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Part of the ABRSM Grade 2 piano exam involves the examiner playing a piece, with the student required to start clapping along when they sense the rhythm, and to then identify whether or not the piece was in 'double or triple time'.

I have my exam next week, and just encountered a bit of a curveball regarding this. My teacher did some aural exercises with me. She played a piece, which I said was in triple time. She told me I was wrong, and that it was double time. However, the time signature was 6/8. I had been clapping along correctly to the rhythm.

Now, my understanding has always been -

double time = number of beats in a bar is a multiple of 2 triple time = number of beats in a bar is a multiple of 3

If a piece in 6/8 is actually 'double' time, then I have no idea what this term actually means!

Dom
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Tom Davies
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    [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_metre) says: "Triple metre ... is a musical metre characterized by a *primary* division of 3 beats to the bar" (with emphasis on *primary*) – anatolyg Mar 23 '17 at 13:59
  • Strange terminology; it's been decades but I don't recall having to claim "double time" or "triple time" in my grade 2. – Lightness Races in Orbit Mar 23 '17 at 16:42
  • 6/8 is a compound triple. It is like playing 2 dotted crochets. In fact it is more accurate to say 6/8 is 2 dotted crochet beats instead of 6 quaver beats. – Ariana Mar 24 '17 at 15:01

2 Answers2

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This is an old chestnut! 6/8 is compound time, so called because it's a sort of mixture. It can be counted in a slower two, or a faster six. ONE--TWO-- , or ONE two three FOUR five six.

So, it's easy to get confused. It's more correctly called duple (double) rather than triple time, because it's made up of two dotted crotchets in each bar, but if it occurs in an exam, saying 'actually, that's 6/8' should be enough. If the examiner still isn't satisfied, then 'double' will suffice. Good luck with the exam. I hope your teacher hasn't left the aural training till the last minute, like a lot do...

EDIT - I asked ABRSM, and the best I could get was that 6/8 didn't feature in the aural till grade VII - the earlier ones using 2,3 or 4 time only. So, you shouldn't get that thrown at you. And, maybe, your teacher shouldn't worry you with that either!

