Hi Steve, The distinction is useful until it’s not.
If I have a fast piece in 2/2, conducted in 2, and then I need a bar that’s elongated by a beat, I’m going to write a bar of 3/2, and conduct that bar in 3. If I have a piece in 5/4, conducted in 5, and then I need a bar that’s elongated by a beat, I’m going to write a bar of 6/4, and conduct that bar in 6. If I have a piece in 4/4, conducted in 4, and then I need a bar that’s elongated by two beats, I’m also going to write a bar of 6/4, and conduct that bar in 6. Traditional worries about which parts of the bar are stressed don’t really apply to my music, and that’s true of much modern music. That bar of 6 might contain people playing all kinds of syncopations and over-the-barline rhythms and cross-rhythms. There might not even *be* an attack on beat 4 to emphasize. Insisting that 3/2 can only be 2+2+2 and 6/4 can *only* be 2+2+2 is a convention that is not useful my music, or in the music of many (if not most) contemporary composers. Cheers, — DJA ----- http://secretsocietymusic.org On Dec 8, 2016, 4:23 PM -0500, David H. Bailey <dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com>, wrote: > On 12/8/2016 8:10 AM, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: > [snip]> Though I've seen it done, alternating notations of 4/4 and 3/2 > while keeping > > the quarter-note pulse the same never made sense to me. I would be expecting > > the conductor to switch to /2 pulses. > > > [snip] > > That's how I conduct that sort of passage -- 4 quarter-note beats > indicated for the 4/4, then 3 half-note beats indicated in the 3/2 > measures, each of which is twice as slow as the quarter note beats of > the 4/4 passage. Thus the speed of the quarter note is maintained and > the emphasis as implied by the meter is indicated, putting the stress on > 1, 3, 5 in the 3/2 sections as the original poster intends. > > > -- > David H. Bailey > dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com > http://www.davidbaileymusicstudio.com > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > Finale@shsu.edu > https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > > To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: > finale-unsubscr...@shsu.edu _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu https://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale To unsubscribe from finale send a message to: finale-unsubscr...@shsu.edu
