Hello all,
How can changing time signatures be used effectively in a composition? Are there any time signatures that work well together? Are there any guidelines or 'rules' with changing time signatures?
Would appreciate any tips, it's my first time trying this technique out, thankyou
Hey, sunflowah!
Fantastic question
Experimenting with time signatures is a great way to bring control and sophistication into your composition. It really depends on your own compositional ideas but I would think carefully about where I decide to change between time signatures and how this is supported with other things like dynamics, expressive techniques, registers etc. so that it's both noticeable but also subtle and nuanced. It might also be effective to have contrast (going from duple to triple time, or from simple to compound). Beyond that, any time signatures could work together well and there aren't really any rules you have to follow (other than to make sure that if you're having 4/4, for example, you definitely have four beats per bar and haven't accidentally missed one).
If you haven't before, listen to Stravinsky's
Rite of Spring; he does a pretty amazing job at playing around with irregular rhythms and changing time signatures and might inspire something! Let me know if that helps and have fun composing!
Angelina