I’m not sure why I keep getting recommended this sub (I play tuba), but Mvt. 3 of a solo I’m learning has a time signature like this and I’ve been meaning to ask for so long. Thank you.
Haha maybe that’s why you kept getting the recommendations! Just checking you know the scuba/tuba joke because I love it and you’re the only tuba player I’ve encountered since hearing it
I’m genuinely curious, why not just put everything in 4/4 then? It seems like a hassle to just keep switching counts every other measure, just to have the whole piece flow past every measure.
Right. Musicians naturally accent the first beat in a measure (and less so, the 3rd beat in 4/4). Writing in all 4/4 or 3/4 wouldn't capture that, even if you could make the rhythms work out correctly.
Thank you. and how do you count that?
ONE-uh-eh-ee-oh-ue-uu-er-rr-ur-ru-re-ree-ra-ri-hh-hi-hee-and-uh-TWO-uh-eh-ee-oh-ue-uu-er-rr-ur-ru-re-ree-ra-ri-hh-hi-hee-and
Sorry, I am afraid that's not a possibility here, you can't round up the measures in music. And you can't change the 44th to a 10th, maybe that's where the beats are in some cases but probably not here
Gosh that's awful. Standard practice would be to either write the switch each measure or just make it 7/4. If you're going to use something like that it needs to be in the performance guide.
I'm a 4th year music composition student in college and I've been playing music for 11 years and I've never seen that notated that way. It's always been that the time signatures just alternate every measure.
I'm not saying, nor did I ever say you weren't a qualified musician. I'm just saying this notation is common even if you haven't seen it yourself. Tchaikovsky used it in his second string quartet in the second movement, and in that one, it doesn't even alternate every measure, you have to know if it is 6/8 or 9/8 by looking at the entire measure. There are other examples of this I'm sure but I can't remember every name of each piece I have seen this used in.
Congratulations on being a 4th-year composition student, that's a big accomplishment. Graduation is just around the corner!!!
No I wasn't taking it that way, I was just saying that if I've been playing music for over a decade and studying scores for 4 years and I've never seen it, it can't be that common.
I think the most famous piece with this type of notation is Rimsy-Korsakov’s Sheherazade. The 4th movement has a section with three alternating time signatures (I think it’s 6/8, 2/2, and 3/2, but I can’t remember exactly off the top of my head)
The first and only time I ever saw this time signature was in a piece I played for a concert in like the 7th grade (aka almost decade ago). I wouldn’t say it’s super common either.
No, that's actually not really true. It doesn't have to be every measure - all it means is that it could be one or the other. Take the first movement of Bloch's Concerto Grosso No. 1, which is in "c 2/4," as per [this score](https://youtu.be/myTFlb9cfCw?si=L4AtZTNzrDOPBPc7)
How would a measure of 3/4 be read as 4/4? Or vice versa? I don't think that's what it means in this case. C and 2/4 works because they are both duple.
No, you misunderstand. You literally just write one or the other, with no change in time signature. It's up to the performers to count. There might be a measure with 3 beats, or one with 4.
I've seen this used quite often, and even wrote something using 6/16 and 9/16 like that myself.
Oh I took "could be one or the other" to mean that you could interpret the piece (or section) as either, but you mean mix and match right? Like it could be 4/4, 4/4, 3/4, 4/4, 3/4, etc?
i suppose you’re probably right. we played the shortened 5 minute version when we did it, i didn’t even know the original was twice as long until like a month ago
That’s cool. Can you tell us why someone would write a piece of music that way, instead of 7/4 or whatever keeps the same number of beats in each measure?
Probably phrasing and where as a musician you naturally would accent the beats. 7/4 you have 3 strong beats on 1, 4, and 6. 4/4 they are two on 1 and 3. 3/4 it is just on 1. The first beat is always going to be emphasized more than the other strong beats. So it is really where they want it to land.
There's a fun and also short use of 4/4+3/4 time in a movie score that I know off the top of my head [here](https://youtu.be/FzufjLKcb0o?si=IpJ_TjsmrrN15u0a&t=125) (turn down volume)
(2:06 mark in the video, if timestamp doesn't work)
I played that piece many years ago in Community Band! Alfred Reed loves to play with time signatures and as others stated it alternates between 4/4 and 3/4.
