Why does 4/4 time is the easiest?

[solarjazzband]

Why are almost all child-songs in 4/4 ? In short, why does this sound logical? Why does 12 measures in a blues sound logical? I think it's some psychological thing, but I wouldn't be able to explain. Can someone? Or can someone recommend me some book about it?

You could also ask why major sound happy and minor more sad...

[Phil Kelly]

They aren't ALL in duple meter ( 4/4 or 2/4 )

Pop Goes the Weasel = 6/8

Happy Birthday = 3/4



to name a couple ..


and the major/minor = happy /sad is a myth ..it all depends upon the context
of their usage in the music at hand ..


BTW: many folk songs from Greece and eastern europe are in 5/8 and 7/8

the rhythms are native to those cultures and they can dance to them.( as I recall from all the Greek weddings I played when I was very young ..) :D

[Tenorman]

One word - Culture

Go to Scottish Folk and Traditional songs and you will find a number with 13 bar rounds and some of the most obnoxious time signatures outside Jazz.

Might be wrong on this, but you could probably date it back to religious music, which had to be deemed to be solemn. We now associate a straight 4/4 played slowly with solemnity. I would think that minor key pathos also dates back to religious music.

[solarjazzband]

Wow didn't know that! But still, if you have to play a song is 7, most people have to really count the beat, but playing in 4 is just natural.

[Phil Kelly]

Originally posted by solarjazzband
Wow didn't know that! But still, if you have to play a song is 7, most people have to really count the beat, but playing in 4 is just natural.



again .. in THIS culture that may be so ..

Have you listened to any Indian music? It really gets its own kind of groove going, employs improvisation, requires immense technical skills from all the players ..and is all based on intricate compound rhythms and non western scalar materials ...

:eek2:

[solarjazzband]

OK, I understand, but I'm asking what the reason is why 4/4 time is so familiar "in this culture" .

[Tenorman]

I would make a guess at religious music. The Christian tradition has music going back a long way. The early churches had no instruments. (The Free Church of Scotland, even today, will not allow an instrument of any description inside the Church) All singing was done unaccompanied by congregation and/or choir

There was no percussion either so everything had to be simple, with a tune repeating itself every so many bars. 12 seems long enough not to be boring but short enough to be remembered after a couple of listens.

You might also have to look at the poetry tradition. This may bring up the chicken and egg question of did they write tunes to existing poems or spoken religious praise, or did they write the words to the melody. If the poetry tradition lends itself to 4/4 and 12 bar rounds, then that may be your answer

[Phil Kelly]

If one goes back even further into the European based
rhythmic tradition, in the Ars Antigua period ( roughly the 15th/15th cent. if I recall my music hysteria :D, ) most of the music was based on a series of
"rhythmic modes" ..most of which were based on a series of triplet 12/8 patterns ..

these patterns formed the basis for not only the song forms of the troubadours of the era , but for the "dance music" of the era as well..

I do agree with Tenorman that religious music ( particularly after the Reformation ) did stress the simplicity of 4/4 for accapella singing of simple hymns in a monophoic fashion..

Early chant was basically arryhthmic ..depending on the cadence of the text.

[Tenorman]

Blimey!!!!!:eek:

I was adding 2 and 2 and perhaps coming up with 5, (well I'm an accountant, I'm allowed to do that) but this is a fascinating subject.

OK, a thought. Did those cultures which developed melodic instruments early on, keep (or graduate towards) a simpler rhythm than those cultures who relied on percussion.

When I think of the Highland Scottish traditional music tradition, I think of work songs. Some of the Gaellic songs have very complex rhythms because of the work to which they were related, such as weaving songs and walking songs (weaving was traditionally done by the men and the songs - often wordless described as Gaellic Mouth Music, were designed to complement the rhythm of the feet on the treadle pedals. After a tweed is taken off the loom it twists because the tension is not perfect along the whole length. The tweed is then "walked" or pulled every way by a group of women round a table and again you get the "Mouth Music to maintain the rhythm, so that they do not start pulling in opposite directions. This makes for a very complex rhythmic tradition.

The central and lowland areas have more of a dance tradition with tunes done in 12/16 and 16/16 time. The rhythm is faster, but less complex, but there were melodic instruments present, which were not used to any great extent in the Highland and Islands tradition

Or am I just off on a flight of fantasy?

[solarjazzband]

My mother thinks it has something to do with your footsteps (only than it's 2/2 time, but that's not much difference with 4/4, it's all seconds.) If you would walk and think in 7 you have to count. But walk and think in 2 it feels just confortable. So I hope my mom answered my question :) That's waht mothers are good for!

[3pointdeli]

funny, footsteps were the first thing that i came up with also.

[Tenorman]

From a position of total ignorance -- If it were walking that does it, wouldn't every culture in the world have 4/4 as their basic time signature. From the posts above that is probably not the case.

[zaragemca]

Adding in to Tenorman,I have to said that culture have nothing to do with the 4/4 time signature..why?,when the Egiptian,African,Chinese(thousands years ago) were creating their music they didn't know anything about time signature,that explained,then it is more easy to understant that the nomenclature and timing in music was created after that for the purpose of better understanding of the musical frases,also for some kind of keeping a record of the music(on paper)since there were not other recording method( this, for the purpose of been able to play the same music over and over by different musicians.After all this musical knowlege were created and up dated with better systems of understanding everything was used to better codified all the music which was created before that system was created,been the 4/4 time signature the most natural incorporated way to mesure since it is really based on the same timing pattern and the rest of the other configuration(subdivision,for better placing of notes),(odd time signature,to created a timing effect which could be follow by all musicians at the same time.