# My 12/8 problem



## Ulterior Motif

I have a drum loop I want to compose around with 12 beats in its cycle, and I thought "OK 4/4 is a no-go, oh 12/8 seems like a logical time signature to use." Problem is, whereas with say 7/8, I can simply think ONE-2-3-4-5-6-7, ONE-2-3-4-5-6-7, there doesn't seem to be a simple memory trick with 12/8. Is it a case of counting to 12 with the emphasis on 1, or are more numbers emphasised? And if so, which ones? My drum loop has kicks on its first, second and eighth beats and snares on the rest of the odd numbers, so that might help for all I know. I'm sure a few people will have figured out the loop is The Stone Roses' Fools Gold, haha.


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## Phil loves classical

Sounds like it's more of 6/8 rather than 12/8, with the kick skipped on first beat of the 2nd bar. The brain would naturally reduce it to a simpler pattern, rather than remember the placement within 12 beats in this case. If you add a melody phrase than repeats or changes on every 12 beats, then that's different.


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## Torkelburger

Ulterior Motif said:


> I have a drum loop I want to compose around with 12 beats in its cycle, and I thought "OK 4/4 is a no-go, oh 12/8 seems like a logical time signature to use." Problem is, whereas with say 7/8, I can simply think ONE-2-3-4-5-6-7, ONE-2-3-4-5-6-7, there doesn't seem to be a simple memory trick with 12/8. Is it a case of counting to 12 with the emphasis on 1, or are more numbers emphasised? And if so, which ones? My drum loop has kicks on its first, second and eighth beats and snares on the rest of the odd numbers, so that might help for all I know. I'm sure a few people will have figured out the loop is The Stone Roses' Fools Gold, haha.


You can think of 12/8 as 4/4 with three triplets on every beat. ONE two three, FOUR five six, SEVEN eight nine, TEN eleven twelve.

And 7/8 is usually not counted as just straight seven beats, but divided as either 3+4 (ONE two three, FOUR five six seven) or 4+3 (ONE two three four FIVE six seven), but you can divide it up any way you like, like 2+2+3 for example, the point is is that it is subdivided, not straight through.


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## Vasks

another way is to keep track of each of 4 groups of 3 eighth notes by counting:

*One*-2-3, *Two*-2-3, *Three*-2-3, *Four*-2-3


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## millionrainbows

Torkelburger (a fellow Texan) is right. In most blues & jazz, when it says "shuffle feel," they write it in 4/4, but it's really a 4-beat with each beat divided into 3. The bass player will play on 1-2-3-4, and the soloist plays in "12".
The early Chuck Berry recordings have Fred Below & Willie Dixon playing a "4/4 shuffle" with each beat divided into 3, while Chuck Berry plays "straight eights" over it. Thus was born rock & roll.

If you had to notate it accurately, I guess the rhythm section could be written in 12/8, and Chuck Berry's "straight eight" rhythm over it would be eighth note *d*uplets, in brackets with a "2" over it.

From Wik: 
In compound meter, even-numbered *d*uplets can indicate that a note value is changed in relation to the dotted version of the next higher note value. Thus, two *d*uplet eighth notes (most often used in 6/8 meter) take the time normally totaled by three eighth notes, equal to a dotted quarter note.


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## millionrainbows

Vasks said:


> another way is to keep track of each of 4 groups of 3 eighth notes by counting:
> 
> *One*-2-3, *Two*-2-3, *Three*-2-3, *Four*-2-3


Or, you could count it as *One, Four, Seven, Ten,* in German, and see how that goes over on the bandstand. :lol:


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## Phil loves classical

I think it depends on the melody in the end, but notation-wise it seems 6/8 is the best of both worlds to me


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## mbhaub

When I'm counting 12/8 it's: 1-and-uh 2-and-uh 3-and-uh 4-and-uh.


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## millionrainbows

This "12/8" problem reveals the shortcoming of our time signature system: we have no way of indicating a 3-division (compound) rhythm in our denominator, since all our note vales go by twos: whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth note, and so on, always in multiples of two. To indicate a "3" value, we have to use dots, and dots can't be put into time signatures.


