6/8 And BPM

[DanRad]

I'm confused. (Standard Operating Procedure).

 

When creating a piece with an 1/8 pulse (Like 6/8) the tempo seems to be referring to a BPM measured on 1/4 notes.  For example, I open a new project at 120 BPM.. it default opens to 4/4.  I change time signature to 6/8, quarter notes (two 1/8 notes) stay the same.  It's telling me a BPM that's not based on the the Lower Numeral which is, in fact, the beat.  Does anyone find this odd and/or incorrect? Shouldn't the BMP be 240 when, in fact, there are 240 1/8 notes in a minute?

[David Nahmani]

6/8 is a compound time signature. There are two beats in a measure of 6/8, so that each beat has the value of a dotted 1/4 note. In Logic's terminology, the 1/8th note is the beat, and the dotted quarter note is the group.

[DanRad]

Actually, that's not the case.  When switching from 4/4 to 6/8 (without a tempo change) while I get an accent on the 4th 1/8th not (implying groups of three) the click is still based on a quarter note being the same time duration.  Therefore, the lower numeral is NOT the tempo marking.  The basic definition of a time signature is that the lower numeral is beats per measure.  While logic reflects that in the metronome, it does not reflect that in the interpretation of Beats Per Measure.. 

[volovicg]

Not 100% following this.... 

?

See below the effect of turning on/off beats in the metronome. The Group setting for the time signature is what defines how the metronome plays when the group box is checked..

 

Are either of the two below different that what you are hearing ?

 

[DanRad]

That's what I'm hearing... (I didn't know about the beat and group options... I've learned something today)... but I still maintain that the BPM choice when have an 8 as the lower numeral should reflect Beats Per Minute... Not Quarter Notes per minute. If I'm in 7/8, I want to know how long there is between BEATS....not quarter notes.

[volovicg]

How about this.....

 

[Eric Cardenas]

I'm totally with you on this Dan.

It's a typical math implementation of how BPM is calculated in Logic (and other DAWs).

Not a very musical solution.

 

One good thing about Logic is that you can use the Score Editor's tempo instead to your advantage.

 

[David Nahmani]

Actually, that's not the case.  When switching from 4/4 to 6/8 (without a tempo change) while I get an accent on the 4th 1/8th not (implying groups of three) the click is still based on a quarter note being the same time duration.  Therefore, the lower numeral is NOT the tempo marking. 

Ok I hear you. What I was saying though is that the lower numeral should not be the tempo marking. In 6/8, the tempo is based on the dotted quarter note, not the eight note. In other words, a 6/8 bar has two beats and each beat is 3 eighth notes long.

[volovicg]

Unless I am mistaken those tempo marking values are not a function of the time signature in any way.... correct?

If you delete the 6/8th time sig - those markings should remain intact - they are a function of the BPM ( Beats per Minute), while the the top number in the time signature is Beats per measure and is void of a time base. So if the BPM remains constant and each 6/8th is musically a dotted quarter - then the perceived tempo after the 6/8th is faster, if each 1/8th gets the beat then the perceived tempo is slower.  Logic works on Beats per quarter note (which is I think what the original post was about and the  meter or grouping is relavent - but then again I may be completely in left field on this one), the meter of a song is a musical abstraction and I didn't think there ever had to be a correlation between time signature and written tempo - because the meter or grouping of the notes in a different time signatures provides information on the speed it should be played without the need to change the beats per minute. 

 

Maybe I should have  payed more attention in music theory class

[Eric Cardenas]

You are spot on Greg.

I'm only making the point that we can use the recalculation done by Logic to our advantage when using complex time signatures. This way we can see the musical tempo instead of the misleading BPM value.

[David Nahmani]

I didn't think there ever had to be a correlation between time signature and written tempo

There is when the unit used for tempo is called "Beats Per Minutes", since the beats are defined by the time signature. So we'd have to agree on what a beat is exactly. And in 6/8, DanRad seem to believe that the 1/8th note is the beat, whereas really, the dotted quarter note is the beat. Where we both agree is that Logic's use of a 1/4 note as the beat (in its BPM tempo display) in 6/8 is just plain wrong. 

[Eric Cardenas]

6/8 could be with accents on 1, 4 or on 1, 3, 5. 

There is no rule although it is very common to have the 2 against 3 feeling.

