double time/half time

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I can never remember which is which.

Slow-drums hardcore-style breakdown: half time or double time?

Fast-drums NOFX-style punk: half time or double time?

― Nigel (Nigel), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:43 (twenty years ago)

I thought it was in relation to something that came before...like half-time is the backbeat tempo halved, double-time = backbeat tempo doubled

― Dominique (dleone), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:46 (twenty years ago)

leone is correct

― cutty (mcutt), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:52 (twenty years ago)

Double-time = speeded up, I think.

I think everybody gets confused by these terms. There's also cut-time which I believe is the same as half-time. What's confusing about it is that you are reading the dots as representing notes at a faster tempo so it ends up feeling like a slower tempo because it takes twice as long to get to the end of an actual bar, which is made up of two written bars (presumably the dots were written with this in mind). Reggae is in cut-time, which is why we have arguments over how to count it. I think.

And don't go looking on the internet- you will only get more confused.

Jordan to thread to bail me out.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 18:55 (twenty years ago)

Well, "cut time" refers specifically to 2/4 time (as opposed to "common time" which is 4/4), but should necessarily refer to "double time" which is something more used in passing, from musician to musician, indicating that whatever is happening now rhytmically, we're going to increase the tempo by a factor of 2. It doesn't refer to the actual time signature tho, which could be anything.

― Dominique (dleone), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:00 (twenty years ago)

but *shouldn't* necessarily refer, that is

― Dominique (dleone), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:01 (twenty years ago)

Double time is always bad!

― the bellefox, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:04 (twenty years ago)

I guess you don't have to look on the web to be confused anymore.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:04 (twenty years ago)

There's a hand on a wire that leads to my mouth
I can hear you knocking but I'm not coming out
Don't want to be a puppet or a ventriloquist
'Cause there's no ventilation on a critical list
Fingers creeping up my spine are not mine to resist
Strict time

Toughen up, toughen up
Keep your lip buttoned up
Strict time

Oh the muscles flex and the fingers curl
And a cold sweat breaks out on the sweater girl
Strict time
Oh he's all hands, don't touch that dial
The courting cold wars weekend witch trial
Strict time
All the boys are straight laced and the girls are frigid
The talk is two-faced and the rules are rigid 'cause it's strict time
Strict time

You talk in hushed tones, I talk in lush tones
Try to look Italian through the musical Valium
Strict time
Thinking of grand larceny
Smoking the everlasting cigarette of chastity
Cute assistants staying alive
More like a hand job than the hand jive
Strict time

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:06 (twenty years ago)

cut time is 2/2. used in marches a lot. the bottom value means that a half note gets one beat, as 4/4 means that the quarter note gets one, 6/8 means that the eighth note gets one beat. bossa nova is usually in cut time, for example. a lot of people can't hear the difference between 3/4 and 6/8--6/8 moves along more briskly than standard "waltz time." you can refer to anything with units of 3 as its basis as tripletime, but there's a diff between counting 12 or 6 eighth notes as the basis of the measure and counting 3.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:11 (twenty years ago)

yes, edd s hurt otm about cut time

― Dominique (dleone), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:12 (twenty years ago)

Well, it looks like you guys are right. But the way it was originally explained to me- by another confused person- was that in some cases sometimes people were lazy about writing lots of sixteenth notes so they would just put the C with a slash in it at the beginning of the whole thing so they could write eighth notes instead.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:18 (twenty years ago)

first is half time, second is double time

― sovietpanda (sovietpanda), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 22:49 (twenty years ago)

Dominique and Edd OTM about cut-time. It basically means double time but it's kind of an antiquated term, I only remember it from concert band and no one says it in jazz or anything.

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 22:57 (twenty years ago)

It's all relative anyway. There's lots of ways you could possibly write out a given tune, but there are conventions (i.e. in jazz, walking bass line = quarter notes, and in an AC/DC tune the kick and snare mark the quarter notes).

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 23:02 (twenty years ago)

I dunno about antiquated, I kind of don't think so. pretty common term. it's all about how you want to play it, I mean you could play a bossa in 4/4 but it'd change the character of the performance totally. in bossa, you have two big beats one of which booms. so while I know exactly what Jordan means, I think you write it out *how you want to play it*, that's the purpose. I'm not a muso, but I do write about music for a living and pride myself on getting at the nuts and bolts of it (along with my snark and snarl about other aspects of it, of course).

anyway, here's what "New Grove Dictionary of Jazz" sez about "double time":

"the apparent doubling of the tempo, generally in a recognizable four- , eight-, or 16-bar section of a piece, or in a break, achieved by halving the prevailing note-value." so that would be kinda the same as cut time, except in cut time the half-note is the unit, whereas in 4/4, common time, it's the quarter note. so seems to me that double time would have the eighth note instead of the quarter as the unit, right? like I say, I know enuff to know I don't know all, so I might be wrong here. and good thread--god, I need to learn so much. but the point of "double time" is just that it goes by faster, so I'm not even sure if it's even a problem of notation.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 23:13 (twenty years ago)

At the risk of being the person who keeps making the thread tangled, it seems to me that double time being faster and half-time being slower make intuitive sense ("on the double!" and "going at half-speed" ) but "cut-time" is confusing, and yeah I only heard it once in my life, form a music teacher when doing some reading practice in an exercise book. It seems like most people use it, if they use it at all, for speeding up the tempo, but then some people use it to mean 2/4, some people use it to mean music written so that the the quarter note is really an eighth note. I saw one guy claim that composers did it because they were paid by the bar and wanted to be paid twice as much!

