The Magic of 6/8 Time
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- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
- 6/8 vs 4/4 vs 3/4 - a time signature comparison.
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Everything is a 4/4 if you're brave enough
Everything is 4/4 if you dont count like a nerd
@@mrrootytooty5797 i think changing tempo every single note is counting like a nerd rather than just setting fitting time measure.
😂😂😂😂
Oh yeah? *3 bar phrases of 3/4*
@@mchlkpng sounds like 4/4 tbh
Wooooah. First time anyone has ever explained the difference in 3/4 and 6/8 to me. I’ve always kinda smooshed them together.
It's the same thing. I haven't watched this video yet. I'll delete this comment if I have my mind changed.
@@sb_dunk lol stay uneducated :D
@@sb_dunk I used to think of 6/8 as a double resolution version of 3/4 but I guess it depends on what you do with the pulse/beat. Jumping back and forth between the two in the clip reveals that while the melody stays the same the difference lies in the percussive part.
@@sb_dunkno it's not. A key signature is not a ratio
@@l00kns33yup, cuz you are just accentuating a percussive aspect of the same meter. I feel 3/4 and 6/8 are the same l, Yet can arguably be pointed out as different . just like some say TomAto and some say TomaAAAto.
Thank you, for us dyslexic musicians, those visual tools are really helpful.
That animation with the tune was crazy satisfying. This whole video is a great and easy to understand example of rhythm. Very well done!
I write way too many songs in 6/8. I think a lot of people associate 6/8 with '50s music. But I actually like it in a more modern rock song context. It can give the song a nice driving energy. Also, it's a way to make your song sound a bit more interesting than standard 4/4 without being actively "weird." It's the second most common meter, so people are used to hearing it. The moment you start writing in 7/4 or something, you're asking people to notice the meter. I'm not opposed to that, but a lot of times I want to disguise the unusual features of my song and make them more accessible, not draw attention to them.
Agreed! Although, "...too many songs in 6/8." makes no sense to me 🌞
3/4 is the second most common key signature I think
U can write songs in 7/4 without people (and even musicians) noticing it. Im telling by experience.
pd: Sorry if my english is bad, not a native speaker here
@@letesuave9106 a musician should notice it. a non musician would feel it, not necessarily understand what it is.
@@letesuave9106 oh yeah i agree
if you group 7/4 into a group of 4 and a group of 3, it flows SO naturally. sometimes i just wander off into 7/4 by accident, and sometimes i just listen ti a song and take a while to realise that it's in an odd time sig. I think 7/4 is like an even time sig for me now at this point
If you like 6/8 look into 12/8, very fun!😊
Slap a purdie shuffle on there and you got a stew goin
Everybody Wants To Rule The World
Duuuuude. I took IB Music. I have been in orchestra since I was 11. How on earth has no one been able to properly explain this until now? This single explanation puts multiple educational institutions to shame, on god
1:09 i like the 4/4 version more because it kinda reminds me of the Mario kart wii soundtrack
And why do you like the mario kart wii soundtrack?? I also like it btw - I played a ridiculous amount of the wii version...
The 6/8 example reminds me of Kirby
It all sounds like the one outro to Stardust Crusaders to me
6/8 has more in common with 2/4 than with 3/4 due to having two primary beats - i think of 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8 as a triplified 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 respectively
Agreed! But that is not the point of confusion for most people.
for some reason i find the use of the same song but changing its time signature throughout the video really cool :0
This is the best explanation I've ever seen... The circle tool was soooo good
you just. explained 3/4 vs 6/8. yeah take my damn subscribe dude thank you
this muted io page is INSANE. I wish I found this earlier on my music learning, and your channel too
Nice. And the song would sound awesome changing the signature between 6/8 and 3/4...
Agreed!
The companion page in combination with the video is brilliant theory and guitar has been a little hard to practice but these visualisers are HUGE value and for free good work guys life savers
Just donated to Seb's website fund via Ko-fi. Thanks for pointing out that website, he is doing some great work.
Nice one! Yes, he's doing great work indeed.
I'm over here just trying to eat my breakfast with Max's eyes staring directly into my soul.
lol he do dat 😂💛
This song is amazing! I just want to listen to it all day.
