Jon Gallant ([log in to unmask]) wrote: >Thinking it over, I could recall only a single popular number I have ever >heard which was in triple time: it was "Good Night Irene", fifty years >ago, and that one was smuggled into the pop scene via folk music. Can >anyone think of another such example? Now, while "common time" may be the >most frequently employed meter in classical music, there are plenty of >movements, passages, or measures in 3/4, 3/8, 6/8, even 5/8 or 7/8, or >complex meters. > >Accordingly, I offer this statistical definition of "classical" as opposed >to "popular": music in which the probability (or frequency) of a measure >not in common time is greater than 0.0000000001. You're not comparing apples with apples. If you were to listen to a Top-40 or Golden Oldies classical station (e.g. Classic FM in Britain) I suspect the incidence of everything except 4/4 and 3/4 would be far lower. And if you were to listen to a more 'progressive' rock station the incidence would be higher: off the top of my head I can thing of a few, for example the Soft Machine (Volume 2, Hibou, Anemone and Bear is the track IIRC) in 7/8 and the Grateful Dead's famous The Eleven so called because, surprise!, it is in 11/4. Deryk Barker [log in to unmask]