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In the
last few articles we learnt
notes, Major & Minor scales. In this one, we are going to learn the most
important and fundamental aspect of music, “Time Signatures” in western or
popular music. You might often
see musicians using terms like 4/4 or 3/4 or 7/8. What are these
fractions? What do they denote? They are called time signatures. They don’t
have anything to do with the song tempo. Time signatures denote how many and
what kind of notes per measure are present in a beat cycle. In simple words,
the number on the top is the number of notes per measure or cycle and the
bottom one denotes the kind of note. Let us the take
the most common beat cycle 4/4. The bottom number denotes the note type;
here it is 4 or 1/4, which is a quarter note. The top number denotes number
of quarter notes in the beat cycle. The bottom number
can take the value 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 etc. Here 1 = a whole note, 2 = half note,
4 =quarter note, 8 = 1/8th note and 16 is 1/16 note. (Please Refer
to part one for more on note values) Now let us
refresh a little. In earlier parts I mentioned something on “Count”. “Counts” are not necessarily seconds. They
are units for music. Counting speed or the time duration for each count
depends on a clock. We will call this clock “Tempo”, Let us examine
4/4 more. We need to count 4-quarter notes for a cycle. Eg: 1 2 3 4 | 1 2
3 4 |. Each number is a
quarter note. In this example you see a line that separates 4 quarter notes.
Consider this to be a boundary line. So at a predefined tempo, we start
counting 1,2, 3, and 4: Four-quarter
notes can be fit into this boundary. This boundary is called a “BAR”. The
time interval between each of the beat Cycles is called a “BAR”. Did you know that
most musicians calculate the song length based on the number of bars in the
song? If you have keyboard-based
sequencers (like Korg Triton), the length of a song
is always set on bars count only. In Triton you can find a default value of
64, which means 64 bars. Remember the time
duration of a song is always based on the time signature tied to a Tempo. After knowing
about 4/4 you might wonder if I can I add two 8th notes in a 4/4 time
signature. The answer is YES! You can. Over all you should get a sum of 1 per
bar. 11 2 3 4 | 11 2 3 4|, this is valid. A bar can be one whole note, that
is denoted by dots, | 1 . . . |. Let
us substitute notes rather than number now.
|C D E F | G A B C | CC D Likewise, there
are other beats, ¾ -
3 quarter notes per cycle. This is called waltz, 1 2 3 |1 2 3|. Carnatic
music calls it as Rupakam. 6/8 is just like ¾ however has more quarter
notes per cycle. Other complex cycles
are 7/8, 5/8 etc. Some famous songs in ¾
are “Aayar
padi maligaiil “ by
MSV ( This shall
improve your skill to identity the beat cycle. Starting point of the beat cycle is called “Samam”, meaning first
beat of a beat cycle. Most songs start here. However, there are songs that
are placed from 2nd beats. If you hear “ANNatha
adurar” by Ilayaraja, the
song starts on the first beat, however the percussions are only placed
on 2nd and 4th position of the cycle through out
the song. You will find it very interesting to hear. Some beat aspects
in Carnatic music. This scheme is slightly different. First some common words. Western classical
music has a concept called movements; they are something similar to tempo of
a song. Adagio – means slowly, Allegro
– Cheerful, Andante – Moderate. The
Dhruth takes 2 beats, and Anudhrutha
takes 1 beat. However the number of beats “Laghu”
takes is a variable. It can be anything from amongst 3,4,5,7, and 9. There is one more aspect called “Jaathi” This depends on the number of beats laghu can take in that Taala. Theesra (3) or Chatushra (4) or
Kanta (5) or Misra (7).
There is also a 9 beat cycle called Sankeerana. The following
table classifies Taalas. We give a value of 1 to Laghu, 0 to Dhruth and Aby The seven Taalas are defined in terms of the
number and sequence of Angas. If Laghu is denoted by 1, Dhrutha
by O and anudhrutha by U, Taalas
can be classified as follows.
End note Few weeks ago, I
checked on a new instrument at the local guitar center. When I played it I
had no second thoughts about it; I had no hesitation to add it to my studio
arsenal. This is a percussion instrument called Roland Hand-Sonic; it has a
bunch of touch sensitive pads arranged in a circular form. Each one of the
pads have touch response with velocity, it responds based on position of your
hand and stroke or play method - palm or finger strike or glide in tabla etc. The best part I liked about it was this
contains all the Indian percussions (tabla, dhol, dholak, madal, ghatam) . Apart from
these, kick-ass sounds from
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