Making Music
  Computer Music Software and Hardware

The times they are a-changing

Some pieces of music change time signatures at various places throughout the piece. This is not a new idea although we see more of it in music coming from 1900s 'classical' composers than in early classical music.

In popular music it probably hit its peak during the progressive rock phenomena of the mid 1960s to mid 1970s when bands such as Rush experimented with time signature changes and odd time signatures. The rule at the time was 'if it has a beat but you can't dance to it, it's progressive rock'. Even The Beatles indulged in mixing time signatures with songs like All You Need is Love.

The two most popular and well-known pieces with changing time signatures are undoubtedly Leonard Bernstein's America from West Side Story, and Ron Goodwin's theme from 633 Squadron. They both use alternating bars of 6/8 and 3/4 to create the well-known, pulsating rhythm. And even though this is a combination of two time signatures, it's a very easy and natural rhythm to sing. Here's the first couple of bars of America:

To indicate a change of time signature in a piece of music, you simply write the new time signature at the beginning of a bar, as above. Once a time signature has been written, it's assumed that all following bars have that time signature.

When a time change occurs at the beginning of a new line (or stave as they say in music land), it is also written at the end of the previous stave. You can see just such an example in the Brassed Off example.

Odd couples

Many composers write music in what we call odd time signatures, the most common of which are 5/4 and 7/4. A handful of pop hits have taken up the challenge including Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill in 7/4 and Jethro Tull's Living in the Past in 5/4.

The first piece of music to popularise the 5/4 time signature was Dave Brubeck's Take Five back in 1959 but even before that, Mars from Gustav Holst's Planets Suite brought 5/4 time to widespread public attention.

These time signatures are not as difficult to read as they may appear as they can be broken down into simple time signatures. Take Five and Living in the Past, for example, combine 3/4 + 2/4. Here's the first few bars of Take Five:

Brubeck took the art of odd time signatures even further with his Blue Rondo a la Turk in 9/8 time. However, this was a not the traditional grouping of 3/8 + 3/8 + 3/8 but a rather more inventive 2/8 + 2/8 + 2/8 + 3/8:

The piece was later recorded by The Nice with Keith Emerson on keyboards circa 1968, and converted into triplets for a rock audience.

Even though most music is written in 4/4, becoming comfortable and proficient in other time signatures will increase your versatility and give you ideas for creating different rhythms. When composing music, other time signatures can make a piece more interesting, exciting and give it an edge.

For more info... Any good book on notation or the rudiments of music will carry copious information about time signatures. Type 'rudiments of music' into Amazon for a long list: