Is it possible to have 23/8 as a time signature in a song?
by 
Seraphim - Angel of Ninja
ANSWERS: 6
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YES. technically, you can set the song to any time you want ... the problems come when a listener tries to decide if they would call it musical, or when the musician tries to play at that beat ... I have heard some unusual progression patterns of tempo changes, and 23/8 may have been one of the tempos "passed through" ...
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Yes, but what it actually may be is two measures of 4/4 followed by one measure of 7/8. 4/4=8 eight notes. Or to create a four bar phrase you could have 3 measures of 6/8 and one measure of 5/8. Depending on the feel of the phrase is how you divide the measures.
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Wikipedia has a "List of musical works in unusual time signatures".
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All that really means is that there are 23 beats in a measure each getting the length of an 1/8 note. It means there are 23 1/8th notes in the measure. So, yes.
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Yes!!! it definitely is. You see the reason most pieces are written in smaller time signatures like 3/4, 4/4, 6/8, 5/4, 7/8, etc... is because for example lets say you had a piece in 16/8--well you could easily transpose it down to 4/2. But here comes the great catch with 23/8, it is a prime number so it can't be divided down to a smaller time signature. I wrote a riff in 23/8 yesterday and I think it's a great time signature...but it's really hard to follow. I think the best way to understand these larger time signatures is to construct them with an "internal pulse"--in example, to get a riff in 23/8, you could look at it like this, 7/8+7/8+6/8+3/8=23/8...it's kind of a big compound of time signatures just because it's such a large number. Anyway I hope that helps, and I hope you write some great music in 23/8.
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Yes, but usually the measures are broken up into things like triples or sevens. Like 8/8/7 or 8/3/8/4 or something like that.
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