well, it's a good question. The answer might lie later in the piece. is there a part where the melody does not follow the triplet feel? I notice the the lower staffs are not written in dotted quarter notes, like they should be. Techincally, those staffs are in 3/4 and the top ones are in 9/8 usually when you see two time sigs, they alternate every other measure, but not here.
Hmm, beats me. I was just browsing through the classical archives and thought that was a bit odd. My first though was maybe one time staff was for the top and the other was for the bottom, but obviously that wouldn't exactly work out
Im playing that piece in orchestra, and we only have the 9/8 signature, but im guessing that if 9/8 is too hard then you can play it 3/4. Kind of like playing a piece 4/4 when it is marked "Cut Time"(2/2), and you cant play it that fast.
The 3/4 was really bothering me, so i asked my orch. teacher today and she said that the 3/4 was for the conductor, telling him/her to conduct as if it was 3/4. At least i think thats what she said.
That's a pretty lame reason, because 99.9% of all pieces ever written in 9/8 are conducted in 3 anyway.
Oh ok I'm a noob in timing and such but I think I figured it out. One bar of 9/8 is the same as two bars of 3/4, right? I'm just guessing here. So maybe it's ORIGINALLY written in 3/4, but to make the sheet music shorter so it doesn't take up the whole page, they put it in 9/8. Just a thought. I really need to learn all the timing theory stuff EDIT - No that can't be right. I'll leave this post here in case is sparks an idea or two.
I'll give my best shot at clearing this up. 3/4 has what's called dupel feel, say with me "One-and-two-and-three-and" 9/8 USUALLY has a triplet feel "One-la-lee Two-la-lee Three-la-lee" Still three beats in a measure, but it's the subdivision of the beat that makes it different. sing "when johnny comes marching home" to get the feeling of a song with a triplet feel. It's the same feel even though that song has a 6/8 time sig.
