What does 6/4 time sound like?

[drë]

i was playing a new song that i need to record soon, to someone, and they told me is in 6/4 time..
i have a drum machine, but it only has 4/4 3/4, 5/8 ... NO 6/4 ..

i try googleling, for a sample beat of 6/4 but no luck.

anyone have any 6/4 sample songs i can use?
am some what clueless when it comes to time signatures.

Tx!

[inevitableguy]

Use a 3/4 loop and play it twice...or if it has 6/8, use that and cut the tempo in half.

[roymond]

Two measures of 3/4 can be used for 6/4 on a drum machine. It doesn't matter, it's all about how you are playing it, which is apparently in 6/4. It's like 4, then goes another 2...

The Big Money by Rush has a verse in 6/4

I'm thinking a bunch of 80s Yes is in 6/4

Los Twangueros by Ry Cooder & Manuel Galban

Polly Come Home by Robert Plant & Allison Kraus

[king_arthur]

I believe that 6/4 is, like, three sets of two: DA da DA da DA da - as opposed to 6/8, which is two sets of three: DA da da DA da da. I can't think of any specific examples right now, but for me, that's always been the distinction. 6/8 tends to go by quickly enough that you just count it as 1 2 1 2 (with the counts on the DAs) where 6/4 often has a 1 2 3 4 5 6 feel to it. It tends to have a "driving" feel to it, as opposed to 6/8, which has a lilting feel.

One way you can kinda fake your way to 6/4 is by playing a 4/4 beat and making sure that there aren't any fills that would end on a beat that's not a 1 in 6/4. That is, three bars of 4/4 would be two bars of 6/4, so instead of having a fill at the end of an 8 bar phrase, you'd have a fill at the end of a 6 bar phrase or a 12 bar phrase (which would be two or four groups of 6/4).

Hope that helps. Jim of Seattle or somebody else will give you the real story shortly...

Charles (KA)

P.S. - I don't think you can use two bars of 3/4 for a 6/4 rhythm, that gives you a slow 6/8. Similarly, I don't think 6/8 at a slow tempo is the same as 6/4 either...

[roymond]

P.S. - I don't think you can use two bars of 3/4 for a 6/4 rhythm, that gives you a slow 6/8. Similarly, I don't think 6/8 at a slow tempo is the same as 6/4 either...

You're right about that, but when programming a drum machine that doesn't offer 6/4, you can use two 3/4 measures instead. It just needs to be programmed as 6/4, not two bars of 3/4. The drum machine's just a dumb brick. Like me, but prettier.

That's the last I say about this, 'cause Lunkhead is lurking.

[ken]

I think we are missing the basics here.

6/4 means there are 6 quarter notes per measure. Is that how your song is written?

Ken

[Lunkhead]

Ha ha, funny, roymond.

I'm only chiming in because I was just reading this really nifty little book:

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Music-Me ... 0802716822

The way the author explained 3/4 vs. 6/8 was that the first beat of every measure of 3/4 gets equal emphasis, whereas in 6/8 the 1st beat gets more emphasis than the 4th beat. So maybe 6/4 is like 6/8 only with quarter notes, as in, the 4th beat gets slightly less emphasis than the 1st? Really though, I don't know. Where's frankie when we need him?

[king_arthur]

Where's frankie when we need him?

That's what I was thinking, too

Thought about this some more last night, and in terms of accented beats, I think 6/4 is actually more like a very slow 3/4, "straight" rather than "swung," beat. Or a bar of 4/4 plus a bar of 2/4. Partly this depends on how your drum machine works - if you're talking about built-in patterns like on a Casio keyboard, then stringing together two bars of 3/4 or slowing down 6/8 will not give the feel that I think 6/4 is supposed to have. In that case, I still think that three bars of 4/4 is the best approximation you'll get of two bars of 6/4.

Dre, do you have a rough g&g demo of the song you're working on? That might help us understand what you're trying to do...

Charles (KA)

[JonPorobil]

I'm halfway through a demo in 6/4, which I'll post here when it's done. Generally, I think it's 6/4 if you can count "ONE two three TWO two three." The difference between 6/4 and 6/8 is fairly subjective, since it's the songwriter's decision where to place those bars. Typically, a classically-trained musician will assume that the heaviest emphasis in each bar goes to its first beat, meaning that 6/8 will typically be a faster tempo than 6/4. But that assumption isn't always true in pop/rock music, because of the emphases on the second and fourth of a 4/4 beat, often manifesting as a heavy emphasis on the fourth beat of any measure in 6/4, 6/8.

Dre probably doesn't care about all that minutiae, though, so just remember: "ONE two three TWO two three."

[Manhattan Glutton]

I think we are missing the basics here.

This. Time signature is often relative to whoever the songwriter was, and as long as you have 3 or 6 beats per measure you should be able to put the tempo at what you need.

