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Posted by Phantax on Jun-08-2005 06:34:

Question About Time Signatures

I'm just reading the "Measures and Time Signatures" section on Musictheory.net

It says 3/2 time contains 3 half notes..which is 3 half notes to a measure...But I don't understand how that's possible when 1 whole note = 1 measure which means the maximum amount of half notes per measure could be only 2.

How is 3/2 time possible? Anyone who understands Time Signatures please explain how I'm undedrstanding this the wrong way.

Thanx!

Posted by R.j. on Jun-08-2005 06:50:

Re: Question About Time Signatures

quote:
Originally posted by Phantax
I'm just reading the "Measures and Time Signatures" section on Musictheory.net

It says 3/2 time contains 3 half notes..which is 3 half notes to a measure...But I don't understand how that's possible when 1 whole note = 1 measure which means the maximum amount of half notes per measure could be only 2.

How is 3/2 time possible? Anyone who understands Time Signatures please explain how I'm undedrstanding this the wrong way.

Thanx!

the top number indicates how many beats are in the measure. the number on the bottom indicates the duration i'm guessing.

now common time would simply be 4/4 and if you cut that in half it becomes CUT TIME, so everything in the measure will be divded into two. So, a quater note becomes a eigth note, a whole note becomes a half note and so on. so that would be 2/2 time. thats two beats in each measure.

now, that means one whole note in CUT TIME equals 2 HALF NOTES. simply add another beat (making it 3/2) gives me another half note.

I have no idea if that's how it works because I was in orchestra in middle school and that's how I understood it.

Posted by Xuma on Jun-08-2005 10:48:

Hey there:

Forget for a second about the idea about how one quarter is 1/4th the measure and four of these make a �whole� note represented by an o. The number on bottom only means �what gets the �unit� note.� So if changed it to 3/5 (which would be the time signature from hell) then the �unit� note would count as one-fifth. Three of these would make a full measure. Another example is if I had 40/8 (which is another goofy time signature I made up, but it could work!), then 1/8 would be your �unit� note or count as one beat and 40 of these would be mean one measure. 2/2, 4/4, 6/8 all work the same way.

For 3/2, you just consider three half notes as one �whole note�, which would be notated differently then your average 4/4 time signature�s �whole note.� One complete whole note that will fill a measure for 3/2 would look like a half note with a dot next to it. So each time you saw that, you would associate that with three beats and know the composer wanted you to hold it for three of those beats.

-E

Posted by /I\ on Jun-08-2005 14:15:

3/2 basically has a triplet feel ... 3/2 is like a waltz but in half time (its twice as slow) with a waltz being 3/4 ... go 'boom cha cha ... boom cha cha ... boom cha cha' really slow