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Time signatures in video game music

Silent_Ocarina said:
I was in band in high school, so my understanding is still a bit basic. Time signatures such as 4/4 and 3/4 are easiest to understand, so I'll go with those two. I wouldn't worry about the denominator if you're just talking about those two signatures.

Listen to Colored Earth from Legend of Mana. Tap your foot to the beat of the music if you can. That is the tempo. I'm not sure how to articulate this, but you can begin counting "1, 2, 3" to the beat. You should be able to feel where "1" is (which is the beginning of one measure). You can hear this best at around 1:56. This is 3/4 (I think). Notice that if you try counting "1, 2, 3, 4," it won't fit within the confines of the music.

Now, try listening to The Sun Rises from Okami. Do the same thing as you did with the previous song, but count to four this time. You should be able to notice where "1" lands. Notice how counting to 3 won't really fit the beat of the song. This is 4/4 (I think).

I'm so sorry I can't explain it better. I won't even try to explain the more complicated signatures. If you need help with counting beats to a song, try listening to popular electronic music. They tend to have bass drums that hit every beat.
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I can sort of get it in some of the songs in this thread, but seemingly not at all in others. These two you posted are kind of mixed :/

Maybe I need sleep.
 
Jaded Alyx said:
I can sort of get it in some of the songs in this thread, but seemingly not at all in others. These two you posted are kind of mixed :/

Maybe I need sleep.
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I may have chosen poor examples. I apologize for that.

However, even if you count 4 beats for a 3/4 song or vice-versa, you will eventually hit the correct beat on "1," but that's because three and four have a low common denominator (12). In other words, even if you count four beats for Colored Earth at 1:56, you can still hit "1" at the correct time after the third time you count to four. That may be why you can feel a 4/4 beat in Colored Earth.

...I'm sorry if I've confused you further.
 
Jaded Alyx said:
I can sort of get it in some of the songs in this thread, but seemingly not at all in others. These two you posted are kind of mixed :/

Maybe I need sleep.
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This one shouldn't be too hard to count: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39Bk5QvluIQ.
Tap your foot on every note in the beginning and count 1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6. Then if you can manage to halve the speed you're counting while remaining in rhythm with the song and count 1-2-3-1-2-3, you'll be counting in 3/4!
 
My new fav. 7/4 (subdivided 4/4 - 3/4) piece courtesy of Koshiro ([3DS] Etrian Odyssey IV): Library of Puppets

It's funny because just the organ opening alone you would think it's in 7/8 which totally fooled me at first too.

If you guys want help analyzing stuff, that's kinda my background, so lemme know here or in a PM or something.

Most of what you guys are mentioning in here can be different time signatures based on the music, but you'll never know unless you have actual music in front of you which is right. So like 6/4 could actually be 3/4 + 3/4, or 10/8 actually 5/8+5/8 with small phrase groups lasting 2 bars, or 5/4 at a quick tempo, etc.

It is pretty easy to understand if your song is duple (multiple of 2 for the amount of subdivisions per measure) or triple (multiple of 3 for the amount of subdivisions per measure) though.
 
LGom09 said:
Ganondorf Battle - OoT
I don't even know/16
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I'd never heard this before and it was probably the most interesting example in the thread. I saw the transcription but didn't look at it, so I'm going to post my opinion on what it is and see if they agree with me afterwards...

I am 99% certain this is an additive rhythm that goes like this:
3/8 + 3/8 + 3/8 + 4/8 | 3/8 + 3/8 + 4/8

You can reduce that to one bar of 13 plus one bar of 10.

EDIT: Transcription looks right to me. I don't know why they put it over 16 though, this is a pretty relaxed tempo.

Thoraxes said:
Unless they have the actual sheet music, it would just be an argument about semantics.
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No it's not. I'm glad that guy already left the thread, because I'm about to explain the difference between the three. This isn't even subjective; it's pretty straightforward music theory.
3/4 implies three quarter beats that are subdivided into two.
6/8 implies two dotted quarter beats that are subdivided into three.

The difference between 3/4 and 6/8 is very clear and obvious. They're not difficult to distinguish. I can provide examples if my explanations aren't adequate.