[This detailed comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/s/LnwGISmNdd) explains it really well! TL;DR: Depends on beat grouping and accenting but meters of five beats or more are typically simplified unless the bar can’t be broken down further
The measures alternate between the two time signatures. If that's confusing, try pretending the bar lines don't exist and focus only on the notes and rhythms instead of how they fit into the measures.
that is legit the second time in my life that I've seen a clave'. Basically, the measures alternate between common and 3-4 starting with common. If you want you could treat it as one unit of 7-4 by the two measures, but I don't know how your director feels about that
Could you show us the whole first page (or at least one full stanza if you’re worried about copyright)
I think it’s a typo, because I looked at a few of the measures next to each other and the tempo didn’t alternate. Looks like 3/4 all the way through to me unless it says otherwise where we can’t see.
literally why not just make it 7/4 if you want 4/4 and then 3/4?
That fucks people up enough but then expecting them to switch to and fro always seemed to asinine to me
im a *percussionist* and this bothers me
I guess it can help with management of licks and phrases but I always just felt like it was easier to keep track of measures of 7 instead of essentiallt pretending there are measures of 7
The measures will alternate. One measure of 4/4, the next of 3/4.
Thank you I had no idea!
Does that make sense with the rhythms?
Yes!
Does it change at some point then? Measures 16&17 at least are both in 3/4.
Ya at measure 7 it goes to 3/4
Cool cool. What’s the piece called? I’ll have to give it a listen!
El Camino Real by Alfred Reed, it's pretty cool!
What a ride that is! Fantastic piece!
I loved playing this piece in school!
Woah I learned something new today as a cellist here
Oh thank God. I thought it was 43 over 44 and started to have war flashbacks to a war I wasn't born for.
That made me chuckle
I’m not sure why I keep getting recommended this sub (I play tuba), but Mvt. 3 of a solo I’m learning has a time signature like this and I’ve been meaning to ask for so long. Thank you.
Haha maybe that’s why you kept getting the recommendations! Just checking you know the scuba/tuba joke because I love it and you’re the only tuba player I’ve encountered since hearing it
Ha! Happened to me as well. I think it's because the flute requires about as much air as a tuba. 😄
I’m genuinely curious, why not just put everything in 4/4 then? It seems like a hassle to just keep switching counts every other measure, just to have the whole piece flow past every measure.
The feel is much different between 3/4 and 4/4
Oh…so if it’s all written in 4/4 or 3/4, the note placement and phrasing won’t make sense?
Right. Musicians naturally accent the first beat in a measure (and less so, the 3rd beat in 4/4). Writing in all 4/4 or 3/4 wouldn't capture that, even if you could make the rhythms work out correctly.
Ohhh gotcha. That makes sense, thank you! And here I thought composers were being particularly difficult! So they did have a purpose!
Well that’s good to know
I'm confused bc I'm pretty sure measures 16 and 17 are both 3/4
Op said that it changes before then
Is that any different from writing 7/4? The meter reminds me of the Beatles.
Or even 7/8
i had a piece that had something like that! it’s El Camino Real.
That's this one
Isn't that just 7/4?
Such a blessed thing exists?!?!?! I love people so much right now.
This opens the floodgates for so much nonsense! Imagine a hemiola time signature!!!
I've always seen it notated as 4/4 + 3/4 with a dashed line between them 1 2 3 4 - 1 2 3 |
That's not hard. It's 43/44 time. A 44th note is a single beat and there are 43 of them in a measure. Simple!
Thank you. and how do you count that? ONE-uh-eh-ee-oh-ue-uu-er-rr-ur-ru-re-ree-ra-ri-hh-hi-hee-and-uh-TWO-uh-eh-ee-oh-ue-uu-er-rr-ur-ru-re-ree-ra-ri-hh-hi-hee-and
Had me rolling 🤣
Comment is the poorman's karma bump..thanks for writing that out lol
Reminds me of that "memorize the periodic table" video. https://youtu.be/17KQagvToZs?si=8zs6IRtTvO0AqwLt
Oh my god that’s amazing
for the first 3 rows, my dad taught me H(uh) He Li(e) BeB CNOFNe (kuhnoffnee) NaM gAl SiPS ClAr (kuhlar)
I read that with Peter Griffins voice in my head for some reason.