 

I just came to think of one of my favorite bass players (Mark Egan), one hell of a song, with an even more stellar mix.

 

[Music Spirit]

That's what I'm hearing... (I didn't know about the beat and group options... I've learned something today)... but I still maintain that the BPM choice when have an 8 as the lower numeral should reflect Beats Per Minute... Not Quarter Notes per minute. If I'm in 7/8, I want to know how long there is between BEATS....not quarter notes.

Fair point regarding the metronome, time signature and quarter note/eighth notes - though if I need to hear the beats individually  in any  difficult time signature I often make a separate metronome track with drums sounds to play to/ know how long there is between beats. 

[David Nahmani]

6/8 could be with accents on 1, 4 or on 1, 3, 5. 

There is no rule although it is very common to have the 2 against 3 feeling.

I see what you mean. I was thinking only of the most common situation where you cut the 6/8 bar in two halves.

[Atlas007]

6/8 could be with accents... on 1, 3, 5. 

If 1, 3 and 5 gets accentuated, should'nt that be then considered rather as a 3/4 mesure tempo instead?

[Plowman]

“So we'd have to agree on what a beat is exactly.”

 

Exactly, exactly. 

 

Earlier, Dan said, “The basic definition of a time signature is that the lower numeral is beats per measure.” As David noted, a compound meter is the exception to the rule.

 

Remember “I before E except after C…?” A compound meter is the “except after C” part in the rule that Dan quotes. 

 

Ironically, it was said later, “If I'm in 7/8, I want to know how long there is between BEATS....not quarter notes.”

 

Believe it or not, in 7/8 the quarter note IS the beat — it’s two simple beats (4 eighths) and one compound beat (3 eighths). Theoreticians call this an “odd meter,” and most theoreticians I’ve met are experts on oddness….

 

To muddy the waters even more, at a moderate tempo or slower in 7/8, we’re probably tapping our foot in eighths, so it feels for all the world as if each measure is seven beats. 

 

The discussion would seem pointlessly academic, but for a copyist, it’s vital relative to beaming notes. And Logic both performs and renders on the page, so it must consider where the beats are mathematically (as Eric mentioned).

 

I’m not sure if this changes anything, but if a song switched from 4/4 to 6/8, would it not be more appropriate to use the tempo symbol of a dotted quarter note? The term “l’istesso tempo” (“same tempo as before”) is sometimes seen in such cases, with a “quarter note equals dotted quarter note” symbol. 

 

Subjectively it may feel faster to the listener, but it doesn’t to the metronome. In shorter passages, some composers change to 6/8 because they don’t want to write all those little threes. 

 

“If 1, 3 and 5 gets accentuated, shouldn’t that be then considered rather as a 3/4 measure tempo instead?”

 

The same question occurred to me. One exception may be an intentional syncopation against a previously established two-count (possibly with written marcatos over 1, 3, and 5). Consider Bernstein’s “America” from West Side Story, where the written meter is 6/8 followed by a 3/4 in parenthesis. You’ve heard it all your life, and you probably tapped your foot three times in alternating measure, but it’s actually in two.  So, the emphasis would be on 1, 3 and 5 in a compound meter.

 

Indeed, the energy of this classic is derived in part from that very syncopation.  

 

Great thread. I’ve gotten goofy tempo numbers in the past and not fully understood them. This helps. 

[Atlas007]

Thanx for your insight Plowman.

Obviously those nuances were missing from my musical knowledge...

[DanRad]

I believe the actual solution is to always work with a 4 as the bottom numeral.  The idea of 7/8 or 11/8 or even 12/8 where the BPM is based on a 1/4 note is flying in the face of musical convention where THE BEAT IS THE BOTTOM NUMBER.(Did I mention the beat is the bottom number?) 

 

So the only way to get Logic to respect that convention is to keep the quarter and go to 6/4, 7/4 or whatever and to change the tempo accordingly.  Just makes for sloppy copy work and not the way we were brought up to think of such things... then again, I've been working with Logic for 21 years and this is the first time I've really had to struggle with it.

[Ashermusic]

Dan is right. musically and practically.

[David Nahmani]

Dan is right. musically and practically.

Except for his statement that "THE BEAT IS THE BOTTOM NUMBER" - which is not true in compound meters. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_(music)#Metres_classified_by_the_subdivisions_of_a_beat

[Ashermusic]

Compound meters are the exception. We don't define rules by their exceptions.

