Eleanor Selfridge-Field and Edmund Correia, Jr.
© 1994 Center for Computer Assisted Research in the Humanities
Reproduced by the IEEE Technical Committee on Computer Generated Music by permission


Category 6. Recent Music

Type 2. Time signatures: Compound meters.

Many composers have experimented with the use of different meters in parts played simultaneously and with frequent shifts of meter that are synchronized between parts. These irregular practices are indicated in various ways. The latter situation is commonly indicated by the use of multiple time signatures at the start of a piece (much as in modern editions of some Renaissance music), although sometimes there is a common denominator and a series of numerators.

Ex. #38 is a hypothetical one.

Ex. #38. Compound meters typeset by Leland Smith with SCORE. The example was shown in the Directory of Computer Assisted Research in Musicology 3 (1987), 45.


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