a dancer ever have any idea - or need to - what the lower number is (divisor?)? I'm a musician, but as a dancer I just hear the music in 2, or 3, or 4, sometimes 5. Would I know the difference between 4/4 and 4/8?
tangomonkey
Active Member
The notation is 2/4. The melody is subdivided into continuous sixteenths. There is no such as thing as 2/4 or 4/8 notation, just notes on the page with the time signature specifying the type of note that gets one beat. Sixteenths in 2/4 is pretty standard in tango printed music.
But I come back to what we hear will be determined by the performance, more specifically the arrangement. Every orchestra arranges and adapts the score to suit their style and preferences. D'Arienzo's bandoneons, piano, and bass play continuous eighths, in four, with accents on 1 and 3. That is indeed strong-weak-strong-weak. And in 2/4 (with subdivided counts) that means every primary beat is emphasized, contray to the theoretical definition of 2/4 metre - Strong 1- Weak 2. But none of this matters to us as listeners or dancers...dos por cuatro is what matters.
All I am trying to explain is the time signature (2/4,4/8,4/4) does not necessarily mean all that much to listeners or dancers...
And I have commented enough about syncopation elsewhere, so I'won't go over it all again...
No, I don't think there is an audible difference.
We'll have to agree to disagree (but we might agree, at least in principle, that the notation is very sloppy). The given notation is perfectly clearly in 4/8, despite the indicated metre. Almost the whole introduction is, as you say in continuous quavers (four to a bar), and once the main melody starts, from the third system, the phrase marking of the semi-quavers into pairs reinforces it. If D'Arienzo's orquesta is playing in four, then they are playing 4/8. The score would be fine but for the 2/4 'misprint'.
You can't have it both ways: that's not 'in four', that's in two, twice.
tangomonkey
Active Member
There is no such thing as 4/8 notation. Take a look at some scores on todotango.com. You will see numerous examples in 2/4 with sixteenth notes everywhere in the melody. And keep in mind these piano reductions are very seldom what was played. They were intended for amateur musicians to play in their homes and have been simplified. The melody line and underlying harmonies are probably right, but everything else - not so much. The intro in El Choclo by the way is NEVER played.
I thought I was reasonably clear when I talked about D'Arienzo, 2/4 versus 4/8...in the El Choclo thread and here previously...and the dos por cuatro
I'm not going to keep coming back on this, but of course there is no such thing as 4/8 notation, there are just notes, but the piano score I linked to is perfectly obviously in 4/8 metre, despite the indication to the contrary.
Whether or not it faithfully represents an orchestra's style, or is a crude piano reduction is irrelevant. I'm taking about the music, and the way that the music is notated. We do agree that it is 'in four', and they can only be quavers. Therefore it can only be 4/8.
tangomonkey
Active Member
Realy?!!!
Look at the sheet music, lots of it, before you make such statements, and your prior post. You are wrong.
I'm done....