# Come with me if you want to count...



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Perhaps not quite classical, but an interesting challenge to those with trained ears...

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/...rminator_score_is_a_mystery_for_the_ages.html


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

123456 123456 123456 123456

was what I counted over and over.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

It's 13/16 as follows:









I've actually seen the score to this (don't ask) but my answer isn't based on remembering it, just counting along.


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## Guest (Mar 1, 2014)

It's 13/8 with each measure having 9/8 followed by 2/4 (or 4/8). So its ONE two three FOUR five six SEVEN eight nine TEN eleven TWELVE thirteen.

Edit: EdwardBast is probably right at 13/16 since he says he has seens the score. I would tap it out in eighths without looking at the score so that the accents are on quarters instead of eighths.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Well, the article also says it's 13/16. I wouldn't know because, having a cap on my data, I can't really go surf around for audio or video files, and I cannot remember whether the theme is the same one used in "Terminator 2." 

I doubt whether I would get a rhythm that obscure anyway: I have the gravest trouble even with 3/4 and 4/4. :lol:


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Jerome said:


> It's 13/8 with each measure having 9/8 followed by 2/4 (or 4/8). So its ONE two three FOUR five six SEVEN eight nine TEN eleven TWELVE thirteen.
> 
> Edit: EdwardBast is probably right at 13/16 since he says he has seens the score. I would tap it out in eighths without looking at the score so that the accents are on quarters instead of eighths.


I saw the score decades ago pursuant to a recording session. I don't remember anything about it. But listening today, the basic beat unit seemed too fast for eighths (13/8) so I notated it as 13/16. The beaming I chose was sort of arbitrary and might not match the beaming in the score. For anyone who has played prog rock and fusion jazz (King Crimson, Mahavishnu Orchestra, etc.), this sort of time signature is not all that uncommon; 7/8 and 5/8 are nearly as common as 4/4 in those styles.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> It's 13/16 as follows:
> 
> View attachment 36238


the harmony shifting on the main groups gives an illusion of a slightly sprung, or unsprung six eight, ergo the mistaken "in 6."

It is like a tripped-up or slightly sprung hemiola, (though it technically can not be since it is not exactly a ratio of 2:3,) it viscerally sounds enough like, but perhaps with a little hiccup.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

PetrB said:


> It is like a tripped-up or slightly sprung hemiola, (though it technically can not be since it is not exactly a ratio of 2:3,) it viscerally sounds enough like, but perhaps with a little hiccup.


Now see, why don't they just make it easy on musicians by notating such things in 6/8 and adding "with hiccuped rubato"? 

I once tried to get the rhythm of an Enya song, and couldn't for the life of me work out what it was. I eventually saw the score, and it was in 4/4/ or something like that. But with the instruction "molto rubato." Enya just played/sang the thing with almost no clear rhythm at all, and notating such a thing would really be difficult. I did notice that in some pop music, the rhythm often freely changes from 7/8 to 3/8 to 5/8 and so on and on.

I used to compose little piano pieces myself. I wouldn't inflict them on anyone here, but I quite unconsciously did the same sort of thing: a piece would sound perfectly straightforward to my ear until I tried to write it down, at which time I would discover that actually, the rhythm changes all the time. Perhaps that is a common feature of music by amateur or non-classically trained musicians. I cannot imagine how on earth one could compose an entire movement of a symphony or concerto and keep to the same rhythm the whole time.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I missed a beat every two bars by counting 6 or 12. That's why I'm not a professional, and certainly not a drummer. 

I've played Petrushka, Stravinsky. The time signatures change a lot. Our conductor had trouble keeping us together counting. We didn't perform it, this was just a reading session. Two bars of 4/4, them a single bar of 1/4 then a few bars of 2/4 etc. Sounds great when it's seamless and rehearsed but a mess sight reading.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Jerome said:


> It's 13/8 with each measure having 9/8 followed by 2/4 (or 4/8). So its ONE two three FOUR five six SEVEN eight nine TEN eleven TWELVE thirteen.
> 
> Edit: EdwardBast is probably right at 13/16 since he says he has seen the score. I would tap it out in eighths without looking at the score so that the accents are on quarters instead of eighths.


Unfortunately, tapping out to accent quarters (you doubled a value -- it should be eighths if it is 13/16) in an (almost) compound meter involving threes doesn't work out at all


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

brianvds said:


> Now see, why don't they just make it easy on musicians by notating such things in 6/8 and adding "with hiccuped rubato"?


Uh, because "With Hiccuped Rubato" is not very specific, and I suppose everyone thinks of a hiccup differently, where the difference of opinion on 13/8 varies far less


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Uh, because "With Hiccuped Rubato" is not very specific, and I suppose everyone thinks of a hiccup differently, where the difference of opinion on 13/8 varies far less


Yes, but that leaves more room for personal interpretation, and that might be fun.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

senza sordino said:


> Two bars of 4/4, them a single bar of 1/4 then a few bars of 2/4 etc. Sounds great when it's seamless and rehearsed but a mess sight reading.


I like the idea of just writing everything in 1/4. That would make reading rhythms much easier.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

brianvds said:


> I like the idea of just writing everything in 1/4. That would make reading rhythms much easier.


My god but one simple page of anything would be incredibly cluttered with ties, tied-over accidentals to think of, etc. Barring is so the reader gets a feeling for the larger group which has some accent, even if it is so slight as to be near inaudible. Your proposed 1/4 would also necessitate adding truckloads of phrase marks.

The excess clutter, the excess ink, the excess of sorting that all out as a reader of the manuscript... oh, no and oh, my!


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

PetrB: Hence my little smiley face icon. Writing everything in 1/4 would be utterly pointless.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

brianvds said:


> I like the idea of just writing everything in 1/4. That would make reading rhythms much easier.


Some contemporary solo pieces by Messiaen and Takemitsu eschew bar lines altogether (because rhythmic accents change so frequently), but there's no way you can do that in an ensemble work that requires everyone to be together.


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## Guest (Mar 3, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Unfortunately, tapping out to accent quarters (you doubled a value -- it should be eighths if it is 13/16) in an (almost) compound meter involving threes doesn't work out at all


Actually it does work. I am a drummer with jazz experience. Dave Brubeck used some similar compound rhythms. As I stated it is divided into 9 and then 4. The 9 part of the measure is in triples which I thought of as 9/8 since that is a common jazz time and then the 4 is divided into twos. It took a few seconds to figure out the 3-3-3-2-2 pattern but then I could tap it out just fine. Whether it is 16ths or 8ths does not really matter. Someone said it was too fast for eighths but in jazz 9/8 is often played faster than that.


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## Guest (Mar 3, 2014)

Place microphone in water.

Freeze the water.

Record the sound of the water melting.

Done.

(Oh, and just by the way, this _has_ already been done, so don't take this as an invitation of something to actually do.)


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