Topic: beats
if a piece of music is 4/4 why sometimes are there 5 notes to the bar
- Russell_Harding
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Re: beats
That would depend on what kind of note 4/4 is 4 beats to a bar with a quarter note recieving one beat there are several ways to write a bar of music you could start with a dotted half(3beats) and add 4 1/16th notes but no matter how you arrange the bar it still equals 4 beats in 4/4 time.
"Growing old is not for sissies"
Re: beats
You can have a five beat measure in 4/4 time. If the music is playing to dancers, a 5 beat measure will make them change to the opposite foot. If you are playing in a band, it will make the writer very unpopular with the musicians if they haven't rehearsed it before.
I recorded a song with a six beat measure in a 4/4 song. I told the guitarist/writer he had been playing alone for too long.
toots
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Ya'll wanna go down to the Guf?
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- Russell_Harding
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Re: beats
good one 
I forgot about that as Toots pointed out you can have a bar of 5 its been a spell but I dont remember if it has to be in brakets as a 1st or second ending. 
"Growing old is not for sissies"
Re: beats
Here is the song in 4/4 with one six beat measure. Can you spot it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r___oZjarDs
We pronounce it "Guf Coast".
Ya'll wanna go down to the Guf?
Ya'll wanna go down to the Guf?
- Russell_Harding
- Alien moderator
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Re: beats
I think its on the turn around. you have your guitar capoed and it looks like the chords are G C Am D the progression looks to be G Am C D and the bar of 6 would fall on the D to G turnaround but if its written I stll think you have to put a time signature of 5/4 for one bar its kind of early in the morning I am still working on my second cup of coffee so my head is a little sleepy
"Growing old is not for sissies"
- Astronomikal
- Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Moderator
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Re: beats
sticklegsmusic wrote:
if a piece of music is 4/4 why sometimes are there 5 notes to the bar
It's because you can have something other than four quarter notes in the measure.
Example, count: "one . . . two . . . three-and-four", or the old marching cadence: "left, left, left right left."
If each word is a "note", then that's 5 "notes" over four beats. The one, two and four are quarter notes, and the "three-and" are eighth notes.
I think this is the same thing Russell said, but I'm not sure. Examples made it easier for me to understand.
"Just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean it's not incredibly stupid." - Despair, Inc.
Re: beats
You can have a five beat measure in 4/4 time. If the music is playing to dancers, a 5 beat measure will make them change to the opposite foot. If you are playing in a band, it will make the writer very unpopular with the musicians if they haven't rehearsed it before.
I recorded a song with a six beat measure in a 4/4 song. I told the guitarist/writer he had been playing alone for too long.That would depend on what kind of note 4/4 is 4 beats to a bar with a quarter note recieving one beat there are several ways to write a bar of music you could start with a dotted half(3beats) and add 4 1/16th notes but no matter how you arrange the bar it still equals 4 beats in 4/4 time.
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