> On 29 Jul 2022, at 13:30, Kieren MacMillan <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hi Carl, > >> Just curious, because I know precious little about polymetry. >> Does 9/8 (3/4) mean anything different from (3 + 3 + 3)/8 ? > > Yes: the parenthetical notation is usually an instruction to alternate time > signatures, not simply a clarification of intention. For example, in “West > Side Story”, Bernstein uses 6/8 (3/4) to indicate that alternate bars should > be felt/conducted as 6/8 then 3/4 then 6/8 then 3/4…
Hindemith, "Training…", indicates that 6/8 is always bipartite, so the 3/4 is a metric shift in this music piece. > Hope that helps! > Kieren. > > p.s. > >> To my novice eye, both mean that it's 9/8 with three primary beats per >> measure. Also to my novice eye, it seems that 9/8 can/t have a 3/4 >> alternate time signature; perhaps a (3/4.) , but not a (3/4). > > Perhaps the intention is to save the notational ink of changing between > triple and duple feel? So there continue to be three primary beats per > measure, but alternating between “triplets“ and “straight eighths” without > having to add tuplet numbers? By contrast, 9/8 is tripartite, just as 3/4, so I do not see any obvious difference here. These metric refers to CPP (common practise period) music. In Bulgarian music, I found an example of 6/8, 6 = 2+2+2 contrasted against a 7/8, perhaps a 3+2+2. In Irish music, jigs are written in 6/8 and slip jigs in 9/8. The Bulgarian pravo horo, called zonaradikos in Greece, has a similar triple rhythms as 6/8, but is invariably written in 2/4 in Bulgaria, perhaps because performances have something similar to notes inégales (swinged notes, as in jazz) on the dotted notes.
