Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

How many measures are there really?

#1

So Im kind of confused here. In these banjo tabs, the chorus has four measures over the G chord for the lyrics “I’ll Fly away, o glory”.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.banjoteacher.com/tablature/pdfs/IllFlyAway-BanjoTeacher-com.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjtkafLj-aIAxXXtokEHV3LJcAQFnoECCoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3Xm_1tVn7hAbk4kHoZLELU

https://banjobenclark.com/forum/uploads/short-url/2PypBedbnepNwZC3GX9RObPy9KB.pdf

However, in standard notation, this part takes only two measures.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://abcnotation.com/tunePage%3Fa%3Dtrillian.mit.edu/~jc/music/abc/mirror/gulfweb.net:34043/~rlwalker/abc/illfly/0000&ved=2ahUKEwj9gKXckOaIAxUpCnkGHXlqAfkQFnoECDwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3MZDpmLIKzabWColFWbb6N

Am I looking at this wrong? How does this work?

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#2

@cboling, good question! Maybe @Mr_G can better explain it.

Let me take a stab. It’s all boils down to which note you consider as a beat - a quarter note or an eighth note. Composer’s choice!

I I I’ll Fly-ah Way oh glo ry - If you count it this way, you have 8 beats, and hence two measures of 4 quarter notes each. All good, standard notation!

I I I I I 'll fly ah way eh o oh gl o rei ee - If you count it this way, you have 16 beats (i.e. 16 8th notes). Banjo, guitar etc. have smaller (8th) notes like these. Accommodating 8th notes (with further possible subdivision of 16th notes) into a measure would be too cramped in a notation.

So instead of 8/8 signature, a 4/4 standard signature is used but with half the group of standard notation notes, thus changing the beat counting to an 8th note (and making it a quarter note), instead of to a quarter note.

Thoughts, anyone?

#3

Yep, just depends on how fast you count. In bluegrass we’re subdividing the song’s timing more so that more notes are happening. It’s then easier to write it in 1/8th notes than 16th notes, and that means that it doubles the measure count.

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#4

I’ve heard of cut timing, I think it is called. Would that affect this? Just to make sure I understand this concept correctly, a song in 4/4 time with 150 bpm, each beat being a quarter note, would be 300 bpm cut time, each beat being an eighth note. Is this correct?

#5

Cut time is just 2/2 time, so 2 beats per measure but half notes get a beat. Again, it depends on how far you want to subdivide the notes as to how many BPM you would count.

I think it’s cleaner looking to have banjo rolls as 1/8th notes. But that does mean that the BPM count gets high. MOST people refer to the BPM count as half time (not same thing as cut time) so that their BPM counts won’t be so high, but it’s just a tool for keeping numbers down.

So they’ll count a beat every 4 banjo notes, while technically it should be every 2. It makes their BPM number half of what it actually is, but everyone understands what is meant.

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#6

OK! Eight days later I finally get it! Thanks, @BanjoBen for explaining it to me!!

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