Time signatures are flexible and a lot of what we play doesn't neatly fall into any particular meter.

I remember when I was in the school stage band (back then the word "jazz" wasn't used in school) we played a lot of charts from the big bands, Woody Herman, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, etc.

They were almost always written in cut time, but played at slow to moderate tempos would have made more sense at 4/4.

Plus, most were written with eighth notes when they were swing tunes, and they were played more like triplets. But a quarter note and eighth note with the triplet designation on top of every pair would have made a messy chart. If you understood the eighth notes should be done as a swing pair, it was much easier to read.

Some charts used dotted eighths/sixteenths to designate the swing feel, but that was just as off.

12/8 would have worked better, but 12/8 is harder to read for the less experienced players that also found their way into the big bands of old.

That's why our brains have to be flexible.

It's also why I think of the numbered matrix in BiaB as cells instead of bars. It allows me to make music with BiaB that would be difficult or impossible to do with one cell limited to one bar.

For example: When I was doing Jethro Tull's "Living In The Past", which is in 5/4 I could make one cell have 3 beats and the next 2 beats. That made two cells equal one 5/4 bar of music.

Plus to get the smoother feel Tull uses on that song, I made the tempo of each 3 beat cell a little faster than the 2 beat cells. It's how the band got the smoother feel out of 5/4.

That trick is similar to how most conductors interpret the 5/4 waltz movement in Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony.

But then, I don't use BiaB for notation. I find the notation editor a great help, but I use BiaB for auto-accompaniment. In the rare instances when I need notation, I'll use an old copy of Encore that I bought years ago. For a head chart, that's all I need. YMMV

Notes ♫

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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