Talk:List of musical works in unusual time signatures

Citation Style
What should be the correct citation style? I'm thinking that for PD works (that are on IMSLP,) a link to the IMSLP page works, but what about other pieces? Link to its page on the publisher's site? Where does it go? I will begin converting the links for works on IMSLP to the new format. Wilh3lmGo here to trout me if I do a stupid 16:23, 24 August 2021 (UTC)


 * And that brings up another point, which is the standard of citation. For classical works such as "Mars" we can presumably trust IMSLP or even find a published work that says "this piece is in 5/4."  But most rock is still under copyright, and mostly doesn't come with "scores" anyway.  If a piece sounds "eligible" and you search for it online, any sheet music you find might be just an arrangement, like for someone to play at home on a piano, and online sources might be of questionable provenance / legality. KevinBTheobald (talk) 02:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Pretty sure Ascension by Vengeance Rising has a 17/4 signature but I don't know how to obtain a proper reference :p https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoFcF43Idrk — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.112.71.64 (talk) 11:37, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Article limits
It happened again... The article got too many templates and too big. Per the discussion at the village pump (now located in Archive 198 as ), I have removed a few unnecessary references to other time signatures in entries and changed up at least 100 instances of music's time signatures with time signature. I suggest changing time signature to directly call Su instead of using su (see Village Pump discussion) and fixing some of the references that are unclear and probably adding unnecessarily to the size. Wilh3lmTalk 11:50, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

All musical works in unusual metres
I just added a clarification to the lead para, explicitly: This list article does not include pieces notated using a standard time signature, no matter how unusual the metre. because it could be unclear to readers whether the Britten Passacaglia from Peter Grimes would be included; it is not. Although, were a third party to publish a score of the piece in 11, rather than 4, it might then fit within the scope of the article title. This is strange, since the music wouldn't change, just its representation. Which leads me to the question of the primacy of the sound or its notation - which is the more important?; or in practical terms: yoyo (talk) 00:31, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Should this article become a - i.e. change its title to - List of musical works in unusual metres? (Without the redirect!)
 * Or should it be supplemented by such an article? (Because some such are excluded from this article, by its own declaration.)
 * Wouldn't it be better to have all such works in the one list? (Emphasising the music, not the notation.)


 * The time signature vs meter debate has extensively been had in the archives of this page:
 * If such a thing were to happen I would write something like "Passacaglia from Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten is written as in the XXX edition, although other editions write it in ."
 * Wilh3lmTalk 16:44, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
 * If people are going to go around deleting others' edits, then there should be consistent "ground rules" for this page. Is this page all about signature, or meter?  The title and text near the top SEEM to say signature.  Okay... but wait!  The 5/4 section just points to a separate "Quintuple meter" page which is clearly NOT about signature.  And the 9/4 section explicitly excludes pieces whose 9/4 measures consist of 3 groups of 3 beats -- only, there's no way to tell from the score where the beat groups are supposed to be, you have to listen to it, which is "original research" -- and one of the listed pieces mentions its meter pattern (but I thought we were only looking at signature here...). KevinBTheobald (talk) 04:50, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I suggest you read some of the discussions in the page archives because the "time signature vs. meter" debate has already been had. 5 and 7 would make this article too long (indeed, it is already currently near the post-expand include size limit and has gone above such limit twice before, in June and October 2022), and time signatures of 5/x and 7/x usually correlate with quintuple and septuple meter (despite exceptions like the Britten being in 11 meter but 4/4 time signature), so those are the most closely related articles.
 * Another issue has been the definition of "unusual" which was resolved with the finding of the Waugh citation that lists "common" time signatures, from which "unusual" is defined as anything not in that list. While the footnote in this page does not mention it, the original source indicates that the 6/x, 9/x, and 12/x time signatures listed as "common" are specifically triplet-based compound meter. Thus, other divisions of those (as well as denominators other than 4, 8, and 16 with them, regardless of division) are unusual.
 * It is indeed often possible to determine the grouping by the score. For example, Agon by Stravinsky uses dotted barlines to show the subdivision, as does his Concertino. Requiem Canticles explicitly states the groupings too. With shorter note values (such as eighth notes), beaming can also indicate grouping.
 * With that in mind, I suggest this section and the following section of Archive 4 on the definition of "unusual" (but note that the debate on whether to focus on time signature or meter has shifted from 2008 to now), this section of Archive 5. By October 2012 it seems to be clearly in terms of notated time signature rather than meter. (see what Jerome Kohl said on the 17th at 18:05). I also highly suggest reading Kohl's comment from 21:54 on the same day on trying to change the definition of unusual time signature or changing the focus of this article (time signature versus meter). Wilh3lmTalk 23:22, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

On, the PEIS, and the section on multiple unusual time signatures
This article has many, many uses of which have already lead to hitting the post-expand include size limit twice. As the article continues expanding, it is projected to hit that limit again soon. At time of writing, it is at 2,048,471 of 2,097,152 bytes. The majority of uses of are in the section on combined unusual signatures.