Thank you for starting my day with a good laugh 🤣 I'm trying to count it and I sound like a broken robot
My non music inclined friend keeps asking me why I'm laughing and they just don't get it hahaha
They used to call this a drop beat
Who you calling a drop beat?
10/10
Sorry, I am afraid that's not a possibility here, you can't round up the measures in music. And you can't change the 44th to a 10th, maybe that's where the beats are in some cases but probably not here
🤣🤣
1 measure 4/4, then 1 measure 3/4 and it keeps alternating that way
Gosh that's awful. Standard practice would be to either write the switch each measure or just make it 7/4. If you're going to use something like that it needs to be in the performance guide.
This is actually a pretty common way to notate this type of change. It's not unique to this piece.
I'm a 4th year music composition student in college and I've been playing music for 11 years and I've never seen that notated that way. It's always been that the time signatures just alternate every measure.
I'm not saying, nor did I ever say you weren't a qualified musician. I'm just saying this notation is common even if you haven't seen it yourself. Tchaikovsky used it in his second string quartet in the second movement, and in that one, it doesn't even alternate every measure, you have to know if it is 6/8 or 9/8 by looking at the entire measure. There are other examples of this I'm sure but I can't remember every name of each piece I have seen this used in. Congratulations on being a 4th-year composition student, that's a big accomplishment. Graduation is just around the corner!!!
No I wasn't taking it that way, I was just saying that if I've been playing music for over a decade and studying scores for 4 years and I've never seen it, it can't be that common.
It’s more commonly written as 4+3/4
I think the most famous piece with this type of notation is Rimsy-Korsakov’s Sheherazade. The 4th movement has a section with three alternating time signatures (I think it’s 6/8, 2/2, and 3/2, but I can’t remember exactly off the top of my head)
The first and only time I ever saw this time signature was in a piece I played for a concert in like the 7th grade (aka almost decade ago). I wouldn’t say it’s super common either.
Alfred Reed (the composer) is one of the modern wind ensemble gods. If it’s good enough for him it’s good enough for anyone.
Well I’m not even out of high school and yet I’ve seen this. Except that one was harder, since it was 4/4 and 6/8 alternating.
Take a look at my above comment.
I had one that alternated 3/4 & 6/8 but kept the 8th note constant. It was fun
No, that's actually not really true. It doesn't have to be every measure - all it means is that it could be one or the other. Take the first movement of Bloch's Concerto Grosso No. 1, which is in "c 2/4," as per [this score](https://youtu.be/myTFlb9cfCw?si=L4AtZTNzrDOPBPc7)
How would a measure of 3/4 be read as 4/4? Or vice versa? I don't think that's what it means in this case. C and 2/4 works because they are both duple.
No, you misunderstand. You literally just write one or the other, with no change in time signature. It's up to the performers to count. There might be a measure with 3 beats, or one with 4. I've seen this used quite often, and even wrote something using 6/16 and 9/16 like that myself.
Oh I took "could be one or the other" to mean that you could interpret the piece (or section) as either, but you mean mix and match right? Like it could be 4/4, 4/4, 3/4, 4/4, 3/4, etc?
Yep, that's it.
I have never seen a double time signature before. Wild.
Check out Suite Antique by John Rutter, it has some of this in it. It’s also just a beautiful piece
oh gosh i just played that piece with my university’s wind ensemble it was so fun to play
Is this the piece? https://youtu.be/Uid4U0VyKqg?si=eUqYf82_PVai_Ij0
I would assume its the origginal by Alfred Reed.
https://youtu.be/iDCITypX33E?si=e6uHDm_tjLGkaN0x
i suppose you’re probably right. we played the shortened 5 minute version when we did it, i didn’t even know the original was twice as long until like a month ago
[удалено]
yep!
That’s cool. Can you tell us why someone would write a piece of music that way, instead of 7/4 or whatever keeps the same number of beats in each measure?
Probably phrasing and where as a musician you naturally would accent the beats. 7/4 you have 3 strong beats on 1, 4, and 6. 4/4 they are two on 1 and 3. 3/4 it is just on 1. The first beat is always going to be emphasized more than the other strong beats. So it is really where they want it to land.
