Re: I really don’t understand time signature
Wow! @10, that explanation actually finally made it click for me. I've struggled with understanding time signatures for a while too and you were a great help. And I guess I also kinda see how 3/4 and 6/8 are different, even if I don't think I'd be able to hear the difference.
well, I am happy this worked out. Its sad that music education has so many gaps and its done on purpose really, maybe more for the benefit of the university, publisher and so on than that of the teacher.
Some important key things to mention about time signatures before I go on:
There are strong beats and weak beats in a bar. The strong beats are the ones that sort of signal where the 1 or the first beat is. This is important because you would know when a measure starts by just hearing it, such as in the case of a waltz, or a march. Notice how there is actually an accent or an emphasis every so often being constantly repeated.
So, moving on, regarding what you mention, that is an interesting way to link those two time signatures, and maybe with this you will understand the difference so I will try to explain compound meter as best as I can:
In 4/4 time, or even in 3/4 you can easily have a pulse by just tapping or counting from 1 to 4, or 1 to 3. This is because all of the beats are represented by notes that have exactly the same length (one quarter or one fourth of a whole note)
However, in some other time signatures this is not really the case, the pulse is represented differently.
In music, there is such a thing as note grouping or beaming. Normally, in your 3/4 time signature, you group notes by two, so, two 8th notes can fit into a pulse and a small horizontal line is drawn over them to indicate this. i hope its all been clear up until this point.
The fun starts when we group notes differently to create different effects in time. Since we have the same length or space, in 3/4 and 6/8 this is possible. However, pulse is different because In 6/8 you feel the pulse of 6 shorter beats to every bar and there are two ways to count this.
One of them is counting all 6 notes, from 1 to 6.
The other one is to divide the bar exactly in half an just count 1 and 2.
At first this might seem like two very different ways of counting: in the first case you’re counting out six beats every bar, while in the second case just two. However, when you count all six you actually emphasize beats 1 and 4, so it’s more like
1! 2, 3, 4! 5, 6.
So you are emphasizing those two strong beats even if you’re counting out all six beats.
Likewise, when you count just the two beat version, in your head you would actually be thinking of the division of each of them into three, meaning you’re feeling each of the six eighth-note beats even if you aren’t speaking them.
So whether you count out all six beats or just the two emphasized ones, you are still feeling the same pattern: two groups of three eighth notes.
Why are both options used? It mostly comes down to tempo, and sometimes the musical arrangement. When the piece is very fast it’s too much of a mouthful (or mental challenge) to count out every eighth-note beat and it’s easier to just count the two emphasized beats each bar. Some pieces have an arrangement, for example a guitar strumming pattern, which gives a musical feel that matches one style of counting or the other.
One other area that causes confusion with 6/8 is: if you’re counting just the two main beats, isn’t that the same as a 2/4, two beats per bar?
The answer lies in the subdivision of the beats. We call 2/4 time “simple duple” meaning there are two beats per bar and each beat divides in two (the “simple” part). By contrast, 6/8 time also has two quarter note beats per bar so it’s “duple” too, but each one divides into three, making it a “compound duple” time signature.
In other words, although in both cases you’re counting “1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, etc.” in the 2/4 time signature each of those beats would divide in two (e.g. “1 and 2 and 1 and 2 and”) while in the 6/8 time signature each one divides in three (e.g. “1 and ah 2 and ah 1 and ah 2 and ah”).
Similarly, you might wonder if those 6 eighth notes could be grouped together as three groups of two rather than two groups of three.
Well, you could still group them like that, but because you’re dividing each of the three beats into two, it’s then “simple” meter again. With three beats each divided in two, what you actually have is 3/4 time!
This is the difference between 3/4 and 6/8. Although it might seem like numerically they are interchangeable (there are six eighth notes in a bar), the grouping is different. If the rhythms used in the piece group emphasize the first and fourth of those eighth notes, implying they are grouped in threes, it’s 6/8. If the rhythms emphasize just the first (and perhaps the third and fifth eighth), it implies the eighth notes are in groups of two, and the time signature will be 3/4.
The challenging part of 6/8 time is learning to recognize it by ear, or learning to express it yourself when reading from sheet music or whatever else.
That requires the basic theory understanding covered above, but it mostly comes from getting very familiar with the feel of 6/8.
Although it has a waltz feel it’s not as rigid as the traditional 3/4 waltz.
Another useful word used to describe 6/8 is shuffle or lilting. It feels looser and a bit more playful than a 3/4 time signature.
here is an example i can give. Metallica – Nothing Else Matters
The first four bars of the introduction is simply an arpeggio on the eighth notes of 6/8: count 1,2,3,4,5,6 each bar. In the main section of the song you can listen for the 6/8 duple pulse on the drummer’s kick drum and snare. The kick accents the first beat and the snare, being higher pitched, and not as big sounding as the kick, takes the second, weaker beat.
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