Chris Bonds wrote:

>My answer to all this is:  is there something that musicians cannot now
>do, or can do only with difficulty, which using an X/3 meter signature
>would enable or make easier?

This is exactly the point.  At the end of the day, musicians use notation
to write down, as close as possible, what their music should sound like.
They need to do this in the most clear and easily readable manner for the
sake of those who are going to perform the work.

As far as X/3 time signatures are concerned, non of the technical postings
I've read have made any sense at all.  If a "2" is a quantity of minims and
a "4" is a quantity of crotchets, then surely X/3 indicates a quantity of
dotted-crotchets per bar.  In attempting to notate a passage that has, say,
3 dotted-crotchets per bar with the main emphasis on the first of those,
this problem is overcome by using a 9/8 time signature.  If an explanation
(using etc., or in words) is necessary then so be it.  But, the musician
involved reckognizes this familiar time signature and has no problem
deciphering it:  and that's the point of notation in the first place.

Triplets do not come into the argument of time signatures at all, simply
because they are designed to indicate rhythms and measures that go against
the grain of the general pulse (ie.  3 notes where only 2 pulses occur).
The only reason triplets are effective in the first place is because the
pulse they are placed over runs at a different rate.  It hardly seems
sensible trying to indicate this in a time signature (and again, if you
were to try to do so, you would end up with a compound signature, that
is if you were trying to make things simple for the performer.)

Anyway, that is that.

Damian Oxborough.
www.dreamwater.com/oxborough