Mixed Meters
While time signatures usually express a regular pattern of beat stresses continuing through a piece (or at least a section), sometimes composers place a different time signature at the beginning of each bar, resulting in music with an extremely irregular rhythmic feel. In this case the time signatures are an aid to the performers, and not necessarily an indication of meter. The Promenade from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) is a good example:
Burt Bacharach's song "Promises, Promises" likewise features a constantly changing meter. The Beatles' All You Need is Love varies from 7
4 to 4
4 in different places.
Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (1913) is famous for its "savage" rhythms:
In such cases, a common convention followed by some composers (e.g., Olivier Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur and Quatuor pour la fin du temps) is simply to omit the time signature. Charles Ives's Concord Sonata has measure bars for select passages throughout, but is unbarred for the majority of the work.
Some pieces have no time signature, as there is no discernible meter. This is commonly known as free time. Sometimes one is provided (usually 4
4) so that the performer finds the piece easier to read, and simply has 'free time' written as a direction. Sometimes the word FREE is written downwards on the staff to indicate the piece is in free time. Erik Satie wrote many compositions which are ostensibly in free time, but actually follow an unstated and unchanging simple time signature throughout. Later composers have made more effective use of this device, writing music which is almost devoid of any discernible regularity of pulse.
If two time signatures alternate repeatedly, sometimes the two signatures will be placed together at the beginning of the piece or section, as in this example, the chorus from the song "America" from West Side Story: in this case, it alternates between 6
8 (in two) in the first measure of each pair and 3
4 (in three) in the second measure.
Read more about this topic: Time Signature
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