[roymond]

The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from.

[RangerDenni]

If you have a strong feeling of TWO in a 6/4, you could may as well choose a 3/4 time. If subdividing the beat into triplet, it could work better in a compound time. A 6/4 would be more appropriate for a considerations of phrase; because there was something about the downbeat that made the phrase feel like a six (I learned to conduct this downbeat-RR-LL-upbeat...). This is generally the rule-of-thumb for what division to choose as your top number (how many beats AFTER discernible phrasal downbeat / how are they subdivided). Really, does the beat *feel* like it has an emphasis of six: bottom line.

A 3/4 feel in compound time is actually expressed as 9/8. You'd never notate a 6/4 in its "compound time counter part" (for lack of a better word) ... 18/8 !! at least, not that I've seen! You'd use triplets in 6/4 or some variation or combinations of other signatures - as it seems phrase would break. Who knows these things?

ASIDE: I have seen 15/8 notated in a score before. On my metronome (Tempo, iPhone the one I'm referencing), it goes to 12/8, it *does* have 6/4 and 6/2 ... and curiously has a 13/4, and 13/2 with no inner beat groupings (as you get typically with 5 or 7/ 8s or 4s).

Annywwway...

[edit: what Jon said will work for your clicking, but the second strong beat (the "TWO") shouldn't be over-thunk ]

[RangerDenni]

I lied. There are no rules. This is why I, personally, *sometimes* found school distasteful. That's just me though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mu ... signatures
I know you were looking for examples, not blahblah :/

[Billy's Little Trip]

Dre is going to be more confused now reading the above. I know I am, but then again, I'm stupid.
The "4" means it's the same as a 4/4, except with 6 quarter notes making it 6/4. It's as simple as that.

Dre, tap your finger on your desk and count to 6 with the emphasis on 1 and repeat several times.
IE: 123456,123456,123456
That is 6 quarter notes in a 4/4 measure.

Second. As far as the drum machine, as stated above, you'll need to use two 3/4 side by side and ignore the emphasis on the fourth count.
IE: 123123, 123123, 123123

[RangerDenni]

well sorry to have railroaded the convo. sometimes school makes you Unfit for human company and ironically makes you stupider than perfectly Smart Enough People

[roymond]

SHUT UP! Here's Cornelius to clear things up...

[Billy's Little Trip]

Well Dee, you know how uneducated I am when it comes explaining what I want to do, lol. If I was telling you I wanted a 6/4 sig, which I never would unless I was doing an American Indian rain dance, I would say, hey, this is a 3/4 in double time. Or I'd actually say, I want a cool beat that goes, CRASH dum dum dum dum dum.

[AJOwens]

Dre is going to be more confused now reading the above. I know I am, but then again, I'm stupid.
The "4" means it's the same as a 4/4, except with 6 quarter notes making it 6/4. It's as simple as that.

Dre, tap your finger on your desk and count to 6 with the emphasis on 1 and repeat several times.
IE: 123456,123456,123456
That is 6 quarter notes in a 4/4 measure.

Second. As far as the drum machine, as stated above, you'll need to use two 3/4 side by side and ignore the emphasis on the fourth count.
IE: 123123, 123123, 123123

So, "just set the drum machine to 6/8 and slow it down a lot" sounds about right to me. Six beats to the bar, 1 2 3 4 5 6, and quarter note gets the beat (plod, plod, plod, plod, plod, plod).

BTW, a couple of drummers have posted video examples of 6/4 time. Google it!

[RangerDenni]

Im sorry. I can no longer hear anyone because of Cornelius' Loud Hat

[Billy's Little Trip]

SHUT UP! Here's Cornelius to clear things up...

SEE! That's exactly how my brain thinks. I like how they go from the 6 count to the 4 count to show it's just quarter note in a measure. Great learning tool. I want to get my degree from the Cornelius school of music.

Seriously Roy. If you posted that vid on the second post on this thread, the third post would have been dre saying, thanks, I get it now. lol.

[Billy's Little Trip]

So, "just set the drum machine to 6/8 and slow it down a lot" sounds about right to me. Six beats to the bar, 1 2 3 4 5 6, and quarter note gets the beat (plod, plod, plod, plod, plod, plod).

BTW, a couple of drummers have posted video examples of 6/4 time. Google it!

Yeah, but see, there it goes off for my normal thought process again. If I'm doing a 6/4, I want to think in quarter notes, not eighth notes. If I think in eighth notes, I'll have a spastic strum pattern like a crack head while the rest of the band is bouncing nicely along.

[drë]

Thanks guys!
It took about 13+ post to find something useful, a lot of the stuff was over my head.
so yes, play it on 3/4 @133bmp and felt right, like someone mention just need to ignore the strong 4th (second 1st) beat of the drum machine.

the Cornelius helped too..

thanks!