On 29 Jun 2005 at 19:35, Christopher Smith wrote: > On Jun 29, 2005, at 6:37 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: > > > > Well, time signatures suck, too. 3/H or 2/H. make much more sense. > > Then you could also have 6/Q being its own separate meter, rather > > than in our system where 6/Q and 2/H. are indistinguishable without > > some kind of understanding of a tradition, or a note from the > > composer. > > Well, I think that perhaps 6/4 these days (or 6 anything, really) > doesn't have the imperative triple feel that it once had.
Other than 6/Q, then, what purpose would it serve, other than to represent 2/H. as destinct from 3/2's 3/H beat? > >> So you see that a bar of 3/2 showing up all of a sudden in a > >> context of medium jazz 4/4 is likely to cause a momentary > >> confusion, more than 6/4 would. . . . > > > > All along I've been talking not about a single measure occuring in > > the middle of a different meter, or pieces in which there are > > shifting subdivision patterns. I've been talking about relatively > > straightforward music, where the subdivision is 3x2/4 throughout the > > whole piece, with no significant exceptions. In that case, I just > > don't see 6/4 as justified. > > > > In your jazz repertory, I don't think you'd not notate that with the > > half note at the beat -- you'd notate it as 3/4. You'd only choose > > 6/4 in a context where you didn't really want anything other than a > > maintenance of the underlying quarter-note beat, and it's neither > > 3x2/4 nor 3x3/4, but 6x1/4 -- the ideal situation for the 6/Q time > > signature. > > There we go! Common ground at last! I actually think we *are* on common ground. The reason there's confusion and disagreement is because of the confusion inherent in our time signatures, where 6/4 means something rather more complicated than a simple meter like 3/2. Because of that, readers of what I've posted have been interpreting the important details differently than I was thinking of them. That's why I've switched to using 6/Q and 3/H to explain, because that's pretty unambiguous and hard to misinterpret. > >> . . . And I hope you see, too, that once one has started a /4 > >> denominator, one must be very careful about what one does with the > >> denominator after that (to ensure clearest communication in a jazz > >> situation, that is.) > > > > I'm not sure how much more explicit I could have been in syaing that > > the whole context of my remarks has been limited to pieces that > > don't change meter and that aren't exploiting a shift between the > > two alternate subdivisions. > > Oh, I got that. But what I was explaining was where there would be a > DUPLE (or even no fixed subdivision, like a lot of modern jazz) > subdivision, but three duples in a row. Or no discernable accent at > all. And all this where a quarter note is clearly the pulse. I just > don't think that EVERYONE looks at a 6/4 bar and mentally thinks "OK, > just like two bars of 3/4" the way they do with 6/8. ESPECIALLY in a > jazz context. Well, other than 6/Q I don't see any other function for the time signature to have. And my case at all times has been about the issue which meter is appropriate to music that runs 3 half notes to the measure. I don't see how anyone could argue that 6/4 is appropriate there. [] > > I think we all agree that our system of notating time signatures is > > filled with potential confusion. > > > > I wish Finale supported the notation of time signatures with the > > denominator as a note. > > Oh yeah, baby, I hear you. I'm a composer, you know, and metrical variety is one of the characteristic idioms of my work (lots of 5/8 followed by 2/4 followed by 3/4 followed by 7/8, with emphasis on shifting quarter and dotted quarter pulses), so I've often wanted that very badly for clarity. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