The difference between 6/4 and 3/4 is much trickier. 6/4 also implies quarter beats that are subdivided into two but it implies six of them. More estute readers may realize that 6 is simply 3 times 2, which makes distinguishing them difficult. The basis of the distinction is that in 3/4 time, more dramatic stresses occur every three beats (think a waltz), whereas in 6/4 time, you experience a beat of medium strength on 4 (4 being where the new bar would start if the piece were in 3). Often, the difference between the two is ambiguous, and there are many pieces that have been performed in both 3/4 and 6/4, particularly within jazz.
 
Hollow Bastion is in either 5/8 or 10/8 or 5/4. Something like that. It's definitely 5 though, which used to bug me as a kid because I was so used to playing primarily in 4/4. Now that I'm a time signature nerd, 5/8 has become my favorite time to play in.

In other words, screw your stupid 3/4, op. 5/8 is that real music.
 
PigSpeakers said:
Hollow Bastion is in either 5/8 or 10/8 or 5/8. Something like that. It's definitely 5 though, which used to bug me as a kid because I was so used to playing primarily in 4/4. Now that I'm a time signature nerd, 5/8 has become my favorite time to play in.

In other words, screw your stupid 3/4, op. 5/8 is that real music.
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Definitely 5/8 here.
 
I've been playing violin for a few years and I have no idea what this stuff is. Pretty sure my instructor mentioned it a few times and I promptly forgot it 5 seconds later.

Doesn't seem to matter though.
 
PigSpeakers said:
Hollow Bastion is in either 5/8 or 10/8 or 5/8. Something like that. It's definitely 5 though, which used to bug me as a kid because I was so used to playing primarily in 4/4. Now that I'm a time signature nerd, 5/8 has become my favorite time to play in.

In other words, screw your stupid 3/4, op. 5/8 is that real music.
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Whenever you hear an additive rhythm that goes 3 + 3 + 2 + 2, the best answer is 10/8 (or 10/16 if the tempo is fast, 10/4 if the tempo is slow). This is because delineating it as 5/8 means you have a bunch of stressed beats in odd places due to the fact that the fundamental rhythm now inexplicably takes two bars to resolve:

Code: 
S indicates the stressed beats
10/8: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
      S     S     S   S

5/8:  1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
      S     S     S   S

As you can see, notating it as 5/8 forces you to put stresses on 2 and 4 with an unstressed 1 every two bars. It's not "wrong" to notate it as 5/8 as your bars will still add up, but it is ambiguous and will produce some odd stemming when you have to write that eighth note line over the bar line in a way that does not indicate its stressing (this passage should be beamed as 3 + 3 + 2 + 2).

Another correct answer is 6/8 + 2/4 for the same reasons as above.
 
Many of the songs in this thread simply speak of songs with a single composite/additive rhythm played for the entire song. While these are certainly interesting to listen to, I also like another aspect of time signatures in music wherein a single piece utilizes multiple time signatures. My favorite example is the Ganon Battle theme from Wind Waker, which is one of the best of the many fantastic pieces of music composed for the Legend of Zelda series:

(I went with the version from the 25th anniversary disc that came with Skyward Sword rather than the original version as I believe it sounds a lot better. YMMV though, the original is also quite good; it's just longer and uses snyth as opposed to an orchestra. The tempo might be a little slower too)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw9m2967vPs
The first section is 5 + 7 + 5/4.
EDIT: Second section is a strange 4/4. Maybe not 4/4.
The third section -- a variation on the first section, same melody transposed down a fourth with some extra flare, like the blaring G to A -- takes us back to the 5 + 7 + 5, except it's cut short for the variation to 5 + 7 + 4. This is done presumably to accommodate the extra melody fragment in the first part and the transition into straight 4 in the second part. You could make an argument that this is actually 5 + 7 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 6 but that would be complicated to read.
The fourth section is just straight 4 with a syncopated rhythm.
The sixth section is in 7/4 with stresses on 2, which matches the stresses on 2 that define the first section.
The song ends with another straight 4 section.

Another thing that makes this piece different from many of the examples in this thread of composite meter is that it doesn't utilize any perpetuum mobile (constant stream of 8th notes) to make the meter easier to swallow; in fact, many of the segments aren't even regularly stressed.

I don't really follow who composes what pieces for videogame music, but whomever worked on this one deserves a medal. It's nothing mind-blowing, but it's on an entirely different level from most videogame music in terms of rhythmic and harmonic complexity (it would take more work than I'm willing to put into this post to describe what's going on harmonically). Some of the tunes in the Twilight Princess soundtrack match this level of harmonic... interestingness (Midna's theme aka everyone gets a half-diminished chord) but I can't think of another piece within the canon that utilizes rhythm in this way.
 
