# Music in 6/16 time?



## Rania

Dear all,

I am looking for music in 6/16 time for a class I teach- good musical examples to show how the meter is used in context, and preferably with a melody that can also be used for sight-singing. The lesson is about the dotted half note beat. So far I have one: Bach's Fugue in F major from WTC 2, BWV 880.

I've found more 9/16 and 12/16 in WTC and also in Beethoven- there's a 6/16 part in Op.111, second movement, but it's in triple time rather than two dotted eighths (the sixteenth note bottom number is only used for consistent subdivision). 

Thank you!


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## ldiat

here is a answer from YAHOO ASK A QUESTION
Best Answer: Have you played things in 6/8? This is the same deal - only the composer chose to write the notes in a small rhythmic value. What gets *interesting* is when they change meters - if the pieces goes from 2/4 (which is 8/16 - right?) into 6/16 - you better have been dividing those quarter notes in 2/4, so you know how fast the sixteenth notes i going to be! You see a lot of strange stuff in honors band music - I think sometimes the composers do it just to show off, or bust your butts - not all of it is really needed. I just transcriber a very complicated piano work from manuscript into Sibelius - my husband like this composer at Yale, and he want to play his works - but they are only available in manuscript that has been REDUCED - the notes are pinholes! As I re-do this, I am finding all kinds of things (and I have a second BM and MM in Music Theory) that are written in just plain stupid ways - much easier way to write it. 

So - your music is still ONE two three FOUR five six - unless it is really fast and then you only have to think ONE dot dot TWO dot dot.


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## Aubade

6/16 is really a piece of musical whimsy, and sufficiently uncommon (as you've found), that I don't suppose you really need more than one example. If you need further ones you could always transcribe a 6/8 piece - maybe something tuneful but straight forward - say from Bach's French suite.

Idiat's suggestion of noting the sub-divisions goes against everything I've ever done with music, and IMHO serves to make a piece feel very pedestrian. When conducting a fast three time piece (typically a waltz), I'm very much a fan of the Viennese thinking and only give the down-beat (ie 1 in a bar), as it lightens the performance and gives it space to breathe.

Aubade


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