musicteach
New member
As the title says, I wanted to share this with everyone. I've noticed that even with with musicians that have been playing for decades upon decades that a lot of musicians seem to have issues with weird time signatures, such as 12/16 time:
So what I wish to explain will hopefully help you in your own playing, if you are having issues!
But before we can do this, we must first explore what a "time signature" is. All it does, which of course most of us know, it tells us how many beats there are per measure, and what subdivision gets the beat. Let's look at 12/16 time.
The 12 tells us that there are 12 beats per measure, and that each sixteenth note gets the beat.
As musicians, we have to realize that music is simply the art of interpretation and that everything is relevant. What I mean is, that just about everything in music is subjective to how you as the performer look at it. We also most realize is that music is simply applied math.
This being said, does this:
equal this:
?
Aside from groupings, the answer is yes! There's too ways you can go about playing 12/16 time (or my personal favourite 20/16). This applies to all other time signatures with a smaller subdivision then an eighth note. You can try to count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 every single measure or you can count 1e&a 2e&a 3e&a 1e&a 2e&a 3e&a. In playing, there really isn't a difference between 3/4 and 12/16 when the entire piece is written in that time signature.
When you change the subdivision of measure, all you're really doing is changing where the quarter note lands. As musicians we're taught from day one that quarters get one beat. That's because as a young musician, all we're going to be playing is stuff in 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, and possibly 5/4. This becomes a problem when suddenly you see 3/8 or 9/8 or 12/16 etc etc thrown into a piece of music. Especially young students have difficulty grasping the concept of how exactly do you count these. And it's only mathematics, and applying things you've already know! Even 9/8 time can be done doing this.
Here you see a masure of 9/8 time followed by a measure of 3/4 time. Look at the grouping of the eighth notes. They are exactly the same! The notation is slightly different because of the time signatures, but the point remains. Again, you can count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 each measure or you can count 1 trip let 2 trip let 3 trip let each measure. Which is easier?
Hope that helps if anyone is having issues!
So what I wish to explain will hopefully help you in your own playing, if you are having issues!
But before we can do this, we must first explore what a "time signature" is. All it does, which of course most of us know, it tells us how many beats there are per measure, and what subdivision gets the beat. Let's look at 12/16 time.
The 12 tells us that there are 12 beats per measure, and that each sixteenth note gets the beat.
As musicians, we have to realize that music is simply the art of interpretation and that everything is relevant. What I mean is, that just about everything in music is subjective to how you as the performer look at it. We also most realize is that music is simply applied math.
This being said, does this:
equal this:
Aside from groupings, the answer is yes! There's too ways you can go about playing 12/16 time (or my personal favourite 20/16). This applies to all other time signatures with a smaller subdivision then an eighth note. You can try to count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 every single measure or you can count 1e&a 2e&a 3e&a 1e&a 2e&a 3e&a. In playing, there really isn't a difference between 3/4 and 12/16 when the entire piece is written in that time signature.
When you change the subdivision of measure, all you're really doing is changing where the quarter note lands. As musicians we're taught from day one that quarters get one beat. That's because as a young musician, all we're going to be playing is stuff in 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, and possibly 5/4. This becomes a problem when suddenly you see 3/8 or 9/8 or 12/16 etc etc thrown into a piece of music. Especially young students have difficulty grasping the concept of how exactly do you count these. And it's only mathematics, and applying things you've already know! Even 9/8 time can be done doing this.
Here you see a masure of 9/8 time followed by a measure of 3/4 time. Look at the grouping of the eighth notes. They are exactly the same! The notation is slightly different because of the time signatures, but the point remains. Again, you can count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 each measure or you can count 1 trip let 2 trip let 3 trip let each measure. Which is easier?
Hope that helps if anyone is having issues!
