Okay, music makers...

[elfs]

Okay, strange question: What are the typical applications of a 3/4 beat?

Comments

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

You mean like a waltz?

[ewhac.livejournal.com]

Waltz is appropriate, but polkas are a 4-beat.

[talek.livejournal.com]

Waltz is certainly the most common. Also, various forms of english country dance are to 3/4 beat. Most polkas are actually 6/8 beat... which is indistinguishable from 3/4 except for how you note the tempo.

The 3/4 beat lends itself either to step-step-pause or to step-step-st-step (with a syncopated double-step on the last beat). The latter blends easily into the syncopated tango step, which is normally a 4/4 beat.

Darn it, now I want to go dancing.

[talek.livejournal.com]

A bit of delving into Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature) yields:

Simple time signatures
4/4 common time: widely used in classical music; the norm in rock, jazz, country, and bluegrass, and most modern pop or dance music
2/2 alla breve, cut time: used for marches and fast orchestral music. Frequently occurs in musical theater. Sometimes called "in 2".
4/2 rare in music since 1600, although Brahms and other conservative composers used it occasionally.
2/4 used for polkas or marches
3/4 used for waltzes, minuets, scherzi, and country & western ballads.

Compound time signatures
6/8 double jigs, fast waltzes, marches and some rock music.
9/8 "compound triple time", used in triple ("slip") jigs, otherwise occurring rarely (The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a familiar example)
12/8 common in blues and doo-wop, also used more recently in rock music.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

2/2 is also common in faster country and western songs (see also, "two-steppin'"). Matter of fact, that's one of the principal structural differences in country and rock, is the tendency towards 2/2...

I want to say there was a Yes tune that was 9/8 in some places...

[bolindbergh]

I want to say there was a Yes tune that was 9/8 in some places...

Are you perhaps thinking of "Apocalypse in 9/8" by Genesis?

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Actually, I wasn't; I'm not that familiar with pre-Collins Genesis... but I'd be interested to hear the piece.

[bolindbergh]

Twice as much as you need to know about that piece. ;-)

[mg4h.livejournal.com]

Machine Messiah is 9/8.

And for all your wacky bits of time signatures, I give you Wikipedia's entry

There are an awful lot of Yes songs on that list. My favorite Yes song for screwing around with tempos is Changes, which, well, changes all the freakin time. Following the beat on it is interesting ;)

And, hey - I get to use my Yes icon even! :0

[sandhawke.livejournal.com]

[long (long!) time listener, first time caller, I think.]

For me it clicked when I noticed how differently I moved/danced to Sinard O'Connor's "Just Like U Said It Would B" (forgiving for the moment her choice of spelling), while I was taking an intro-to-music class. It's in 3/4. It makes you move, but in a round-a-bout way.

(Then there's Stabbing Westward's "Lost" which is in 7. That gets you tripping over your feet for sure. "Lost" is right.)

[auroramama]

It's in 3/4. It makes you move, but in a round-a-bout way.

That's it. 1-2-3, 1-2-3 makes little arcs that turn easily into circles.

[kowboy.livejournal.com]

Waltz ... polka ... mariachi ... African zum-zum ... tempo changes creating a bridge in most operas or musicals ... Balkan folk music ... there are probably more.

[srmalloy.livejournal.com]

A lot of folk music, particularly the older ethnic music from before the 'civilizing' modern music spread, is in odd signatures, such as 11/8 or 13/8.

Marches too

[newsblues.livejournal.com]

In pipe music, 3/4 is a very common time signature for a retreat marches (peppy and melodic) or a slow air.

Amazing Grace, the tune we all love to hate, is a 3/4.

Weird time signatures

[newsblues.livejournal.com]

The time signature for "The Battle of the Somme" is 9/8. That's not unusual in piping music either...though much more rare than 2/4, 4/4, 6/8 and 3/4.

(Coincidenatlly, today is the anniversary of that battle.)

Pipers use "compound" time for 6/8 and 9/8...a 6/8 will have two pulses per measure, while a 9/8 will have three. Not sure if other musicians do this too.

[auroramama]

Well, if 4/4 time is heartbeats to breaths, 60/15 per minute, then 3/4 is a skipped beat, a quickened breath, a sharp turn...

Or maybe the arc of a pendulum, pause-swoop-pause, the rock of a cradle, with the accent falling on the moment of acceleration out of a pause: ONE two three, ONE two three, a child on a swing.

[j5nn5r.livejournal.com]

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. :)