A truly recomend to listen to Argentian Folklore that is based on all the types of 6/8 approches. Like Zamba (very slow tempo) and Chacarera and Chamame (that are medium and fast tempos)
Thanks! Will check
The companion page is awesome. First minute in I jumped the cheat sheet and circle of fifths and knew I would love this. Thank you for this tool. Hope others appreciate what is sitting here.
he strikes again! I think I too easily give up on understanding meter when I try and wrap my mind around it, especially 3/4 vs 6/8. These visual tools are an excellent assistant to start understanding and internalizing these concepts practically. 👏👏👏 THANK YOU
3/4 and 6/8 are the exact same timing , as a drummer, this is how we look at timing. it's just fractions , it's not that complicated honestly. you can only add the same amount of 16th notes into those bars. they have the exact same timing. I almost always look at writing midi drums in a 16th note grid on the piano roll. it just makes the most sense to me from a drummer's viewpoint.
@@Maplefoxx-vl2ew Agreed. The distinction is in feel, not the quantity of divisions. Meter is an interesting topic and there are so many ways to conceptually divide things for various purposes.
Treat the meter the way you would treat speech. When you speak, each word has a syllable that carries the emphasis. We don't think about it too much until someone who is not a native speaker says a word with an alternative emphasis. It is all the same sounds but doesn't sound right.
It's so funny this comes up after I do a 6/8 jam with a drummer friend
Sounds like the best of 3/4 and 4/4 together
Saving this to watch after exams
Damn, 1 minute in and Im subscribed. Brilliant presentation. To the point. No bs, no intro, no wasted time. Keep it up!
I really love the dynamic of 7/8.
interesting how in the 6/8 example we naturally bob our heads back and forth on the 1 and 4. We could have chosen any movement, but that feels most natural to do, thats interesting to me.
Came for the theory, stayed for the experiment (groovy tunes) 🎶🎹
6/8 doesnt HAVE TO HAVE an accented 4th note. That's only a convention from waltz rythym. Try Indian 7/8. Only one beat per bar.
Agreed. You actually don't need to accent the 1 either. You can create a 6/8 feel (two head bobs per measure with a triplet feel) by using syncopated patterns which are two beats long and made of triplets. The listner will still bob their head on divisions 1 and 4 even if there are no accented notes there. Same goes for all time sigs.
As an Indian, I like to eat curry
Of course not. 3/4 and 6/8 are mathematically identical. The distinction is how they are felt, mostly a result of tempo and pulse.
Of course not. 3/4 and 6/8 are mathematically identical. The distinction is how they are felt, mostly a result of tempo and pulse.
Of course not. 3/4 and 6/8 are mathematically identical. The distinction is how they are felt, mostly a result of tempo and pulse.
Concise, clear, calm! A perfect video.
very common in persian dancing music. "sheesh o hasht" or "6 and 8" in persian is sometimes said to describe a dancing song at parties. they almost always follow this rhythm.
thank you so much. this video has me making my first 6/8 song and im already loving its vibe. definitely immediately gave me enough of a boost of understanding to immediately feel confident enough to start a track, and im glad i did. considering donating to your friends awesome website you mentioned. thanks again
That's great to hear!
Very informative.
Another “super like” for the crisp keyboard tone, the smooth-sailing melody line, and the mind-blowing bends and glides.
As someone who doesn't really know how to play drums and just fumbles around trying to figure out how to make a song to just sit nicely on a grid, this helped me gain more understanding about the time signatures and how it changes the feel of the song.
Before all this what I only used to know is that when it steps out of the bounds is of 4/4 time is that it's swung most probably Lol. You've helped another idiot become less of an idiot which is the main reason why we all do this, I think.
Glad to hear it! Thanks for the comment
I recently imported a Death song, Spirit Crusher, midi drum track into my DAW and had to go through and manually insert all of the time/tempo changes. I know Death is known for time signature changes, but I didn't realize how much 5/8 and 6/8 it used. This was a great video to find after just looking through that song. and thanks for the online tool. That's great.
I sure do love me some polyrhythms. I find this to be a great visual aid to understand this concept.
It would be useful if the tool also included 2/4 to compare with 6/8. Since 6/8 is also played as two beats, I wanted to hear the difference with 2/4.
I want that tune in my spotify playlist !!
Im really happy every time I find a new video where someone explain some music theory in a so so cool way. Thank you! It’s not easy at all what you did
Very cool tool. It can definitely help break writer’s block! 🤘🤠
Max, you are a source of musical inspiration! It'd be amazing to hear/see you doing something like this with the book Harmonic Experience (W. A. Mathieau). You are fantastic, Max!
Much appreciated! I'll consider that for the future... I did study with Mathieu for some time 🌞
Man you are amazing in teaching by showing and feeling where most of us struggle to understand the jargon and even if we think we understand a musical concept we struggle to find the way to explain it to others !!!
You are really an inspirattion
Much appreciated 🙏 So glad it was helpful
Could be wrong here, or in some instances, but it seems 6/8 can be felt by counting 6 OR counting the 4 underneath, whereas 3/4 you can only really feel it as a 3 or 6 count.