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 23:25 (twenty years ago)

hey babvies liestezxs doubvle time is leik when the wind comez and swirls in a corner bringing leaves to roofs from the ground and half lime is when you little squirts slow down like spinners at a stollight and you know this can apply to puynks, too

― Z.C. Dick, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 23:36 (twenty years ago)

If you're playing a beat like this:

Boom / pop / boom boom pop / boom / pop / boom boom pop / (with each slash and word representing an eighth note)

Then an example of half time might be something like this:

boom / / / pop / / / boom / boom / pop / / /

And an example of double time might be this:

boom pop boom-boom pop boom pop boom-boom pop (imagining the hyphenated booms are sixteenths)

That probably doesn't help at all. But yeah, just remember double time is double the starting tempo, and half time is half the starting tempo.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 23:55 (twenty years ago)

ok. cut time is 2/2 time; edd s. hurt is right. the half note gets one beat rather than the quarter note. it really is notated no ddifferently then 4/4 time, but the conductor would conduct the half note in two rather then the quarter note in four. this is usually just to make it seem faster. now, if a peice went into cut time from common time where a half note equaled the previous value of the quarter note, then the time would seem to double. but if the quarter note after the modulation was equal to the quarter note before the modulation, then there would be no difference whatsoever between the two tempos. other than that it has no direct relationship between double time and half time. usually that all depends on what the rhythm section is doing.

― jonathan - stl (jonathan - stl), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 23:59 (twenty years ago)

Now onto mentric modulation.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 23 February 2006 00:00 (twenty years ago)

a lot of people can't hear the difference between 3/4 and 6/8

3/4 feels like 3 larger beats subdivided into two half-beats (DAH-duh DAH-duh DAH-duh)

6/8 feels like 2 larger beats subdivided into three one-third-beats (DAH-duh-duh DAH-duh-duh)

― Dan (Helping Out) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 23 February 2006 00:04 (twenty years ago)

That sounds about right to me.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Thursday, 23 February 2006 00:06 (twenty years ago)

metric modulation is CRAZY. i love it.

― jonathan - stl (jonathan - stl), Thursday, 23 February 2006 00:38 (twenty years ago)

Guys cut time has absolutely nothing to do with the tempo you're playing. Its just a different way of writing the notes out over time.

― deej.. (deej..), Thursday, 23 February 2006 00:47 (twenty years ago)

thats exactly what i was saying.

― jonathan - stl (jonathan - stl), Thursday, 23 February 2006 00:53 (twenty years ago)

Well, I'm sure some of you guys know what a lot of "fast" NOFX stuff sounds like. The drums seem to be going double the speed of the chords, vocals, etc. That would be double time, right?

― Nigel (Nigel), Thursday, 23 February 2006 00:57 (twenty years ago)

I think a good example of 6/8 in rock music would be that "Reelin' in the Years" beat, whereas a good example of 3/4 might be something like She's Leaving Home.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 23 February 2006 02:47 (twenty years ago)

If it helps, 6/8 is considered a "compound time" because in a sense there are 6 beats and at the same time two beats (DA-da-da-DA-da-da)

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 23 February 2006 03:06 (twenty years ago)

BTW in reference to an edd hurt comment above, it's not accurate to say that double time "goes by faster" in jazz -- you'd actually play each chord for the same length of time but the beat would be twice as fast.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 23 February 2006 03:10 (twenty years ago)

Guys cut time has absolutely nothing to do with the tempo you're playing. Its just a different way of writing the notes out over time.
Yeah, that sounds right.

For 6/8 time, I like to think of some of those John Lennon Beatle songs like "This Boy" where he plays something like "ONE two and three, TWO two three." It's subjective, but the second group of three in the bar kind of sounds like the answer to the first one.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Thursday, 23 February 2006 07:05 (twenty years ago)

All right, here's a quiz question for y'all: what would you say was the time signature of Bernstein and Sondheim's "America"?

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Thursday, 23 February 2006 15:06 (twenty years ago)

The best example of switching to half time mid-song is in the Miles Davis live version of "Seven Steps to Heaven" from Four and More. The song is blisteringly fast to begin with and during one of the solos (George Coleman's maybe?) Tony Williams eggs the rhythm section into half-time for a few alternating choruses. It seems to be a totally spontaneous move and the band is just locked in. Really sick. I wish I could YSI it - I only have the vinyl - but if someone has this track to YSI (it's on Four and More or otherwise issued as The Complete 1964 Concert), it's a great example of what we're talking about here.