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## Vasks

millionrainbows said:


> To indicate a "3" value, we have to use dots, and dots can't be put into time signatures.


Well I have seen time signatures that would be for "12/8" like "4/dotted quarter note"


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## pianozach

Vasks said:


> another way is to keep track of each of 4 groups of 3 eighth notes by counting:
> 
> *One*-2-3, *Two*-2-3, *Three*-2-3, *Four*-2-3


*One*-and-a, *Two*-and-a, *Three*-and-a, *Four*-and-a


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## pianozach

millionrainbows said:


> This "12/8" problem reveals the shortcoming of our time signature system: we have no way of indicating a 3-division (compound) rhythm in our denominator, since all our note vales go by twos: whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth note, and so on, always in multiples of two. To indicate a "3" value, we have to use dots, and dots can't be put into time signatures.


I think you can, but you'd have to use an unusual bottom half of a time signature, I guess, like this: If you want four counts per measure, but you want a 12/8 feel, you could have one count for every dotted quarter note:

*4/3*

Anyway . . .


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## millionrainbows

Vasks said:


> Well I have seen time signatures that would be for "12/8" like "4/dotted quarter note"


Yeah? Like Charles Ives, or some other kooky composer?


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## millionrainbows

pianozach said:


> I think you can, but you'd have to use an unusual bottom half of a time signature, I guess, like this: If you want four counts per measure, but you want a 12/8 feel, you could have one count for every dotted quarter note:
> 
> *4/3*
> 
> Anyway . . .
> 
> View attachment 133983


Oh, yeah, like 
4 beats to a measure, a 1/3 note gets one beat? Let's see how well that goes over in a real-life situation, with EdwardBast on first violin glaring at you. Woodduck on keyboards.

Let's face the facts: our time signature system was made for marching: On-two-three-four, coming soon to a third-world country near you.


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## Vasks

millionrainbows said:


> Yeah? Like Charles Ives, or some other kooky composer?


Yeah, Carl Orff and Paul Hindemith. Real kooks!!


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## millionrainbows

Vasks said:


> Yeah, Carl Orff and Paul Hindemith. Real kooks!!


Yeah, just like that Einstein fellow!


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## Vasks

Oh, and I left off your favorite kook, Elliott Carter.


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## millionrainbows

Vasks said:


> Oh, and I left off your favorite kook, Elliott Carter.


Oh, yeah, he was a real kook!


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## Pawelec

There is a slight difference between 6/8 and 12/8 meter which is not easily caught by the listener. I think giving a pair of strikingly different examples can help: "We Are the Champions" is in 6/8 and Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem in D minor is in 12/8.
It all boils down to the subtle difference in beat "strength", which is much more straightforward in 6/8 as it is a triplet expansion of 2/4 meter:
2/4: !!! - ! | !!! - ! ||
6/8: !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 | !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 ||
while in 12/8 the pattern gets blurred by stacking a pair of the above and making the second entry weaker, because it is in fact an expansion of 4/4 into triplets:
4/4: !!! - ! - !! - ! ||
12/8: !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 - !! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 ||
It actually works for all compound meters, for example 9/8 is just a triplet expansion of 3/4:
3/4: !!! - ! - ! | !!! - ! - ! ||
9/8: !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 | !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 ||
The most problematic one in the family is 3/8 which would be a triplet expansion of a "beatless" 1/4 meter. As notation-wise 3/8 and 6/8 are completely exchangeable the usual way to approach to 3/8 stems more from tradition than from any mathematical attempts to subdivide another meter and depends largely on the context: in a typically Classical piece it would probably be played with close to no beat emphasis, in a largely "continuous" manner, while in some Central European folk dances for example simply the first note in the bar would be emphasised and subsequent beats omitted.

As a Mozart fanboy I should also mention that in Classical music compound meters are often used with a twist: the upcoming strong beat is announced by repeating the previous note on the last-but-one beat, e.g. a Siciliano is notated in 6/8 and has a pattern like that:
!!! - 0 - ! - !! - 0 - ! | !!! - 0 - ! - !! - 0 - ! ||
what Mozart uses for an extremely dramatic effect in II. Adagio of Piano Concerto no. 23 in A major, K.488 and "Ach, ich fūhl's" aria in "Die Zauberflöte".


