Music Theory for Dancers Part 2

Hi all, its time for a little more music theory for dancers!

But first, great news! There's a new Vi Hart video! Its about cookies and math and includes multiple awesome female mathematicians! I wish I had been invited to that party. It looks super fun. Check it out HERE.

Now, Part 2: Time Signatures

I've been pondering how to best explain this topic to an audience that (per my assumption) doesn't know anything about music. My goal in this series of posts is to explain enough music theory to help dancers better understand it without teaching all the gory details of how to read music. Ideally, dancers should learn to read music, but it isn't absolutely necessary. For example, dancers don't need to know what notes are played in a song. Recognizing note lengths in music (1/4 notes, 1/8 notes, etc.) IS useful but it's still not absolutely necessary to be able to read them in a musical score. For now we'll assume that you've never seen a musical score and have no intention of learning to read one any time soon.

So, what DO you need to know about time signatures?

Time signatures are given as 2 numbers. The most common time signature in our culture is 4/4. So you may her musicians say things like "This piece is in 4/4." However, musicians (and dancers) often refer to the time signature by only the top number. As in "This piece is in 4." The second 4 is implied and inferred because musicians know to assume it.

What do the numbers mean?

Well we'll get to the top number in a bit. The bottom number, however, is rather hard to explain without getting into some slightly confusing stuff that you don't actually need to understand (at least at first.) So, ignore it. I'll probably explain it in a future post in the MTfD series but for now just pretend it isn't there. The best part is that you can still communicate with musicians without the bottom number. For example, you could have a conversation with musicians and ask them "Is this in 6 or 12?" and not even know (or need to know) that you are asking if it is in 6/8 or 12/8. Don't worry about that 8 for now. Ignore it.

Now for the top number. This is the number of beats in 1 measure. Or actually, the top number defines how long 1 measure is in number of beats.

Vocab time!

Measure: A length of time in music defined by the time signature and the tempo. Or, the space between the vertical lines on a piece of written music.
Bar: Technically it is referring to the vertical line (or bar) itself used to separate/notate measures in written music.

Many musicians use "measure" and "bar" interchangeably. Did you notice that those two wiki links go to the same page? In the TDE's experience, "bar" seems to be more common, at least among jazz musicians, probably because it's a shorter word and easier to say.*

*Note: "probably because it's a shorter word and easy to say" is an educated guess. The TDE has done NO research on this topic.

So, how can you tell, by just listening to a song, how many beats are in a measure?

Typically this is something you can feel. It may take some time to learn but most dancers have grown up being taught to start on 1, meaning you have learned to feel where 1 is already. Generally there are accents within a measure that make 1 easy to find. Also, things tend to start on 1. For example, the beginning of each lyric line often starts on 1. The chorus of song typically starts on 1. Even if there are no words to a song, melodic themes will generally start on 1.* Once you can feel the 1, all you have to do is count how many beats there are between the 1's. In our culture almost every song you encounter is in 4. Its an overwhelming majority in pop music. Off the top of my head I can only think of 1 current pop song getting radio play right now that is in a time signature other than 4.

*Note: Anything is allowed in music and dance so it isn't always the case that all these things start on 1. In fact, consider time steps in tap dance. They start on 4! 

We'll talk a bit more about how accents define time signatures next time, but I think the best way to start to understand/feel measures and time signatures is to listen to some examples. So, in my effort to keep my posts a bit shorter than they have been, I will end this post with some links to examples. Part 3 (or perhaps I'll call it Part 2.5) will discuss the TDE's thoughts on why dancers count to 8 when the music is actually in 4 as well as the subtle differences between 3 and 6 (and between 2 and 4.)

So, some examples:

2/4 (Marches): Basically anything by Sousa
                        Most music by Oompah Bands
3/4 (Waltzes):  Here's some Cake. Its a waltz about how waltzes aren't popular.
                        And that current pop song I already linked to above.
                        Or, how about a full hour of Waltz?
4/4 (Rock of all varieties, Pop, Most Jazz, pretty much everything you know):
                        Ben Folds + Fraggles!
                        A little Buble
                        This happy pop song (ha! See what I did there?)
5/4 (An unusual one, but we can Thank Dave Brubeck for giving an excellent example):
                        Take Five
                        And this awesome Radiohead/Brubeck mashup
6/8 (The TDE's favorite time signature! Waltz-like but different.* Often used for Viennese Waltzes):
                        This kinda screamy indie rock song
                        Some Death Cab For Cutie
                        This happy Christmas song (Yeah, I used that joke again.)
*Note: The best I can do to explain 6 briefly is that it feels like 3 but also kinda like 2. Typically if you're having hard time figuring out if a song is in 2, 3, or 4, then its probably actually in 6. More on this next time!


I think that's enough for now. Yes, other time signatures exist. Dave Brubeck's entire album "Time Out" embraces unusual time signatures. Heavy metal bands are know to break the 4/4 mold by writing songs in (literally) odd time signatures, including songs in crazy time signatures like 11 or 13. But, the above time signatures are more common and will help you understand and feel the measures.

Start paying attention to the time signature of music you hear everywhere you go. Most of it will be in 4, but you'll start to catch random songs in 3 or 6 here and there. You'll also start to really learn to feel the 1 which is very important for keeping in time when you are dancing.

Have fun!