Mesure in piano pieces

[stormx]

Hi !!

I am very new to piano learning (only 2 months), but i am the kind of person who try to understand (and even question) what is well etablished and accepted. And being a mathematician, numbers are not a problem for me 
So, after this brief introduction, here goes my question:

Let us consider the MESURE in a piano piece, like 2/4, 3/4 or 4/4. Isnt this just  an ARBITRARY break of the music into smaller parts (bars)?
For instance, let suppose you have a piece in 2/4. If you erase all the ODD bar lines (1,3,5 etc), then you obtain a 4/4 piece, that musically is exactly the same.
Moreover, with a little extra effort, you can rewrite the 2/4 piece into a 3/4, without any musicality change.
Am i right, or am i missing something?

So, why some type of piano pieces use a given mesure (like waltzes usually in 3/4)? Just convention?

Thanks

[quasimodo]

Mathematically, you're right, one could even write any music in only one measure, but it would be difficult to memorize or communictae about the score  .

Let's take the Waltz. The basic rhythmic structure which makes a waltz a waltz is classicaly 1 beat bass, 1 beat chord, 1 beat chord, which is three beats. Then of course you could say it's bass-chord-chord-bass ; chord-chord-bass-chord, chord-bass-chord-chord, bass-chord-chord-bass. But the it will appear as there's no unity of rhythmic cycle in the music, which is not true. The cycle is objectively bass-chord-chord, so it's not really a convention, it's absolutely connected with the music itself...

The choice of the measure also has something to do with making the score easier to write and to read.

[jazzyprof]

Indeed it has to do with the underlying rhythmic pulse.  And the best way to see this is to dance!  Put on a waltz and try to dance to it with a four-step "feel".  You'll quickly tie yourself up in knots...and you'll never get a partner!

[bernhard]

am i missing something?

Yes. You are missing something huge.

You see, you are assuming that all beats in a bar are equal. (2/x has two beats in a bar, 3/x has three beats in a bar and 4/x has 4 beats in a bar, x being the note value that corresponds to one beat). If all beats were equal, then you would be quite correct. But they are not.

In 2/4, the first beat is strong and the second bead is weak.
In 3/4 the first beat is strong and the next two are weak.
In 4/4 the first beat is strong, the second is weak, the third is strong, but not as strong as the first, and the third is weak.

Just try to clap a waltz and you will naturally accent the first clap (hence Oom –pah – pah). Try to dance a waltz like Oom-pah-Oom-pah-Oom-pah and you will not be able to. This of course would be 2/4, or “march” time. Again, if you ever were in the army, and tried to march to 3/4 it would be impossible.

A very good way to develop awareness to beat pattern is to try to figure out the time signature of pieces by listening to them on CD, and later checking on the score if you’ve got it right.

Start with the simple times: 2/4, ¾ and 4/4.

Then try compound time: 6/8 (=2/4 – try to figure out the maths!), 9/8 (= 3/4) and 12/8 (=4/4)

Finally try the weird modern ones: 5/4, 7/4 and so on (anything goes, really).

By the way, this has little to do with the bar lines themselves. As quasimodo said, they are put in the score to facilitate reading. What really matters is the pattern of strong and weak beats.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[quasimodo]

I said nothing 

[stormx]

Yes. You are missing something huge.

You see, you are assuming that all beats in a bar are equal. (2/x has two beats in a bar, 3/x has three beats in a bar and 4/x has 4 beats in a bar, x being the note value that corresponds to one beat). If all beats were equal, then you would be quite correct. But they are not.

In 2/4, the first beat is strong and the second bead is weak.
In 3/4 the first beat is strong and the next two are weak.
In 4/4 the first beat is strong, the second is weak, the third is strong, but not as strong as the first, and the third is weak.

Bernhard:

When you say STRONG and WEAK, do you mean that the NOTE(s) belonging to an STRONG beat should be played louder than the NOTE(s) belonging to a WEAK one?
I am assuming piano music. I imagine that when other instruments are involved, things are probably different.


Thanks for your answers. This forum is a great source of information, even for beginners like me 

[chopinguy]

I think you're correct, that strong means with more emphasis, and weak is less emphasis.  I think this is true mostly for piano, since most string instrumentalists do not pay attention to this because they have single lines of music, and also because it's slightly harder to control.

It's the strong and weak beats that really define a measure.

It's like the difference between 6/8 and 3/4.  Technically, they have the same number of eight notes in each, but 6/8 is counted with the strong beats on 1 and 4, where in 3/4, the strong beat is 1.

As a result, 6/8 sounds more like 2/4 with each quarter broken into triplet eights, and 3/4 just sounds like 3/4.

[anda]

You see, you are assuming that all beats in a bar are equal.

a true pianist said once the metronome is a form of comunism in music: all beats are equal!   

[richard w]

When you say STRONG and WEAK, do you mean that the NOTE(s) belonging to an STRONG beat should be played louder than the NOTE(s) belonging to a WEAK one?
I am assuming piano music. I imagine that when other instruments are involved, things are probably different.


Thanks for your answers. This forum is a great source of information, even for beginners like me

You are right, as long as you remove the '(s)' from 'NOTE(s)', but in practise one needs to be a great deal more subtle. What you have suggested is really the point of departure for the beginner - so you're in the right place.

To try to get you understanding it on the next level, I think an analogy is in order. Consider spoken language. Each syllable of a multi-syllable word has a 'stress' on one (sometimes more) of its syllables. Take the word 'mountain' for instance - the stress falls on the first syllable. Put the stress on the second syllable and the word does not sound right. But, if you weren't thinking about the presence of a stress on one of the two syllables you would be completely unaware of it because it is subtle, but still very necessary.

Taking the analogy one step further, given words in sentences tend to have stress on them too. The meaning of a sentence can be slightly influenced by changing the 'stress level' of certain words. (I'm sure an English language scholar would be able to use a subject-specific vocabulary that I can't.) This is more analogous to accented notes in music. Such notes will occasionally be specified by composers, and needn't be on a strong beat, (but perhaps this point is making it unnecessarily complicated to begin with).

As with most analogies, this one isn't perfect, but hopefully it gives you an idea of the level on which strong and week beats work. Try listening to a range of different pieces of music and see if you can hear the beat, and then try to identify the metre. Sometimes it is easy, and sometimes not so easy. In any event, listening will prove to be just as useful a part of your musical education as sitting in front of the piano.

I hope that gives you a bit more of an idea.



Richard.