In beginning piano class we are identifying pitches. The examples are written out as three whole notes per measure. The teacher is counting them out as "one and two and, one and two and, one and two and" for the complete measure. There is no meter indicated in the exercise. What would be an appropriate meter? 6/2 ?
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2It is traditional to write "notes" which don't really form part of "a piece of music" as whole notes. If these notes are an exercise in identifying pitches, then counting them or trying to invent a time signature for them is irrelevant to that purpose. – Sep 06 '17 at 20:41
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1Wouldn't this best be answered by that teacher? – Tim Aug 28 '19 at 11:24
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It's just an exercise. If you want a time signature 3/1 would do the job nicely. (No, that wasn't a joke.) But there's no need for a time signature.
Laurence
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Yes, given the description, the time signature would be 6/2.
A typical set of exercises would look like this (three whole notes per measure)
And the teacher is counting each whole note as "one-and-two-and"
Clearly there are two beats per whole note, and, by definition, each whole note comprises two half notes. Thus, each beat is a half note, so the bottom number of the time signature would be "2".
It's also clear that there are six total beats being counted, so, 6/2 would be the appropriate time signature.
On the other hand, given the syllables the teacher is using (consistently "one and two and"), there really ought to be additional bar lines, and the time signature would be 2/2.
Aaron
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I didn't downvote (because I like the last paragraph), but I can see an issue with this answer.
I would expect 6/2 to be (like 6/4 or 6/8) — a compound time signature. Whereas 3/1 (like 3/2 or 3/4) would be more appropriate for a triple meter.
– Elements In Space Mar 31 '23 at 05:02