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Intros where it's hard to find the "1"

#141
onosson said:
To be fair, I think you missed my point. If you subdivide a 4-count into 8 beats, then you are correct, it might better be called 8/8 than 4/4. But the same logic wouldn't get you 7/8 instead of 7/4, it would get you 14/8.
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No, I didn't miss your point. But I wasn't making the comparison you suggested (or "applying the same logic") at all. I was just saying that "how you subdivide affects the name" and giving 4/4 vs 8/8 as an example.

I never "subdivided a 7/4" anywhere or suggested that something like that would result in a 7/8. In fact, you kind of support my idea that 7/8 and 7/4 are different.
Taking your example: 7/4 is 14/8 arranged as seven even groupings of two 8ths. The other is 7/8 arranged in (usually) two groups of two 8ths and one group of three 8ths.

So 7/4 has seven even pulses while 7/8 has three pulses, one longer than the two others. I'm also aware that in different cultures there may be lots of different groupings, like 2-3-2 or something like that, but that is still a 7/8 to me.

Now I KNOW that people will argue that as tempo gets higher one will feel the "half notes" and will begin to feel the "short/short/long" (or vice versa) pulses. Well, I suggest that you are now playing and feeling a 7/8.

I have never met a drummer that has played 7/4 the same as 7/8 regarding the placement of snare and kickdrum.

I don't like to "argue" on the Internet so this will be my last post on the subject matter. I hope I have expressed my position in an understandable manner. It's just consuming more time than I have for this forum, so please don't see this as rude. Thanks for the respectful exchange of opinions.
 
#142
christoph h. said:
I don't like to "argue" on the Internet so this will be my last post on the subject matter. I hope I have expressed my position in an understandable manner. It's just consuming more time than I have for this forum, so please don't see this as rude. Thanks for the respectful exchange of opinions.
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Agreed, and thank you for keeping it respectful, too. I think I see where you are coming from, and pretty much agree with you - sometimes you have to take a step back from a thread full of comments and look at what's being said from a fresh perspective.
 
#144
christoph h. said:
No, I didn't miss your point. But I wasn't making the comparison you suggested (or "applying the same logic") at all. I was just saying that "how you subdivide affects the name" and giving 4/4 vs 8/8 as an example.

I never "subdivided a 7/4" anywhere or suggested that something like that would result in a 7/8. In fact, you kind of support my idea that 7/8 and 7/4 are different.
Taking your example: 7/4 is 14/8 arranged as seven even groupings of two 8ths. The other is 7/8 arranged in (usually) two groups of two 8ths and one group of three 8ths.

So 7/4 has seven even pulses while 7/8 has three pulses, one longer than the two others. I'm also aware that in different cultures there may be lots of different groupings, like 2-3-2 or something like that, but that is still a 7/8 to me.
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I know he's not debating this anymore, but I think this must be said:

My only problem with this statement comes from implying that time signatures also indicate grouping, strong beats and overall "feel" (2-2-3 or "long/long/short" for example)...they don't. Ever. That's what I believe BassyBill was hinting at in earlier posts.

Time signatures are used to notate music in as easy a format as possible for the sight-reader to digest...however, that concept is up to the interpretation of the transcriber/composer. For example: there is sometimes a trade-off between writing a piece in 4/4 with lots of smaller notes (8th, 16th notes) but at a slower tempo, or writing it in cut time (2/2) with bigger notes (half, quarter and 8th notes) which may be easier to read to most, but must be played at a faster tempo to match up with the previous example. Thus, in most cases, cut time is used for faster songs to make sightreading easier.

Regardless, the individual composition dictates where the strong beats are...i.e. You, as the composer, can stress any beat you want in 7/4, 7/8, 7/16...They're called irregular time signatures for a reason:
  • 1) there's no set, agreed upon way of grouping the beats;
  • 2) Simplicity over Redundancy: it's almost pointless to say 8/8 when 4/4 is more commonplace (thus easier to sightread on average).

Bottom line, stressing beats in any song fall under the composer's discretion. Notation (i.e. time signature) decisions tend to come after. If you read band charts written for beginner ensembles and then look up the same songs for advanced college jazz groups, simpler time signatures and grouping are one of the first things to change when it's "watered down" to the less advanced groups.
 
#145
Roscoe East said:
At the risk of overstating the obvious, every jazz musician and educator I've ever met has insisted that swing eighth notes are not the same as a triplet with the first two partials tied together.

The triplet notation may be the best approximation (and certainly better than the dotted eighth/16th convention that you see on a lot of society music charts), but it's an approximation at best.
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Yes, it's an approximation, but it's often a pretty close one, depending on how heavy the swing is.
 
#148
bassybill said:
Yes, it's an approximation, but it's often a pretty close one, depending on how heavy the swing is.
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{Disclaimer} I am a non-reader {/Disclaimer}

I find it fascinating that a notation that's been in use for 100s of years still has controversy.

I've always found it tough to learn, but maybe once you get past the beginner stage, it may get easier...
 
#149
MrDOS said:
{Disclaimer} I am a non-reader {/Disclaimer}

I find it fascinating that a notation that's been in use for 100s of years still has controversy.

I've always found it tough to learn, but maybe once you get past the beginner stage, it may get easier...
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I think it's largely due to the fact that in this case, a music notation system has been adapted for use with other types of music that differ in some important ways from the types of music that the system was originally developed for.

Another example would be how the Chinese writing system was adapted in Japan and Korea. Due to linguistic differences (spoken Chinese is completely unrelated to the other two languages, and has significant differences), both Japanese and Korean speakers adapted Chinese characters by altering them and producing writing systems more suited to their respective languages, and that are extremely different from the Chinese system. It didn't happen overnight, in fact it took centuries - and even specific government intervention (especially in the case of Korea).
 

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