Re: [OT] Fractions on musical notation
> > Time signatures are crap. They should have switched to a number > > over a note value a long time ago; we could have easily avoided > > abominable travesties like the time signature on the 2nd > > movement of Beethoven's 9th (B needed four over dotted quarter). If > > music notation had been invented by a computer scientist we > > wouldn't be stuck in the current mess in which 6/8 means two > > completely different meters (3 over quarter, or 2 over dotted > > quarter). > > That was proposed by (some great musician from XIX century that I can't > remember) but it's hard to change habits. > The idea was to use: above, number of beats, and below, the note lasting > one beat, *always*. So conventional 6/8 would be 2/"dotted quarter" with a > dotted quarted drawn as itself, not implied by a number. This allows for > more meaningful signatures, like 3+3+2/"eight note" for some Piazzolla > tangos that are now written as 4/4 (but don't have the stress pattern for > 4/4 at all). Hi! While I wouldn't agree without reservation that time sigs are crap (more like they're making the best of a bad situation) I do agree that number over note value is way better. In fact, the college I teach at starts with time signatures that way (based on Kodaly): 2 over quarter note, 2 over dotted quarter etc. It's amazing how well everybody understands until we switch to 6/8. Then everything falls apart, because it's no longer intuitive. cheers dafydd -- www.sideshowmedia.ca skype: chickeninthegrass -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [OT] Fractions on musical notation
En Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:35:39 -0300, Neil Cerutti <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escribió: > On 2007-12-17, Gabriel Genellina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> On 16 dic, 06:40, Lie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> [btw, off topic, in music, isn't 1/4 and 2/8 different? I'm not very >>> keen of music though, so correct me if I'm wrong.] >> >> As a time signature 1/4 has no sense, but 3/4 and 6/8 are >> different things. In the standard musical notation both numbers >> are written one above the other, and no "division" line is >> used. Note that they just *look* like a fraction when written >> in text form, like here, because it's not easy to write one >> above the other. 3/4 is read as "three by four", not "three >> quarters" -at least in my country- so there is even less >> confussion. > > Time signatures are crap. They should have switched to a number > over a note value a long time ago; we could have easily avoided > abominable travesties like the time signature on the 2nd > movement of Beethoven's 9th (B needed four over dotted quarter). If > music notation had been invented by a computer scientist we > wouldn't be stuck in the current mess in which 6/8 means two > completely different meters (3 over quarter, or 2 over dotted > quarter). That was proposed by (some great musician from XIX century that I can't remember) but it's hard to change habits. The idea was to use: above, number of beats, and below, the note lasting one beat, *always*. So conventional 6/8 would be 2/"dotted quarter" with a dotted quarted drawn as itself, not implied by a number. This allows for more meaningful signatures, like 3+3+2/"eight note" for some Piazzolla tangos that are now written as 4/4 (but don't have the stress pattern for 4/4 at all). > And... er... Python doesn't need a time signature data type. But > rationals would be quite nifty. ;-) I'm happy enough with rationals as 3rd party library (like gmpy) -- Gabriel Genellina -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [OT] Fractions on musical notation
"Dan Upton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] | > | > notes, three-quarter and six-eight time falls out... | > | | > | I don't think this is technically true, but I've never been able to | > | tell the difference. | > | > I learned three-four, four-four, six-eight, etc. as time sigs. Not a | > fraction. | > | | I can't tell whether you're agreeing with me or not... I disagreed with three-quarter rather than three-four and agreed with six-eight. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [OT] Fractions on musical notation
On Dec 16, 2007 10:32 PM, Terry Reedy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "Dan Upton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > |> Since the US, at least, uses > whole/half/quarter/eighth/sixteenth... > | > notes, three-quarter and six-eight time falls out... > | > | I don't think this is technically true, but I've never been able to > | tell the difference. > > I learned three-four, four-four, six-eight, etc. as time sigs. Not a > fraction. > I can't tell whether you're agreeing with me or not... At any rate though, if time signatures really fell out as reducible fractions, then why don't we just reduce 4/4 to 1 and call the whole thing off? ;) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [OT] Fractions on musical notation
"Dan Upton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] |> Since the US, at least, uses whole/half/quarter/eighth/sixteenth... | > notes, three-quarter and six-eight time falls out... | | I don't think this is technically true, but I've never been able to | tell the difference. I learned three-four, four-four, six-eight, etc. as time sigs. Not a fraction. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [OT] Fractions on musical notation
> > As a time signature 1/4 has no sense, You've never played and Grainger, have you? :-) --greg -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [OT] Fractions on musical notation
On 2007-12-17, Gabriel Genellina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 16 dic, 06:40, Lie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> [btw, off topic, in music, isn't 1/4 and 2/8 different? I'm not very >> keen of music though, so correct me if I'm wrong.] > > As a time signature 1/4 has no sense, but 3/4 and 6/8 are > different things. In the standard musical notation both numbers > are written one above the other, and no "division" line is > used. Note that they just *look* like a fraction when written > in text form, like here, because it's not easy to write one > above the other. 3/4 is read as "three by four", not "three > quarters" -at least in my country- so there is even less > confussion. Time signatures are crap. They should have switched to a number over a note value a long time ago; we could have easily avoided abominable travesties like the time signature on the 2nd movement of Beethoven's 9th (B needed four over dotted quarter). If music notation had been invented by a computer scientist we wouldn't be stuck in the current mess in which 6/8 means two completely different meters (3 over quarter, or 2 over dotted quarter). And... er... Python doesn't need a time signature data type. But rationals would be quite nifty. ;-) -- Neil Cerutti -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [OT] Fractions on musical notation
> Since the US, at least, uses whole/half/quarter/eighth/sixteenth... > notes, three-quarter and six-eight time falls out... I don't think this is technically true, but I've never been able to tell the difference. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Re: [OT] Fractions on musical notation
Gabriel Genellina wrote: > On 16 dic, 06:40, Lie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> [btw, off topic, in music, isn't 1/4 and 2/8 different? I'm not very >> keen of music though, so correct me if I'm wrong.] > As a time signature 1/4 has no sense Actually, I'm playing a show right now that has a one beat vamp. It's a single repeated measure in 1/4 time. To addres the real point, though, I don't think of a time signature as a rational number, although it correctly reflects what portion of a whole note can be found within a measure. I consider it to have two separate pieces of information: the length of the beat and the number of those beats per bar. When I've written code to represent music I have used rationals to represent when something occurs, but a different structure to represent time signatures. -- Brian -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
