Time Signatures

goose wrote: The guitar riff in Money accents the first and fourth beat, which is what makes it sound like a slow 7/8.

Do you know if there's a definite rule to determine if something is 7/4 or 7/8?

Certif1ed wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: I think that Money is also what you describe as a "fake" 7/4. When you listen to the bass/snare you'll get: 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 b s b s b s b it's really just 4/4 3/4 ... and nothing's wrong with that. Steve Vai - Die To Live is a good example for a "true" 7/4 song: 1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a 5 a 6 a 7 a b . . s . . . . b . b . s b Edit: the editor replaces many consecutive blank characters with garbled code, so I used dots ... just ignore them. I'm not so sure - I can hear a definite 7 beats in the guitar lines. Maybe that was just Nick's way of coping with it - he's hardly the ultimate drummer of all time - although he's definitely the very best drummer in Pink Floyd... I don't own a copy of "Alien Love Secrets" - but I know that Vai pulls off complex time signatures with ease - as he does with practically everything else he does. The man is so insanely gifted

The guitar riff in Money is a 7 beat riff, that's true.

If you don't have Alien Love Secrets ... I highly recommend the DVD. Kill The Guy With The Ball is just insane ... Polyrhythms in perfection.

Certif1ed wrote: The more elaborate ones are fairly hard to get if you're not used to it - but practice does make perfect. 2/4 is very rarely used, and, as was pointed out above, 6/8 sounds like 2/4 but with triplets - that's because the 6 quavers pulse in 2 groups of three - the beat is actually a dotted crotchet (three quavers) - it's the same for any piece in compound time (anything /8 is in compound time). Most pieces I've heard in more complex time signatures tend to cheat - in 7/4, for example, you'll hear musicians play a "bar" of 4 then a bar of 3, because it makes counting easier. Very few, like "Money" are truly in 7 time. 7/8 is very rare indeed, and should sound like 2 and a third, but typically sounds more like 3 and a half beats - which is 7/4, of course. I'm really not sure about anything in /16 time - I rather think it's showing off. Some of the great composers used similar time signatures - like Stravinsky - but typically only for a few bars in a piece (e.g. the Rite of Spring). Usually clusters of bars in what appear to be freaky time signatures appear, when the composer could simply have stuck a few extra accents in there - for example, Stravinsky sticks a few bars of 3/4 in between some bars of 6/8, then in another passage [110] we see 2 bars of 5/8, then one each of 7/8, 5/8, 3/8, 3/4, 3/8, 4/4, 3/8. Unless you were looking at the score, you'd never count that lot - but you'd be forgiven for thinking the whole thing was in 9/8.

I think that Money is also what you describe as a "fake" 7/4. When you listen to the bass/snare you'll get:

1 2 3 4 1 2 3
b s b s b s b

it's really just 4/4 3/4 ... and nothing's wrong with that. Steve Vai - Die To Live is a good example for a "true" 7/4 song:

1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a 5 a 6 a 7 a
b . . s . . . . b . b . s b

Edit: the editor replaces many consecutive blank characters with garbled code, so I used dots ... just ignore them.

 

 

 

Edited by MikeEnRegalia

First of all, a bit of confusion over the whole 3/4 vs. 6/8 thing. Yes, both have the same number of eighth notes per measure, but they’re NOT the same. 3/4 is triple time (three beats per measure) whereas 6/8 is duple (compound 2/4, essentially). It’s music theory as opposed to mathematics. But it can add up; oftentimes you hear composers alternating bars of 3/4 and 6/8 continuously throughout a piece (I’ve even seen this notated as having BOTH time signatures at the beginning of the manuscript!)

As for “complex” time signatures (i.e.: those not divisible by 2 or 3), it’s up to the whim of the composer, really. I generally subscribe to the KISS principle, though that can be taken to extremes, too (like my former jazz instructor, who insisted that everything be notated in 2’s, 3’s and 4’s). On the other hand, I’ve seen John McLaughlin’s scores where he’s notated tunes as 10/8 (“The Dance of Maya”), 14/8 (“Lila’s Dance”) and 18/8 (“Birds of Fire”). Why he chose that method rather than, say, 5/4, 7/4 and 9/4 isn’t something I can explain, though I’m certain he had his reasons. As opposed to, say, the fractional notation (e.g.: 3½/4) that appeared on some Bartók pieces, which just seems like showing off.

