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by armoreddragon on April 6th, 2005

armoreddragon

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What is 6/8 in the key signature mean?

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  • by Aminor on June 9th, 2005

    Aminor

    Not what you'd think. Mathematically, it should mean that there are six beats to a bar and an eighth note gets one beat, but that's not true. 6/8 time, unless it's extremely slow, is always felt and conducted as two beats per bar, each consisting of a three-note group -- like a triplet (although a triplet is really something else). So a bar of 6/8 is not
    ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR-FIVE-SIX, but rather
    ONEtwothree FOURfivesix.
    Think two waltz measures per bar, but with the accent on one not as strong as in 3/4; feel a more even distribution of impulse, with an accent on one and a secondary accent on four.

    The perfect example: Norwegian Wood. It's published as 3/4, but that will have been some assistant editor in a publishing house (McCartney didn't read music, at least not then). But in fact it's a perfect 6/8, triples in double pulses (each of the following lines is a measure, with the beats falling on the capitalized words; double hypen is an eighth rest):

    SHOWED me her . . . ROOM and she
    TOLD me to . . . SIT an - y
    WHERE -- -- . . . -- -- --
    -- -- -- . . . -- -- so
    I looked a- . . . ROUND and I
    NO ticed there . . . WAS-n't a
    CHAIR . . . etc.

    Comments

    • Indeed! And if it's extremely slow, it's still felt as a two, subdivided into six.

      EEBaum

      by EEBaum on June 9th, 2005

    • it's actually a time signature not a key signature

      Jackie Smith

      by Jackie Smith on July 9th, 2005

    • You just said there weren't six beats in it, but just counted ONEtwothree FOURfivesix.

      supermegarockstar

      by supermegarockstar on September 4th, 2007

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