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I am learning a pop song that is in 4/4 and has a tempo of 81bpm and don't understand why the writer has chosen cut time. Is this so he doesn't have to use 16th notes so much and so the reader doesn't have to read a lot of 16th notes? I have very similar songs with similar tempos and in a similar styles where the sheet music is written out in 4/4 common time and would have liked this piece to be written like this too but it isn't. I can't understand why the writer chose cut time.

Also, in my DAW if I want to play this piece note for note I would have to set my bpm to 162bpm which is also confusing. If the writer is using cut time shouldn't the bpm at the top of the piece change to accurately represent the duration of the notes?

Here is a section of the partiture https://ibb.co/cMGqoJ

armani
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2 Answers2

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It's BEATS per minute, not quarter notes per minute. The composer decided this piece was a slow march, 2 in the bar, rather than a brisk trot, 4 in the bar.

Maybe your DAW only knows about quarters per minute though, so you'll have to do the math. It could be worse. If the piece was in 6/8 time, the mm mark would refer to dotted quarter beats!

Laurence
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  • Blame the people who devised the MIDI standard for equating "beat" and "quarter note"! In MIDI the tempo is always defined as the number of microseconds per quarter note, though DAWs usually display it as "quarter notes per minute". MIDI files can optionally contain time signatures as meta-information, but the time signature has no relationship with anything else in the file. –  Jun 02 '18 at 11:33
  • @Laurence: I added a section for you to look at please. At the top of the piece it does have a minim = 81bpm so that makes sense but in the section I posted, it looks like a normal 4 beats in a bar doesn't it? – armani Jun 02 '18 at 11:46
  • @Laurence: Also, do you know why they may have chosen cut time for this piece as it is a normal 4/4 song by the band "Travis" – armani Jun 02 '18 at 11:52
  • A song full of quarters and 8ths can still have a slower 'two in a bar' feel rather than a more urgent 'four in a bar'. This seems to be what the composer (or the guy who did the transcription) is trying to indicate. Cut time is also used for marches with a speed like half=120 of course. – Laurence Jun 03 '18 at 12:33
  • @Laurence: When I count to the song it is definitely in 4/4 time. Does the song have a "2 in a bar" feel to you? If it does, perhaps I am missing something because after all these years I was sure I knew what 4/4 sounded like. – armani Jun 05 '18 at 07:15
  • It's this song? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVNsKViSSDI Yes, you can count it in 4. You can ALWAYS count cut time in 4 if you want to, just as you can always count 4/4 in 8. But I agree with counting this song is an easy 2 rather than a somewhat frantic 4. – Laurence Jun 05 '18 at 10:22
  • @Laurence Yes it is. if you do a search for "Travis Sing sheet music" in google you get a lot of screenshots from a lot of places selling the transcript and they are almost all in 4/4. – armani Jun 05 '18 at 18:30
  • OK. Just understand what the people who transcribed it in cut time were trying to convey, accept it or reject it as you prefer. There's no 'right' or 'wrong' here. – Laurence Jun 06 '18 at 10:43
  • @Laurence I don't understand. In Wikipedia says: In contemporary usage alla breve suggests a fairly quick tempo. You are saying they used cut time to communicate the piece as a "slow march" so I am a bit confused. Can you help clear this up please? – armani Jun 08 '18 at 10:13
  • Gladly. In this case, Wikipedia is mistaken. How WOULD you convey a 'slow 2' feel if you couldn't use cut time? Yes, there are other ways. But cut time is fine. Don't worry about it. We've established what the transcriber was trying to convey. If you feel it wasn't the best way to do it, feel free to use a different one next time YOU transcribe a piece. However, I'm telling you it IS an acceptable way to do it. – Laurence Jun 08 '18 at 12:25
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I found this explanation on another site and it made perfect sense:

Often you can't tell the difference between 2/2 and 4/4, and sometimes it may appear that the composer made the choice for no other reason than simplicity in notation (writing fast eighth notes instead of sixteenths, perhaps).

I had thought that this may be the reason or part of the reason why the writer used cut time in this song and I had even added it in the initial question but for some reason nobody seemed to think it was correct. In this song however, I am almost certain that the reason why cut time is used is simply to not write so many 16th notes. It is silly if you ask me and I would have preferred it in normal 4/4 time.

armani
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