Sorry if this is in the wrong place, but I'm new.

I was wondering if anyone could explain to me 2/2 time. It's really confusing me. I've got three pieces were I have to put in the counting for it, I may sound really stupid and it may be really easy, but I just don't get it.

2/2 is actually the same as 4/4, except most of the notes are minims rather than crotchets. 2/2 means two minim beats in a bar.

Hope that helps!
Car Expert

Oh OK, thank you for the help!

No problem!

Car Expert

Instead of crotchet (or quarter note) counting 1 you count minim (half note) 1

This is off-topic, but I once sung an early English motet in 4/1 time... How queer!

Hee hee, queer!

That would look confusing to our eyes. Presumably the Elizabethans would regard a modern score as being too 'busy'.

And, before anybody says anything, I do not know from direct experience.

Steve

In practice it creates a better flow in the music as there are fewer beats 'felt' if that makes sense.

2/2 Sometimes known as CUT COMMON time.

I haven't heard that in 50 years. It was usual nomenclature in the brass band c. 1950. Alla breve is the more usual name since late medieval times, according to Grove Concise. It's too snooty to include "cut common".

Cut Common makes more sense when it's notated as a C "cut" down the middle

I call it cut common time but it still confuses me. Apparently the best way to tell it from 4/4 is by the speed and where the obvious divisions lie...

Yes, I see what you mean!

Car Expert

In my experience, it more often sounds like 2/4 with doubled note values than like 4/4.

Incidentally, the name "common time" is much more recent than the sign that looks like a C. The first time signatures were based on the circle, denoting a triple metre and known as "perfection" (because the circle is "perfect" and three is the number of the Trinity). The incomplete circle that became common time was known as "imperfection", and denoted a duple metre. Each of these symbols could have a vertical line through it, which meant that the unit was a semibreve, instead of the usual breve. Thus a circle with a line through it often meant (c. 1560) 3 quickish notes to a pulse, which many composers of the last 200 years would have notated as 3/4 or 3/8, with one beat to the bar.

Excellent stuff kenm - I never knew that!