[Eric Cardenas]

Yes. It totally depends on the music itself.

Time signatures are just constructs while beat is more of a feel thing.

You could even say that cut time "¢" is a 4/4 signature with a 2/2 feel.

[Plowman]

In 5/8, 7/8, and 11/8, Dan is right practically. I've heard musicians say they count such meters in four, and secretly I've never believed them. In any case, I can't count it in four.

 

In a later post, 12/8 was included. And there, the line must be drawn, because practically, musically, and theoretically, that's simply not true. Blues are often in 12/8. The eight is the beat in blues? The backbeat of Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone" is in eight? 12/8 blues are the essence of a compound meter.  

 

So with the odd meters, I'm with Dan. And if he writes compound meters of 6/8 in 6/4, 3/4 or even 3/8, or 12/8 in 4/4 with triplets, then he has his denominator as the beat and all is well. 

 

"We don't define rules by the exception."

 

Dan is arguing that there are absolutely no exceptions. He repeats it in capital letters. David is right to clarify. I rest confidently that if Dan ever conducts Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Memory" (in 12/8), he will beat it in four.

[DanRad]

Good Wiki citing..I guess I missed that day in Music Theory.  

[Atlas007]

Dan is right. musically and practically.

Except for his statement that "THE BEAT IS THE BOTTOM NUMBER" - which is not true in compound meters. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_(music)#Metres_classified_by_the_subdivisions_of_a_beat

+1

[Ashermusic]

All that is true, but every introduction to music theory that I have ever used to teach or ever seen says a variation of, "The top number tells you how many beats are in a measure while the bottom number tells you what kind of note gets one beat." Obviously in 6/8, while it may be grouped in different ways, by that standard definition almost all new music theory students are taught, there are 6 beats in the measure and an 1/8 note gets 1 beat.

[David Nahmani]

The top number tells you how many beats are in a measure while the bottom number tells you what kind of note gets one beat.

That's true for simple meter, but 6/8 (which is the subject of this discussion) is most commonly used as a compound meter, divided in two beats that are a dotted quarter note each. Remember that song? How would you tap your foot?

 

Compound meters are the exception. We don't define rules by their exceptions.

In my experience (mostly playing genres such as rock, folk, pop, blues etc.... but also recording classical orchestras and therefore working with conductors) I've never seen or heard 6/8 counted as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – in fact I've pretty much always heard it counted as 1, 2, 1, 2 or 1 and uh, 2 and uh, etc... so in 6/8 (which is the subject of this discussion), considering the bottom number as the beat is the exception, not the rule. 

[Ashermusic]

It depends on the tempo. II were conducting the Beethoven Pastoral, I would beat dotted quarters but a pop song at a slow tempo I would be tapping 8ths and thinking "1,2,3,4,5,6" not,"1, 4".

 

We conduct dotted quarters IMHO not because it is more correctly "the beat", but because it is simply too hard to conduct 8ths at a bright tempo.

[ski]

Just to add some more information to the pile... (Or fuel to the fire?)

 

To Plowman's comment... In 7/8, the unit of beat measurement (the pulse) is the 8th note, not a quarter. If it were the 8th, we'd have (at the very least) a semantic difficulty in that notes placed on certain beats would have to be considered upbeats, which they're really not. Case in point:

Music in 7/8, 5/8, etc., can be rhythmically subdivided in any number of ways, so the unit of the beat is the 8th note. 

 

Here I've re-written this same passage in simple meters, and awkward though it is, it proves the point that the 8th note is the unit of the beat:

 

With 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8, it's kind of indisputable, really, that the basic "quarter note-like pulse" is actually a three 8th notes (dotted quarter). Take Bach's Jeus, Joy of Man's Desiring, written in 9/8. What's the pulse?

As far as I'm aware, meters such as 7/8, 5/8, and 11/8 are not classed as compound meters. 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8 are compound meters. That's because they have the flexibility to express both a quarter note and triplet feel.

[ski]

Just musing a bit...

I've always wished there was a score editor symbol for entering metronome marks where you could edit the numerical value. This way we wouldn't be restricted to using Logic's calculations for tempo -- especially in cases of mixed 4/4 and compound meters.