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Re: 2/4 vs 4/4

There are dancers (including myself if I'm dancing) who are getting confused at the start of this song and they asking themself is it a waltz or not
Some say that 2/4 or 4/4 doesn't really matter, but I'm curious about the comments of some others.
Beautiful song by the way and very good to dance a Mamou Two Step (?)

Re: 2/4 vs 4/4

Ronald - I would say the phrasing of the music points to 4/4. In the majestic soon to be printed 'Ten Step Two Step the Gruesome Playboys Edition' you will find over one hundred two steps musically notated for the Cajun accordion and all written in 4/4 time.

When will the book come out?

That sounds very interesting! When will the book come out? I will buy one.

-David

Re: 2/4 vs 4/4

It seems like some people lean to the idea that 2/4 is the time signature, while most others (including me) go with 4/4. To me, the chord progressions typically change in multiples of 4 beats. The melody lines and phrasing seem to fit in some multiples of 4 beats as well.

This is a generality - I am sure that there are obvious exceptions, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

I also think that in many/most cases, you could go either way (2/4 or 4/4) and the distinction may be somewhat arbitrary.

But the other thing about all of this is that most people I know play by ear, don't rely on any kind of charts, and rarely if ever count.

Counting can be a very useful tool in the beginning stages, or when the band gets confused and ends up in a train wreck. That's why I learned to count.

I had some great musicians I was working with, but they didn't know Cajun music. I would play songs that I had learned by ear, and I was playing them "correctly", but the band would sometimes say that I just dropped some beats. At the time, I knew I was playing the songs the way they went and I didn't think I was dropping any beats.

So, I sat down with some recordings and counted the beats. We made an interesting discovery. It turned out that I was in fact playing the songs right, but many Cajun songs have these funny little 2 beat measures that show up consistently. They were in fact dropping 2 beats! But it's not a mistake. It's just an interesting quirk of Cajun music.

Where I have noticed these short measures is in transitional parts of a song. For example, maybe the accordion player plays the tune, which might consist of a few repeats of a 4 or 8 bar phrase, then they play the turn with some number of repeats of that phrase. Then, when they hand the lead over to the fiddle, or the guitar or steel player, that is when that little 2 beat measure is added in. One example of this that comes to mind is Scott Playboy Special, but there are lots of others. It may be more common with instrumentals, where there is a lot of trading of the lead going on.

I don't know how many Cajun musicians are even aware of this. My guess is that they are just playing the songs the way they are supposed to be played, and most likely are not counting beats, and may never have noticed these little transitional half measures.



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