Re: Terminology of baseMoment, beats, groups

[Urs Liska]

Am 11.11.2017 um 13:25 schrieb Simon Albrecht:
> On 11.11.2017 12:30, David Kastrup wrote:
> > I have a hard time seeing a "beat" as something that can have different
> > lengths.
>
> Musical notation isn’t well-defined in a mathematical or programming 
> sense, so there are no such strict rules as all beats of a measure 
> having to be the same length.
> If nobody would refer to the last quarter note of 3+3+2/8 as “the 
> third beat” then that’s because it would tend to be confusing.

I disagree. There are two different musical situations where this can 
occur: 3+3+2 is a pretty common idiom of a three-part *rhythm* against a 
2-part *metre*, and here it would in fact be confusing to refer to the 
"2" as the third beat.
Other music may well treat this as beats in their own right, and then 
everybody would talk about it as three "beats".

It is probably clearer when shown with a less idiomatic example. 
Consider a 9/8 time signature with a 2,2,2,3 beatStructure. Here it is 
clear that you'd refer to the groups as four "beats".

Urs

> Best, Simon