Yup. 4/4 is "duple meter", 6/8 is "compound duple meter", and 3/4 is "triple meter" which is fundamentally different, as you say.
insta sub. Music representations have a huge potential for music education and you utilize it well
BRO...The only real lesson on these Rhythms
the 3/4 feels so march-y
Honestly I feel like the 4/4 and 6/8 examples both sound really good, just better for different places.
Wow, thank you so so much for the video and the companion page - there's amazing content and for free, can't believe it!
I wrote a song and had some trouble writing down the B Part.
I thought it was a fast 3/4, but whenever I sang it with band something felt off.
Then a friend of mine played it in a duo context and he suggested 12/8 for the B Part and it finally felt right.
I was really happy to learn this, so I didn't have to break the song down to 3/4 or 4/4, but could sing and play it how I feel it.
This came at an opportune moment as I was only experimenting with 6/8 the other day for a new track and this is a very useful explanation of the differences - watch out in future challenges to see if it worked for me, Best wishes Chris
Great to hear Chris!
Wow! Thank you! I really needed this explained, i just kinda viewed 6/8 and 3/4 as the same thing so this will be greatly helpful
And muted io seems incredible! Something I think i always needed and wanted
The music of Son Jarocho from Veracruz, Mexico, an Afro-Mexican folk music makes frequent use of 6/8 over 4/4 polyrhythms.
I love these visualization tools
This guy is just too knowledgeable. I am really glad I found you ! Thank you for this informative video !
I've been with him for a while now. I'm levelling up in an amazing way. God bless him 🙏🙏👌👌👌❤
instant sub - great topic, well made, easy to understand 👍🏻
Cool. Probably the best illustration of time signatures I have seen. Thanks
Randomly started making a 6/8 song last week and then this video releases.
Talk about timing !
So useful in such a short video.
Subscribed
Thanks. This was so well presented! I love the sequencer tool on web site. I don't play an instrument, but am interested in composition. The tool allowed me to sketch out harmonic ideas really quickly.
Awesome video Max! The visual presentation has been top notch here lately. I'm really excited to use that website for interactive music theory tools, thank you!
THANK. YOU.
Much of traditional Persian music is in 6/8 , check out the terms "pishdaramad" "chaharmezrab" "zarbi" "reng" these are all in 6/8
Will do! Thank you
Best music channel on youtube.
Website looks amazing and great tools! Good job!!
I'm just vibing at the first 25 seconds
Great video - getting me back into music theory in my attempt to be able to teach my little ones! Also great background, love the out of focus lights!
Nice! Exciting 🌞
4:46 fun little thing you can do, turn off the 3/4 rhythm. The polyrhythm between 4/4 and 6/8 sounds very similar to part of the Christmas song Carol of the Bells. It’s not perfect but the first time I tried doing a polyrhythm with slapping my hands on stuff, I heard it and now I can’t unhear it
Fun Fact: Chilean's folk music "cueca" is written in 6/8!
Nice! I'll check it out. People have been telling me about a lot of great South American music after seeing this video. I'm loving it
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Love the 3/4 cadence
Hey man! I Wonderful illustrations to time signatures. Thank you
Most argentinian music is this signature. 5:55
Love it!
Really well put together!
in "Valse" i kept the same eight note basis and alternated between 6/8 and 3/4.
Great tool and video Max. Interesting stuff.
Awesome explanation!
Awesome thank you
This is great, thanks!
6/8 only defines the subdivision, not the distribution. While 3+3 definitely is a common way to go, you could just as well do 2+2+2, 3+1+2, 1+5, etc. I get that simplifying the difference between 3/4 and 6/8 can be helpful to learn the basic concepts, but I also think you risk the spread of old clichés. Because there really isn't one true way of separating the two. Same goes for 4/4, really. Just like chords and notes are named based on context, so time signatures are named based on what they feel "most like". This is inherently vague, and might differ from person to person.
Agreed!
Rad! Thanks!🙏🏿
6/8 STARS😊
wait, Ive awarded 2 additiional star. For you and those regal frames.
