Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/137

with equal propriety, in a Bar of 3/4 or in one of 6/8 Time. But the effect produced will be altogether different; for, in the first case, the notes will be grouped in three divisions, each containing two Quavers; while, in the second, they will form two groups, each containing three Quavers. Again, twelve Crotchets may be written in a Bar of 6/2, or 12/4 Time; twelve Quavers, in a Bar of 6/4, or 12/8; or twelve Semiquavers, in a Bar of 3/4, or 6/8; the division into groups of two notes, or three, and the effect thereby produced, depending entirely upon the facts indicated by the Time-Signature—in other words, upon the question whether the Time be Simple or Compound. For the position of the greater Accents, in Simple and Compound Time, is absolutely identical; the only difference between the two forms of Rhythm lying in the subdivision of the Beats by 2, in Simple Times, and by 3, in Compound ones. Every Simple Time has a special Compound form derived directly from it, with the greater Accents—the only Accents with which we are here concerned—falling in exactly the same places; as a comparison of the foregoing examples of Alla Breve and 12/4, and 12/8, Alla Cappella and 6/4, 2/4 and 6/8, 4/8 and 12/16. 8/8 and 24/16, 2/8 and 6/16, 3/2 and 9/4, 3/4 and 8/9, 3/8 and 9/16, will distinctly prove. And this rule applies, not only to Common and Triple Time, but also to Quintuple and Septuple, either of which may be Simple or Compound at will. As a matter of fact, we believe we are right in saying that neither of these Rhythms has, as yet, been attempted, in the Compound form. But such a form is possible: and its complications would in no degree interfere with the position of the greater Accents.^[1] For the strongest Accent will, in all cases, fall on the first Beat in the Bar; while the secondary Accent may fall, in Quintuple Time—whether Simple or Compound—either on the third or the fourth Beat; and in Septuple Time—Simple or Compound—on the fourth Beat, or the fifth—to say nothing of other places in which the Composer would be perfectly justified in placing it.^[2]

In a few celebrated cases more numerous, nevertheless, than is generally supposed Com-

1. Compound Quintuple Rhythm would need, for its Time-Signature the fraction 15/8 or 15/16; and Compound Septuple Rhythm, 21/8 or 21/16. Tyros are sometimes taught the perfectly correct though by no means satisfactory 'rule of thumb,' that all fractions with a numerator greater than 5 denote Compound Times.
2. See Time-beating.