Here's one: http://mattfinley.com/promos/cuttime.pdf

2/2 or cut time or alla breve is a lot of fun to explain. The following is what I think I know.

Like almost everyone else, I count off a cut-time song by saying 1,2 1,2 but it also could be 1,3 1,3 to correspond to how it's written. This is because the notation appears the same as if it's in 4/4. The only difference is how you "feel" the strongest beats, or in other words when you tap your foot. You would not tap four beats per bar in cut time, only two, but do it on the 4/4 beats of 1 and 3.

Many fakebook charts of Brazilian sambas are written in cut time, with the tempo marking of a half-note equals somewhere around 100 bpm, like my Jobim example above. This makes sense because of the two-feel and the normally fast tempo. The Bossa nova, derived from samba, is counted in 4/4 but the bass (or bass string of the guitar) will play straight half notes. At least, that's the way I learned it, and my drummers all understand me OK.

I do have to admit, other fakebooks may write the same song in 2/4 or 4/4.

I would have preferred to see the BIAB styles for samba made for tempos of around half-note = 95 or 100, instead of quarter-note = 190. I assume this would be a massive rewrite, so if you could, please add the ability of the RealDrums to accept half-time or double-time in the picker dialog, in the same way we can do with RealTracks. This would give me the flexibility to write sambas in BIAB at tempos around 100.

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