A side note about the recording is that it was during the height of the Civil Rights movement and Miles agreed to play this concert as a benefit for voter registration for free. His group was not down with playing for free and there was some tension before they went on stage. It's a killer performance.

― mcd (mcd), Thursday, 23 February 2006 15:17 (twenty years ago)

"America" is in 3/4. "Reelin'" is just 4/4. there'a triplet feel to some of it, is the thing. you have to feel where the downbeat comes in triple time, whether it's organized in 3, 6 or 12 (12/8 being a classic soul-music time signature).

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 23 February 2006 20:14 (twenty years ago)

"America" is totally in 3/4.

― Dan (Helps If You've Seen The Music) Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 23 February 2006 20:18 (twenty years ago)

what part of "reelin" doesn't have a triplet feel?

― Dominique (dleone), Thursday, 23 February 2006 20:25 (twenty years ago)

(or, I think you could make the case it is in 12/8 - it's basically a fast shuffle, triplet feel throughout)

― Dominique (dleone), Thursday, 23 February 2006 20:30 (twenty years ago)

xpost:
Yeah, but I might say that it's in 6/8. Or as this guy says (it's a PDF file), it's a bar of 6/8 followed by a bar of 3/4.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Thursday, 23 February 2006 20:32 (twenty years ago)

The "Mother Superior jumped the gun" section of Happiness is a Warm Gun is in double time

― douglas eklund (skolle), Friday, 24 February 2006 00:35 (twenty years ago)

"Footprints" is apparently in 6/4. I'm trying to think of how this sounds different from 6/8, but maybe the 4/8 difference just has to do with what the value of the notes are when written down.

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Thursday, 2 March 2006 18:04 (twenty years ago)

I really think of Footprints in 6/8. You could write in in 6/4, but it sure doesn't feel like it.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 2 March 2006 18:10 (twenty years ago)

I can kinda see why Footprints is 6/4, although I never thought about it much before. It makes more sense if you think about the Wayne Shorter version rather than the one on Miles Smiles.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 2 March 2006 21:42 (twenty years ago)

Here is an analysis of Ron Carter's (and Tony Williams') playing on that song on Miles Smiles. This website has a a few other interesting things on it too.

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Thursday, 2 March 2006 21:47 (twenty years ago)

Oh man, I forgot how awesome the groove-switches are on that song.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 2 March 2006 21:53 (twenty years ago)

Totally.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 2 March 2006 22:02 (twenty years ago)

It's funny too, because I usually associate cramming lots of feel/groove changes into a song with wanky second-rate jazz, like the kind your local high school jazz band teachers get together to play at the local "jazz fest." I guess you just have to be that much more masterful to do it well.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Friday, 3 March 2006 00:43 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, on a related note, I always think there are lots of annoying personality traits that go with being a second-rate musician, but when you try and purge yourself of them you later see that people who are really good have many of those same traits as well! So you're left with realizing you're not a genius but at least you behave reasonably well. Maybe it's like this: if you're a little better, you know to steer clear of something, but if you're really good you can figure out how to do it properly.

― Redd Scharlach (Ken L), Friday, 3 March 2006 01:02 (twenty years ago)

ten years pass...

Any songs that suddenly go half-time? I figure there will be a LOT of dubstep in this category...

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, 31 October 2016 18:27 (nine years ago)

IME nearly every dubstep song goes half-time at the drop, if you use the intro as the measure of time

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Monday, 31 October 2016 18:30 (nine years ago)

Half-time and double-time are used in thrash metal a lot.

― pen pineapple apple pen (Turrican), Monday, 31 October 2016 18:40 (nine years ago)

the teasing half-time breakdown in the chorus of 'Take On Me' feels prescient now.

― sam jax sax jam (Jordan), Monday, 31 October 2016 18:40 (nine years ago)

I asked a similar question in another thread - it's for a friend whose daughter is a gymnast and looking for floor exercise music. She wants something that has a dramatic tempo change, or something with a double/halftime feel. She said she's starting to look at film scores, which have the kind of big shifts she wants.

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, 31 October 2016 19:22 (nine years ago)

"fat lip" by sum 41

― na (NA), Monday, 31 October 2016 19:24 (nine years ago)

https://soundcloud.com/stylss/jnthn-stein-build

― sam jax sax jam (Jordan), Monday, 31 October 2016 19:49 (nine years ago)

'Needles' by System of a Down.

― pen pineapple apple pen (Turrican), Monday, 31 October 2016 19:53 (nine years ago)

Any songs that suddenly go half-time? I figure there will be a LOT of dubstep in this category...
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, October 31, 2016 11:27 AM (one hour ago)

one that immediately comes to mind based on how well the drummer sells the transition is "Tea For One".

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Monday, 31 October 2016 20:05 (nine years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.