Tim
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  • It was the first time we've done any! Honestly, I don't think I could tell the difference between 3/4 and 6/8 by listening alone - it would depend on the music and how it was played. To me they are two sides of the same coin anyway! The exact same music can be written in several different time signatures, after all. – Tom Davies Mar 23 '17 at 11:19
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    Not exactly! Listen *very* carefully to 3/4 time, and each ONE beat should be emphasised the same - at least by the examiner at grade II level. With 6/8, the ONE is more emphasised than the TWO (FOUR), so there is at least a subtle difference. And you do realise that even though 3/4 has 3 crotchets per bar, it's *not* interchangeable with 6/8, which *appears* to have 3 crotchets. – Tim Mar 23 '17 at 11:45
  • Yes, but if the music doesn't always have notes falling on the first, or fourth beats, then it can be very hard to pick the accent, and you are still reliant on the player accenting those notes. At any rate I don't think it's something I'll be able to do in a week. Hopefully I will be played 2/4,4/4or 3/4 and everything will be ok :) – Tom Davies Mar 23 '17 at 12:15
  • Too late, now, but listen to 6/8 and even if the notes played don't fall on the main beats (they often do), just understand the mixed feel of two beats sub-divided into 3 smaller ones each. Oh, and tell your teacher to do a couple of minutes of aural each lesson - you'll probably go way past the next grade for that. Can't be a bad thing, can it? – Tim Mar 23 '17 at 12:29
  • As a note, I've read that 6/8 is a compound duple meter. Correspondingly, 12/16 is a compound quadruple meter and 9/8 is a compound triple meter. – Dekkadeci Mar 23 '17 at 12:34
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    One way to get used to the difference between 6/8 and 3/4 is to think of the main theme in 'America' from West Side Story (1 minute into https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enqhiEzfZz4). It alternates bars of 6/8 ('I-want-to BE-in-Am) and 3/4 (E RI CA). If it were all 3/4 the first part would be stressed wrong ('I-want TO-be IN-Am'). – dbmag9 Mar 23 '17 at 19:04
  • dbmag9 has cited probably the clearest demonstration of the difference. @TomDavies definitely, definitely, definitely take the time to listen and hear what's being described! – Kyle Strand Mar 23 '17 at 19:56
  • Hmm yeah, I do see that. Very good example. – Tom Davies Mar 29 '17 at 15:35
  • Although, given a bar of music with three crotchets, I don't know how one is supposed to tell if it's 3/4 or 6/8, when it could legitimately be either. – Tom Davies Mar 29 '17 at 15:40
  • @TomDavies - it could, but 3/4 is 3 crotchets, while 6/8 is two lots of 3 quavers, and the rhythm that each is played in is usually different. – Tim Mar 29 '17 at 15:54
  • For example, in this video explaining 6/8, he plays some 6/8 - to me it sounds exactly like 3/4 - I can't detect anything in listening to that music to tell me it's 6/8 rather than 3/4 (from 6min54) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmxbVeuyIVc – Tom Davies Mar 29 '17 at 16:08
  • @TomDavies - sounds like you need to ask your teacher to explain - specially since he brought it up! However, you really need to get to play things in 6/8 in order to get the somewhat subtle difference in feel into your head. It's one bit I struggle with teaching, so don't expect a simple easy to understand expalnation. – Tim Mar 29 '17 at 16:23
  • I get the difference in feel SOME of the time - I mean its obvious that a song like Everybody Hurts By REM is in 6/8, -you have rising/falling arpegios playing 6 notes along side a downbeat and back beat -the compound nature is easy to hear. However, in general, it's very dependent on the music in question as to how easy it is to determine - especially when listening to unaccompanied piano with no drums or other instrumentation. At the far end of the scale (3 simple crotchets in a bar), it's literally impossible to tell from listening alone. – Tom Davies Mar 29 '17 at 17:00
  • Everybody hurts sounds more like 12/8 to me - various copies have it in 6/8, 12/8 and 4/4, so You're not alone in confusion over these sort of time sigs! 4/4 can be translated in a song like this as each crotchet becomes three triplet quavers. The third lot, to me, isn't quite so emphasised as the first, which points me towards it being the third lot of a bar rather than the first lot of the next bar, thus 12/8 instead of 6/8. – Tim Mar 29 '17 at 22:11
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    Well, I just had the exam, and had another surprise. The piece he played obviously had a 1-2-3 1-2-3 rhythm, but as I wasn't able to tell if it was 3/4 or 6/8, I answered by saying it was either 3/4 or 6/8, but the speed suggested to me that it was 6/8, therefore my answer is double time. He said "Since I asked 'double or triple', it can't be 6/8, so I think you should say triple time". So once again, I'm left baffled. – Tom Davies Apr 04 '17 at 14:34
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    @TomDavies - you are not alone! I'm baffled too, now! – Tim Apr 04 '17 at 14:46
  • @TomDavies Regarding an out-of-context measure with 3 quavers: that's either 3/4 time or a hemiola in 6/8; when in doubt, lean toward 3/4, which is what the hemiola is emulating anyway. (A hemiola is a rhytmic device that functions sort of like harmonic modulations do: just as a modulation sounds like a temporary transition to another key signature, a hemiola sounds like a temporary transition to another time signature. Unfortunately the wiki article on hemiolas doesn't look quite accurate to me, so I don't know where to point you for more details.) – Kyle Strand Apr 05 '17 at 19:37
  • Also, when writing such a hemiola in 6/8, composers will sometimes substitute tied semiquavers for the middle quaver (i.e. the one that crosses from the 3rd semiquaver through the 4th). In general, notes that "cross over" the halfway point in a measure are confusing enough that they are often avoided in favor of tied notes, which more clearly indicate how the rhythm fits into the time signature. – Kyle Strand Apr 05 '17 at 19:40
  • (To further clarify what a hemiola is: the West Side Story example is essentially an extended example of hemiolas in every other measure. I'm not sure how the score is written, though--whether it's full of 6/8-ish measures in 3/4 time, or 3/4-ish measures in 6/8 time, seems somewhat arbitrary based on how it sounds!) – Kyle Strand Apr 05 '17 at 19:42
  • Finally, I am also confused by the "double or triple" statement. Whether a meter is simple or compound is independent from whether it's duple or triple. – Kyle Strand Apr 05 '17 at 19:44
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Was your teacher playing from an ABRSM publication of sample tests? I doubt they'd throw you a curve ball in a Grade 2 exam! But if they do, and you clap 'fast 6' to a tune in 6/8, I'm sure the examiner would be kind.

You might be excused for confusing one bar of 6/8 with two of 3/4. But be clear that 6/8 is described as 'compound duple', 2 beats to the bar.

Laurence
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