Bravo My Dude
Thanks! 🌞
That’s great help 🎵🙏🏽 cheers 😊
So a lot of confused people here I will help clarify, time signature is a tool of many tools composers use there is also accents, rests, grouping, hemiolas, metric modulation, even titles like waltz where we know to assume a strong weak weak beat etc etc… so people would ask why not pick 6/8 or 3/4 if they are multiples of the other? The answer is that assigning time signature to a piece depends on the context and what the biggest idea is that the composer wants to clarify in the piece, sometimes they are chosen based on readability if I have a very compact quick bar of fast notes I wouldn’t want to write that in 3/4 maybe or I’d end up with like 128th notes and in 6/8 maybe it’s easier, also sometimes you choose it to show the structure of the piece kind of like verse chorus prechorus you can show relationships of sections in a piece by the time signature like Tigran Hamasyan in “entertain me” he writes 256/16 think of a trunk with branches and those have even smaller branches and so on, they are all connected but yet different sizes and scales and you now have a heirarchy, example: a piece has 9 bars in 3/4 and I play every bar strong-weak-weak that is a more “linear” writing style I might accidentally play it all the same like a stream of notes, but if the composer writes instead 12/4 I now see these are not just 9 bars but instead 3 groups of 3 bars in each group so maybe I treat each 3 bars like a “beat” this is called hyper measure and I might play the first 3 strong the second 3 weaker and the 3rd 3 bars the weakest for example and maybe I would make the way I play the melody sound like 3 distinct groups rather than 9 groups because I see the relationship of three 3 bar groups rather than just 9 straight bars. There are many main contexts but the right one is the one that is the most efficient for the composer and performer, I could just write every song that’s ever existed in 4/4 using accents to know where to play them but that would not look very good to the performer and hard to understand and pretty hard to see any relationships or clarify the melody, the composer will use the time signature for the biggest thing he wants to clarify whether that’s accents or structure or readability etc. that way he doesn’t have to write a bunch of accents or obscure the rhythm or obscure the structure or the melody because that way he can just adjust the few bars that the time signature does not agree with and write a few accents or slurs or time changes etc. it’s a tool and technically can use it however you want but it’s best to pick the most efficient template so you don’t have to write in every bar to clarify the other elements that the time signature didn’t cover hope that helps.
All comes down to the amount of head nods per bar.
Simple.
The bossa rythm
Great video, thanks
The three groups of two is more 6/4 in my opinion. 3/4 is more straight forward as just 1 group of 3 each measure.
Human music... I like it!
lol I quote that all the time
Thankyou so much bro
6/8 is just peak. (12/8, too)
You are the man!
I can't help but hear it as a 'faster' 3/4 time.
Well remember that the difference is: in 3/4, you nod your head three times per measure, while in 6/8 it is two times per measure.
I can only describe finding your channel as luck. Your work is tremendous and very well explained. I hope this channel pops off on the algorithm, very well deserving of so.
Thank you!
Despite taking band class, playing the guitar (poorly), I still to this day can't figure out how time signatures differ at all in the sense that it seems to me you could write the same song in "different time signatures" and have them be the same. It would just require either adding in rests or doubling, tripling, etc.
My stupid brain goes like this:
1 person counts in 4/4 timing. 1, 2, 3, 4 for a certain amount of beats per minute.
Another person can count in 3/4 timing for the same amount of beats per minute.
Does it matter that we just call them different numbers.. they are still playing on the same beat.
They can even count along together and obviously will be on different numbers and meet back up briefly again eventually. It just means what would be the first note of a measure in one time signature, it won't be the same note in the measure of another time signature, but still played at the same moment.
Clearly I am missing something very fundamental.
Yes, you're right in essence. The point is to have the meter match the pattern/phrase length so that a new measure begins when the pattern repeats. In reality, meter and counting and notation and everything similar are all mental models, not actual "things". So choosing a time signature is about making the music easier to understand, think about, and notate. The music is the music is the music.
@@maxkonyi So I'm not completely stupid.. just pretty stupid lol (and I'm not saying you're calling me stupid. It's just my own conclusion on this).
Its definitely is easier to read 4/4 timing when it's in 4/4 rather than trying to play something that should be 4/4 timing, but was written in 3/4 timing.
I guess I just have the poorest of rhythm and can't "feel" the difference other than the pattern/riff seems to loop sooner or later depending on the time signature.
BTW, thanks for the response and explanation. Maybe one day it will actually click for me.
that 3/4 slaps
Argentina's folk has too many examples of 6/8, in genres as Zamba, chacarera, cueca, chamamé. Search songs as: Chacarera del triste, entrerriano y de a caballo, zamba del negro alegre
Yes! A few people have recommended these styles to me and I've been enjoying them a lot.
All 3 versions are similar yet different, same song used in different situations
3/4 being the most debilitating of them
could you think of 6/8 just as 2 groups of triplets inside a bar of 2/4?
Indeed! The 6/8 notation just prevents having to notate or think about constant triplets.
@@maxkonyi thank you so much for clarifying something that's bugged me for years. Subbed!