Music Theory

Compound time in music theory

This pretty Salon piece is written in 9-8 time. Some pupils regard this as equivalent to 3-4 time, and count is as such. This is wrong. In 3-4 or 3-8 time we have one heavy beat in a measure, namely on one. In 9-8 time there are three heavy beats, to wit; on one, four and seven.

compound time

Muisc theory: Compound and simple time

The difference between 3-8 time and 9-8 time will become perfectly plain when placing accented measures of both times under each other.
Andantino tranquillo

simple and compound timecompound time example