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## millionrainbows

Pawelec said:


> There is a slight difference between 6/8 and 12/8 meter which is not easily caught by the listener. I think giving a pair of strikingly different examples can help: "We Are the Champions" is in 6/8 and Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem in D minor is in 12/8.
> It all boils down to the subtle difference in beat "strength", which is much more straightforward in 6/8 as it is a triplet expansion of 2/4 meter:
> 2/4: !!! - ! | !!! - ! ||
> 6/8: !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 | !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 ||
> while in 12/8 the pattern gets blurred by stacking a pair of the above and making the second entry weaker, because it is in fact an expansion of 4/4 into triplets:
> 4/4: !!! - ! - !! - ! ||
> 12/8: !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 - !! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 ||
> It actually works for all compound meters, for example 9/8 is just a triplet expansion of 3/4:
> 3/4: !!! - ! - ! | !!! - ! - ! ||
> 9/8: !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 | !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 ||
> The most problematic one in the family is 3/8 which would be a triplet expansion of a "beatless" 1/4 meter. As notation-wise 3/8 and 6/8 are completely exchangeable the usual way to approach to 3/8 stems more from tradition than from any mathematical attempts to subdivide another meter and depends largely on the context: in a typically Classical piece it would probably be played with close to no beat emphasis, in a largely "continuous" manner, while in some Central European folk dances for example simply the first note in the bar would be emphasised and subsequent beats omitted.
> 
> As a Mozart fanboy I should also mention that in Classical music compound meters are often used with a twist: the upcoming strong beat is announced by repeating the previous note on the last-but-one beat, e.g. a Siciliano is notated in 6/8 and has a pattern like that:
> !!! - 0 - ! - !! - 0 - ! | !!! - 0 - ! - !! - 0 - ! ||
> what Mozart uses for an extremely dramatic effect in II. Adagio of Piano Concerto no. 23 in A major, K.488 and "Ach, ich fūhl's" aria in "Die Zauberflöte".


I don't understand what you're getting at with these zeros. I thought the difference in 6/8 and 12/8 was the melodic phrasing on top.


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## MarkW

12/8 is a special meter signature for Beethoven -- Benedictus of Missa Solemnis, slow movements of Pastoral Symphony and Opus 127 string quartet, part of slow movement of Ninth Symphony -- and in most cases it's counted out as a broad four, each subdivided into three. Not that that answers anything.


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## Heck148

mbhaub said:


> When I'm counting 12/8 it's: 1-and-uh 2-and-uh 3-and-uh 4-and-uh.


right, that's the usual way:
1- and-a 2 - and-a [or 1 + a 2+ a]


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## Heck148

These rhythm questions raise an interesting point - often - 3/8, or fast 3/4 meter [as in a scherzo] fall into larger beat groupings - 
a good example is Sorcerer's Apprentice - the main fast section [the bassoons] is in 3/8, but it really falls into 9/8, a pattern of three measure groupings...there is a strong down beat every three measures. This gives the bassoon tune the proper phrasing...
this I believe is "ritmo a _tre_ battute"; Another famous example is by Beethoven, in Sym #9/II - the scherzo tune is in both "ritmo a _tre_ battute", and "ritmo a _quatre_ battute" [every 4 measures] - sometimes it is in fast 9/4, mostly in 12/4...
this is important, because it provides the proper rhythmic emphasis for the music and gives shape to the phrasing...rather than punching out each measure in equal strength, the three or four measure phrases take shape....

aside - it also makes it easier for those resting and counting measures, as in the Dukas - it's much easier to count 32 measures in 3, rather than 96 measures in 1!!