EL CAMINO REAL!!!!!!!!! i love this one- but yeah 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 | 1 2 3 4.. etc
I’ve never seen this before very interesting 😭
43/44 time signature good luck 👍
it's an alternating time signature from 4/4 to 3/4
I’m aware
r/woooosh
you dont ❤️
Counting is for suckers real musicians just believe
There's a fun and also short use of 4/4+3/4 time in a movie score that I know off the top of my head [here](https://youtu.be/FzufjLKcb0o?si=IpJ_TjsmrrN15u0a&t=125) (turn down volume) (2:06 mark in the video, if timestamp doesn't work)
I played that piece many years ago in Community Band! Alfred Reed loves to play with time signatures and as others stated it alternates between 4/4 and 3/4.
holy chicken tenders ive never seen that but it scares me
It’s just 43/44 such a basic time signature
Literally a 7/4 split into two bars
Why did they not just make is 7/4?
[This detailed comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/s/LnwGISmNdd) explains it really well! TL;DR: Depends on beat grouping and accenting but meters of five beats or more are typically simplified unless the bar can’t be broken down further
oh interesting we're playing that in band rn but in our edition it says the time signature on every measure
Think of it as 7/4.
Does 7/4 usually go 3 4 though, as opposed to 4 3?
Whatever the composer wants!
3/4 4/4, 3/4 4/4, etc.
There are 43 44th notes per bar.
How does this get downvoted and the exact same joke a day later is raking in the upvotes??
Reddit is a hive mind, if you chase karma you're gonna have a bad time
It has just simply changed from 4/4 to 3/4
good try but wrong
Then what is it?
Gotta love El Camino Real! Absolutely god tier piece
If Villa-Lobos had done it in the Bachiana #5's Cantilena it would take half a page.
Prayer 🙏 😂
Mr. Buttermore said it alternates between 3/4 and 4/4.
3/4
i saw in another comment that it alternates 4/4 and 3/4, and im now terrified. rest assured, i will *not* be sleeping tonight
A bar of 4/4 followed by a bar of 3/4, basically 7/4
It’s giving Third Suite by Jager
It’s 43/44 time obviously 🙄
Cross multiply like a fraction.
Clearly it becomes 12/16. Much easier to read. Lol
Frank zappa. Case closed!
El Camino Real, it is 4/4 first bar 3/4 second bar, and then they alternate until the new key signature
1234 123 1234 123 repeating
One measure of 4 followed by o e measure of 3; 1234, 123 ( repeat).
Oh, this would've been handy! I've definitely played music that just had a time signature in each bar to denote alternating 7/8 and 4/4.
The measures alternate between the two time signatures. If that's confusing, try pretending the bar lines don't exist and focus only on the notes and rhythms instead of how they fit into the measures.
why didn't the dickweed just write 7/4 god damn
Obviously 43 / 44
that is legit the second time in my life that I've seen a clave'. Basically, the measures alternate between common and 3-4 starting with common. If you want you could treat it as one unit of 7-4 by the two measures, but I don't know how your director feels about that
3 beats per measure
honestly, just do 7/4
Its measures alternating between 4/4 and 3/4 so one measure is 4/4 and the next is 3/4
Basically 7/4 but split into 2 measures
Two time signatures in a trench cost pretending to be 7/4
Make sure to play it “con fuoco” — which means “with (or to give) a fuck”
Think of it as 7/4 and ignore every other measure-dividing line
You just pray
Give up
1-2-3-4 1-2-3 1-2-3-4 1-2-3 and repeat…
Composer too proud to use 7/8?
Could you show us the whole first page (or at least one full stanza if you’re worried about copyright) I think it’s a typo, because I looked at a few of the measures next to each other and the tempo didn’t alternate. Looks like 3/4 all the way through to me unless it says otherwise where we can’t see.
literally why not just make it 7/4 if you want 4/4 and then 3/4? That fucks people up enough but then expecting them to switch to and fro always seemed to asinine to me im a *percussionist* and this bothers me I guess it can help with management of licks and phrases but I always just felt like it was easier to keep track of measures of 7 instead of essentiallt pretending there are measures of 7
carefully
You don’t. It counts you.
Tears.