# What Are Negative Time Signatures?



## The Omega Cluster (Apr 24, 2018)

Hi, after seeing Adam Neely's and 12tone's videos on the subject, I tried my own opinion on it.

Read here: http://canthisevenbecalledmusic.com/negative-time-signatures-a-response-to-adam-neely-and-12tone/

But I don't feel completely convinced by any one of these answers. Maybe someone here will have a more convincing answer to the subject!


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## Eptaceros (Apr 25, 2018)

The clickbait image at the top of your article ruins it. I didn't want to read anything you had to say after seeing that. Especially the backpedaling caption.

But I did read it, and watched the videos and all I can say is, "Why?" This level of philosophizing on something that ultimately has no real fortitude in music just doesn't make any sense to me.


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## bostjan (Apr 25, 2018)

A piece of music should be transcribed in whatever way it is clearest understood. I think that basically rules out negative time signatures.

Take everything I say here with a grain of salt, as I'm merely sharing my opinion.

Time signatures are a method of measuring out time. A strong accent, followed by weaker accents. 4/4 time is *ONE two three four*, or, if counted in eighths: *ONE *and *two *and *three *and *four* and, etc. There is also an implied quantization of accents in music in general, that subdivisions of pulses get a structure of stronger and weaker dynamics based upon their size relative to one another, except half and whole notes, so 4/4 time has a different feel than 8/8 time, but the differences are getting subtle to a casual listener at that point.

Time, as it is perceived by humans, only moves one direction: forward. A negative time signature implies something about time going backward, and that concept is difficult to parse into anything concrete, thus the sudden surge of articles about "negative time signatures" that seemingly disagree with one another.

I strongly disagree with Adam Neely's assessment, which surprised me as well, since his content is generally exceptionally good. Although I think 12tones's concept and your concept are both much less problematic, I don't think either addresses the main issue I stated in my first sentence in the post. Something as abstract as negative amounts of time really don't have a place in transcription, in my opinion.


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## bostjan (Apr 25, 2018)

slipped into a negative time signature and double posted


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## Andrew Lloyd Webber (Apr 25, 2018)

I don’t understand the occasional surges of people using the theory subforum for all their clickbait links: Traffic-mining aside, if one is posting a thread for a message they can’t be bothered to post (or even summarize), why should anyone be bothered to read it?

To reiterate Bostjan’s criticisms: If one can somehow manage to overcome the basic conceptual problems inherent in integrating a qualification of a quantification of a _nontemporal_ meter into western notation, I’ll take it seriously. In the meantime, I dismiss this Youtube-manufactured chicanery out-of-hand.


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## diagrammatiks (Apr 25, 2018)

if you use both hands and are respectful of the people sitting next to you, this circle jerk has enough dicks for everyone.


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## The Omega Cluster (Apr 25, 2018)

Sorry for the clickbait image haha, I guess this was my attempt at parodying Youtube's clickbait problem. Apparently it didn't go so well even after my more honest caption and following text. Oh well...

I agree that negative time signatures probably never will be accepted as a valid musical concept. I think I said as much in my original post. They're either too confusing or simply useless with the options we're given, mine included. 

That being said, I just like thought exercises in general, and I thought that this was a good opportunity to make one. Basically, after listening to both videos, an idea sprouted in my brain that was different from those two, and I decided to write this post to dig into it and see where it would lead me. It didn't lead me to any convincing answer, but that doesn't mean that the exercise was pointless or fruitless. If we're approaching music from new and different angles, if it doesn't lead to new musical concepts, it can at least lead us to a better understanding of current musical theory.

Also, perhaps negative time signatures will be a useful concept in the future. Probably not, but I don't think it has a 0% chance of happening. In that case, perhaps we're helping shaping the future definition of that term by eliminating the wrong ones first.


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## Andrew Lloyd Webber (Apr 25, 2018)

What if the chances are _*less than zero*_? *X Files theme*


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## bostjan (Apr 25, 2018)

I enjoyed Neely's video about "irrational time signatures" which was brought up in another thread, but, strictly speaking, 7/12 is not an "irrational" number. It's an odd time signature for sure, but "irrational" means "cannot be expressed as a ratio." So anything of the form X/Y would, by definition, _*not*_ be "irrational," but that's just me being nitpicky. Any time signatures with a base not as a power of two are honestly on the fringe of our understanding of music theory. Expanding your counting to give incomplete sets of tuplets seems like the most reasonable way to do such time signatures, to me. But there is an application for that, as we saw in Neely's video. What I'd like to see next, though, would be some explanation for how to actually count out a truly irrational time signature, like (two times the square root of two) - four, or something [it'd be just a hair of a beat over 11585 / 16384). Honestly, I have no idea how to count that, but I know that there would be a way to approximate it with a computer (although, since computers work based off of binary, they could not *exactly* count it). Anything like that, no matter how you slice it up for academic discussion, is going to sound extremely weird to any listener who is apathetic toward the concept (which, I imagine, would be >99% of listeners).


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## The Omega Cluster (Apr 25, 2018)

The "irrational" time signatures you refer to are actually less confusingly called "non-dyadic". Irrational would be something like pi/4. But non-dyadic time sigs are already a concept that's understood, even if really not used as much as it should be.


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## metallifan3091 (Jun 17, 2018)

Interesting read and theoretical concepts from all of you, but I find myself completely unconvinced that there's any pretty practicality to any of the three explanations.


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## The Omega Cluster (Jun 18, 2018)

metallifan3091 said:


> Interesting read and theoretical concepts from all of you, but I find myself completely unconvinced that there's any pretty practicality to any of the three explanations.



Indeed. There is no negative time, it's a univectorial concept, it only moves forward, albeit it can go faster and slower (thanks to general relativity), but can't stop nor go back. Some theories suggest antiparticles or other particles experience time backwards, but there is no proof of that yet I think... Anyway, it's a fun mental challenge.


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## Semi-pro (Jun 19, 2018)

Just dropped in to say "high"


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## JustMac (Jun 21, 2018)

Andrew Lloyd Webber said:


> Basic conceptual problems inherent in integrating a qualification of a quantification of a _nontemporal_ meter


Good lord. For anyone who wants to get a tl;dr of this concept and thread....


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## odibrom (Jun 21, 2018)

... so, is this about time travelling?


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## The Omega Cluster (Jun 21, 2018)

Only tachyons could play and perceive negative time signatures.


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