Hi Lukas, > When Thomas Adès switches from 4/4 to 4/5, there is no way of knowing which > "graphical" note length (combination of notehead style and flag count) is > supposed to be used for the basic unit (of which 4 make up a bar, and of > which five equal the duration of a semibreve).
When someone writes a [numeric] time signature 4/4 — with four “naked” quarter notes in the measure completely filling up that measure — the performer can work out that 4 represents a quarter-note duration. Replacing the numeric denominator "4" with a quarter-note glyph conveys exactly that information. When someone writes a [numeric] time signature 2/6 — with two “naked” quarter notes in the measure completely filling up that measure — the performer can work out that 6 is “halfway between 4 and 8”, and thus represents a triplet-eighth-note duration. Replacing the numeric denominator "6" with a triplet-eighth-note glyph conveys exactly that information. Both of these situations reflect exactly the accepted definition of time signature: “how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value is equivalent to a beat”. Please explain the flaw in my logic, because it seems perfectly clear to me both in my text description(s) and in that snippet I sent earlier. Thanks, Kieren.