I have created two copies of the article: User:Wilhelm von Hindenburger/Timesig1 and User:Wilhelm_von_Hindenburger/Timesig2 to test a method for reducing the PEIS by separating the listed pieces into the sections on those time signatures, which should be smaller given that, although the name of the piece and composer are repeated more often, they are probably smaller than the PEIS of the template. In addition, because numerators of 5 and 7 are already omitted, just going to their respective articles on Quintuple meter and Septuple meter, that will also reduce the size.

The first test of this, on Benjamin Britten's Diversions for Piano Left Hand and Orchestra, has successfully reduced the PEIS by about 5KB (four instances of ). If anyone wants to see the changes in size, they are on the talk page for the second test page: User talk:Wilhelm von Hindenburger/Timesig2. Wilh3lmTalk 13:51, 8 March 2023 (UTC)


 * After these tests showed success, I will be implementing this strategy on the main page. I will update with the PEIS as it goes. Revision 1145496362 had a PEIS of 2058305 bytes, the first revision after this test, revision 1146279847, has a PEIS of 2054375. I will be tracking effects here. Wilh3lmTalk 22:23, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Revision 1146279847:
 * Pieces moved: 1
 * Time signatures removed: 2 (this line is for 5/x, 7/x, and any non-unusual time signatures also listed in an entry in "Combined unusual signatures".)
 * Time signatures moved: 1
 * New PEIS: 2054375
 * PEIS reduction: 3930
 * Revision 1146283428:
 * Pieces moved: 3
 * Time signatures removed: 7
 * Time signatures moved: 5
 * New PEIS: 2038643
 * PEIS reduction: 15732
 * Revision 1146368324:
 * Pieces moved: 1
 * Time signatures removed: 5
 * Time signatures moved: 1
 * New PEIS: 2030777
 * PEIS reduction: 7866
 * Revision 1146613681
 * Pieces moved: 1
 * Time signatures removed: 3
 * Time signatures moved: 2
 * New PEIS: 2022911
 * PEIS reduction: 7866
 * Note: Two time signatures in the piece were already listed in both combined unusual signatures and in the respective section (counted as removed, along with 5/4 since it has its own section). One time signature was only in the combined section (counted as moved), and one was listed only in the time signature section, but the wrong one (13/8 instead of 13/16), which I fixed (counted as moved)
 * Revision 1146614661
 * Pieces moved: 1
 * Time signatures removed: 2
 * Time signatures moved: 2
 * New PEIS: 2017665
 * PEIS reduction: 5246
 * A number of intervening edits occurred, unrelated to reducing the PEIS. Their net effect was an increase in the PEIS to 2043952.
 * Revision 1158069796
 * Pieces moved: 1
 * Time signatures removed: 4
 * Time signatures moved: 14
 * New PEIS: 2026886
 * PEIS reduction: 17066
 * Note: Four time signatures involved required creating new sections, thus requiring one instance of time signature. One time signature has a numerator above 19 and thus the full time signature must still be stated.
 * Revision 1158413555
 * Pieces moved: 1
 * Time signatures removed: 3
 * Time signatures moved: 12
 * New PEIS: 2015075
 * PEIS reduction: 11811
 * Note: As before, six time signatures with large numerators must still be stated.
 * Due to edits in between, the PEIS expanded to 2032697.
 * Revision 1195695247
 * Pieces moved: 1 (set of 20 pieces)
 * Time signatures removed: 17
 * Time signatures moved: 48
 * New PEIS: 1953150
 * PEIS reduction: 79547
 * Note: see full diff for details.
 * Revision 1211082292
 * Pieces moved: 2
 * Time signatures removed: 7
 * Time signatures moved: 8
 * New PEIS: 1938725
 * PEIS reduction: 14425
 * Note: Four time signatures with large numerators must still be stated, two of them involving two uses of because of how they are notated in the score, using the form X/Y(Z/[note value]).

Also, to stop the software from whining about signatures every time, I will be collecting them here: Wilh3lmTalk 20:04, 1 June 2023 (UTC) Wilh3lmTalk 23:16, 3 June 2023 (UTC) Wilh3lmTalk 22:33, 14 January 2024 (UTC) Wilh3lmTalk 19:31, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

17/16 and 21/16
Hi, there exist a folk song (perhaps in Bulgaria?) in 17/16 but grouped exactly as: (2+2+2)+(2+2+3+2+2) ?

and 21/16 as:

(2+2+2)+(2+2+2+2+3+2+2) ?

I really have no idea where/whom to ask this question to. I read articles of B. Kremliev, Arom, T. Rice, Alice Singer, Con. Brailoiu but I found only 17 = 22222223 (i.e. with 223 ending instead of my requested 322), and a variation (elongation) over a 16/16 Pousteno with 17 = (2233)(223).

thanks a lot. best regards, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vastymedoisa (talk • contribs) 02:12, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Music that you made
I'm just curious because I can't find any rules about this. If you made piece of music that can be put on here, can you yourself put it on the wiki page? Isalick34 (talk) 16:40, 18 March 2024 (UTC)


 * That'd be a conflict of interest, so per WP:COI it'd be discouraged. It'd also need to be adequately supported by independent sourcing. — Czello (music) 16:42, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * ok thanks, I couldn't find the info Isalick34 (talk) 17:07, 18 March 2024 (UTC)