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MIKE (a.k.a. "Progbear")

 "That's my purse! I don't know you!" --Bobby Hill

N.P.:nothing

Genesis' 'Turn It On Again' is in 13/8 which I think is a great rhythmic device as you hardly know the odd time is there.

Pushing it further however, it gets EVEN more complicayed when you get into polyrhythms, which are two time sigantures that play over one another i.e. 7/8 over 4/4 or even incorporating triplet figures over straight fours....

And don't get me started on rudimentary sticking...


Edited by sigod

Ben2112 wrote: Regarding the 7/8 vs. 7/4 issue, I had always counted "Money" by Pink Floyd in the 7/4 time. However, if you watch the making of Dark Side... DVD, Dave says it's in 7/8. Wow, that would be a SLOOOOW 7/8. I guess it does just come down to where you consider the bars/measures to fall.

It's not 7/8, it's 7/4. Dave's wrong

That's because you can count 7 easily and regularly - there is no compound time, it is purely simple. If it was 7/8, then there would not be 7 beats, but 2 and 1/3 beats per bar, and the whole "feel" would be quicker, as you note.

Planet X - 2116    heh... Try counting that one.

Ben2112 wrote: Regarding the 7/8 vs. 7/4 issue, I had always counted "Money" by Pink Floyd in the 7/4 time. However, if you watch the making of Dark Side... DVD, Dave says it's in 7/8. Wow, that would be a SLOOOOW 7/8. I guess it does just come down to where you consider the bars/measures to fall.

I have a music book with all the sheet music for DSOTM and the publisher wrote Money as being a measure of 3/4 followed by a measure of 4/4. This combination is repeated. I really don't think Pink Floyd would have been obtuse enough to write it this way. I think the transcriber probably was just an airhead who did it this way.

Probability-wise, 4/4 is nearly always your best bet. I always start by counting in 4/4 time at a moderate tempo: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and... If it works out great, the song is probably in 4/4, 2/4, 2/2, or 12/8. I always test 4/4 first because most music (even much of prog, at least partly) is in 4/4.

  I should also recommend using our beloved Internet as a "cheat sheet" for a few of the tunes causing you difficulty. For example, if I wanted to know the meters for Yes's Sound Chaser, I would do a Google search: Sound Chaser time signature. I play guitar, and this is how I crack a lot of these songs. For example, for the guitar solo in Tom Sawyer by Rush, I could NOT crack that time sig until I broke down and did a search for it. Right away, I found it was in 7/8. This is a time signature used a lot by the band. ie. intro to Anthem, intro to Subdivisions, Freewill, Natural Science, Distant Early Warning. I mention this, because a lot of bands have favorite meters that they like to write in. Yes uses 5/4 a bit (Sound Chaser, 5 percent for nothing).

 A few more ideas for you.

 When a new, for lack of a better term, "movement" or "impression" begins or when a new feel begins, I usually start counting again, just to be sure they have "tricked" me by slipping into a new meter. These movements may be signposted by a new chord progression.

Finally, here is a site that could fill in the crack for ya: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature

Good luck!

Edited by Crimson Prince

The problem is with all modern music (this doesn't just apply to time signatures) is that notation hasn't changed nearly so much as styles have. In the classical period, a time signature (along with some sort of idea of the feel and tempo) could tell you exactly how to accent the music, (apart from when there were deviations from the pattern, and they could be marked individually). Now, however, there is so much different that can be done in any time signature, that they're nowhere near as rigid as they were.

Since a time signature is only a way of notating the music that's heard, while sometimes there may be one definitive time signature that is obvious (often in more simple music, for example "Creep", by Radiohead is clearly in 4/4, with one chord per bar. There's not really any other way of writing it that makes sense, because it does stick to the same sort of metre that's been in existence for a very long time), a lot of the time you could fit a number of time signatures to the same music (often 6/8 and 2/4 (both have 2 main beats), or 9/8 and 3/4 (both have 3 main beats), but sometimes multiples like 6/8 and 12/8). In this case, it doesn't matter how you look at it, as long as if you're playing in a group you all play with the right sort of "feel". Basically, any sort of notation (apart from the actual pitches given) are simply a means to the end of playing in the right way. I'm finding this very difficult to explain, because it's a very abstract concept, but I hope I'm being some help.