Fugu said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw9m2967vPs
The first section is 5 + 7 + 5/4.
The second section is interesting because it sounds fairly straightforward, but it takes an interesting turn: It's seven bars of four followed by one bar of two. This creates a unique situation where, structurally, it's a common amount of bars (8 bars is a pretty normal number for a phrase) but it's an irregular amount of beats (22). They do some really ambiguous stressing with the timpani and the snare that don't exist in the actual song in the game that's also pretty neat. There's also an extra bar at the end of the repeat.
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Wait, if the first section is 5+7+5/4, wouldn't the next section just be 17 bars in 4/4 if you stayed in the same meter? Unless you started counting in 4/2 with a bar of 2/2 at the end, and then switched back to the quarter note for all the following sections.

And how did you count 22 beats? I can only count 34 beats if we're going by half notes and 68 if we go by quarters. 22 beats is like... a 6-bar phrase.
 
The Awesomest said:
Wait, if the first section is 5+7+5/4, wouldn't the next section just be 17 bars in 4/4 if you stayed in the same meter? Unless you started counting in 4/2 with a bar of 2/2 at the end, and then switched back to the quarter note for all the following sections.

And how did you count 22 beats? I can only count 34 beats if we're going by half notes and 68 if we go by quarters. 22 beats is like... a 6-bar phrase.
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I was doing this by memory in my head as I wasn't at my speakers, and I seemed to fuck up my counting somewhere.

EDIT #23: I think it's fair to count it as 4/4, but there is probably a more accurate composite way to name it that I just can't figure out right now because the stresses (outside of the repeats) fall in weird places.
 
zashga said:
This one has been stuck in my head for the past month or so. It's 3/4, right? You know, except for the part that's 4/4.

Fire Emblem Awakening: Id (Purpose)

Regardless, you know what's better than 3/4? 7/8!

EO4: Echoing Library
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YES. I was thinking this very track as I was going to bed last night "this would be a perfect track for this thread."

Note the 5/8 riffage, 3/4 drums, and I think 2/4 strings(?) complement it. MATH! COUNTERMELODIES! KOSHIRO!
 
zashga said:
EO4: Echoing Library
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I love when accents are used by other instruments to make riffs in the background sound different. Like in this song, the main riff at the start is structurally the same throughout the song (I think) but it sounds different when the lead guitar comes in. It sort of has more of a swing feel to it. I hope someone gets what I'm trying to say. Another example at 3:37 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=biU8pYON958#t=218s

EDIT: I think swing feel is the wrong term. At the start it's like da-dadadadadada-dadadadadada-dadadadada- etc, but when the guitar comes in it's like DA-dadadadadaDA-DAdadadadaDA-dadadadadaDA-DAdadadadaDA-etc ...Does this make any sense at all?

EDIT2: ...I think I get it now. The guitar is in 7/4 and counting quarter notes accents different things that counting eighth notes. Cool stuff.
 
Great thread! As a self-taught/learning pianist, this gave me a much better understanding of time signatures. Now I understand why I sometimes have trouble tapping my hands to beats.

Thanks everyone!
 
The Awesomest said:
Have you been playing violin for a few years without ever learning to read music?
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I can read notes fine. I only play once a week for a short period of time so it's not like I'm an expert or anything like that.

I also only know the names of the open strings, finger positions I know from muscle memory and position on the sheet so I'm hardly a model player.

I'm just surprised at what kind of effect time signatures could have on music.
 
This is one of my favorite tricks when playing with time signatures:

First Boss from Ocarina of Time -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7rskNpKfJY&list=PL5D91F1F3AA632E98

The entire pattern lasts 12 notes, but the beat is separated between every 3rd note and every 4th note. Notes 9 and 10 are most noticeable because of the pitch change. However, 28 seconds in, the pattern changes to 3 descending notes repeated over and over, but the mixed beat remains the same creating a pretty cool effect.

It's a very mathematical piece. Thank you Mr. Kondo XD
 
How can one come to the conclusion that a time signature, of all things, is the "best"?

Anyway, uhh... Shadow's theme from ff6? Or is that actually 6/8?
 
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