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## millionrainbows

Pawelec said:


> It all boils down to the subtle difference in beat "strength", which is much more straightforward in 6/8 as it is a triplet expansion of 2/4 meter:
> 2/4: !!! - ! | !!! - ! ||
> 6/8: !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 | !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 ||
> while in 12/8 the pattern gets blurred by stacking a pair of the above and making the second entry weaker, because it is in fact an expansion of 4/4 into triplets:
> 4/4: !!! - ! - !! - ! ||
> 12/8: !!! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 - !! - 0 - 0 - ! - 0 - 0 ||


I'm still not getting your notation, but to me 6/8 and 12/8 are just the difference between counting strong beats to 2 (2/4) or counting to 4 (4/4).


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## millionrainbows

Heck148 said:


> right, that's the usual way:
> 1- and-a 2 - and-a [or 1 + a 2+ a]


...and that 1-2-3-4 is where the bass player (with the bass drum) would play; that's what makes a 12/8 sound like a 4/4 in triplets. It's your basic shuffle, common to all blues and jazz.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

You can use the famous Norwegian term "kurompa" and keep time too: KU ROM PA KU ROM PA KU ROM PA KU ROM PA


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## millionrainbows

There's a good one for 5/4: opportunity, opportunity...


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## Heck148

millionrainbows said:


> ...and that 1-2-3-4 is where the bass player (with the bass drum) would play; that's what makes a 12/8 sound like a 4/4 in triplets. It's your basic shuffle, common to all blues and jazz.


It's all about the subdivision...if each beat is divided into 2 (4, 8, 16) then it's simple....if it's divided into 3 (6, 12) it's compound.


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## Pawelec

millionrainbows said:


> I don't understand what you're getting at with these zeros. I thought the difference in 6/8 and 12/8 was the melodic phrasing on top.


Zeroes are the beats which appeared in the melody as a result of the triplet expansion but did not gain any "strength", they are sitting there but require no special treatment and harmony hardly ever changes on them (best examples are from J.S. Bach who in chorale writing in 4/4 did not hesitate to change harmonies on any of the beats while in 12/8 kept it stable on these "0" ones). I'm not sure if the concept of beat "strength" (I keep putting it in quotes because I've never seen it in writing, the terms are just strong and weak beats) is introduced anywhere else than in harmony and counterpoint; in Classical music theory it is quite an important analytical device.



Heck148 said:


> These rhythm questions raise an interesting point - often - 3/8, or fast 3/4 meter [as in a scherzo] fall into larger beat groupings


"Scherzo 3/4" is probably a topic for a standalone theory work as it behaves differently than "regular" 3/4. Personally I view it as a compound meter: a triplet expansion of 2/2. While we're at it: how would you label the third movement of Schubert's 5th in terms of meter? I'm not sure if it's still a minuet or a scherzo in disguise.


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## Heck148

Pawelec said:


> "Scherzo 3/4" is probably a topic for a standalone theory work as it behaves differently than "regular" 3/4. Personally I view it as a compound meter: a triplet expansion of 2/2. While we're at it: how would you label the third movement of Schubert's 5th in terms of meter? I'm not sure if it's still a minuet or a scherzo in disguise.


Yes, 3/4 [1 beat/bar] is definitely compound meter. Many "3/4 in one" scherzi fit into the "ritmo a quatre battute" formula, tho - there are distinct four bar phrases - Schubert, Bruckner, Beethoven provide many examples...
Schubert #5/III - Hmm...it's right in between - it's either a fast minuet [Schubert marks it _Allegro molto_] or a slowish scherzo....I lean towards the scherzo side - it has that bouncy, accented feel that separates it from a minuet...

It is interesting how composers in the 18th, 19th century treated time signatures - ie - to me - Sorcer's Apprentice [main section] should have been written in 9/8 [3 bar groups of 3/8 in one]...but Dukas wrote it in straight 3/8. I guess he figured the musicians would figure out the correct rhythm and phrasing...
Dvorak, also - in his "Furiant" pieces [ Sym #6/III, Slavonic Dance #8] he writes it all in 3/4 or 3/2 - which is obviously not accurate for the furiant dance rhythm - the correct time signature would be more like
3/2 + 3/4 +3/4 or 3/4 + 3/8 + 3/8 [1+2+3+ 1+a 2+a]. 
Again, Dvorak surely concluded that the musicians would know the basic furiant rhythm and place the accents accordingly...


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