Hello, everybody! Thanks for all the hard work you've been performing for everybody on this forum for years. I appreciate your efforts.
So, I have looked and looked but don't see what I'm searching for either here on the forums or in the 'larger internet', so please forgive me if this is an old question that has been answered before. I have not seen an 'answer' for it.
Paul Hindemith wrote Mathis Der Maler in 1934. I'm pretty sure he didn't invent this concept, but it's at the very least this old.
In the later portion of the development section of the first movement (see image), the trombones enter with a melody in 3/2 during a section where the rest of the orchestra has been playing and continues to play in 2/2.
The barlines are staggered during this section. Cool. Ok.
So, I've written a piece of music back in 1986 that I am inputting now that does something similar to this.
The bass part is in changing time signatures of 3/2 or 2/2 or 4/2, and the rest of the music is in various time signatures. It isn't in '2/2' or '4/4'. It goes from 13/8 to 14/8 to 3/2... you get the idea.
So, is there ANY way to have one instrument (or any group of instruments) have any type of 'other' time signatures that can go against another time signature?
Any plug ins? Any type of short cut rather than the ever-more-common-than-not KLUDGE or 'long-cut?
I just don't see a way to do this that doesn't involve pulling apart the whole score barline-by-barline to get what I'm looking for.
What you could do, depending on the complexity of the cross-times is work out a lowest common denominator for when barlines will match and use that as the base TS. Then it's a case of kludging the in-between barlines with lines. the more complex the music, the more tricky it's going to be.
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Win 10 Pro x64, 1.6GHz Intel i7 Quad core, 8GB,7TB 7200rpm HDD, Scarlett 6i6, Sib 6.2,7.5, 8.7.0 NotePerformer, GPO4 & 5, COMB2, EWQLSO Plat, EWQLSC,
Si me castigare vis, necesse est me intellexisse.
Well, this one's easy. The beat is shared, even if some of the bar likes aren't. But, as Adrian says, there are pieces where different instruments have quite independent rhythms and tempi. Charles Ives liked doing that sort of thing. Here's an example where the conductor can get by with just cueing in the rogue group and letting them 'take it' themselves.
> What you could do, depending on the complexity of the cross-times is work out a lowest common denominator for when barlines will match and use that as the base TS. Then it's a case of kludging the in-between barlines with lines. the more complex the music, the more tricky it's going to be.
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> Win 10 Pro x64, 1.6GHz Intel i7 Quad core, 8GB,7TB 7200rpm HDD, Scarlett 6i6, Sib 6.2,7.5, 8.7.0 NotePerformer, GPO4 & 5, COMB2, EWQLSO Plat, EWQLSC,
> Si me castigare vis, necesse est me intellexisse.
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Yeah, lowest-common-denominator method isn’t going to work with all the complex and myriad time signatures. I was hoping for an actual functional method. Click/boom/done!
My main concern is that there is not a commonplace ability to do something almost a hundred years old.
Maybe because, like so much of the early C20 reaction against Common Practice, it was an intriguing concept that didn't often actually result in a pleasing sound.
Polymeter is discussed in the Sib Reference in the Chapter Time Signatures under the subheading Multiple Time Signatures. But basically it is a kludge as already described.
What this means is that they have long been aware of the issue but who knows if they will ever get around to a better implementation.