Help me! ive recieved the pieces for our next concert! Half of them are in 6/8 time! My band director explained it to me, but im still clueless! I will love whomever helps me with this! Please people! Help me! I don't get any of it!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!


A.K.R

It's okay, don't worry, everyone freaks when they first encounter 6/8, but it really is not difficult at all, and before you know it, you'll be comfortable playing in both quarter note and eighth note time signatures.

Okay, so, in a time signature, the top number tells us how many beats are in a measure, and the bottom number tells us what kind of note receives one beat. In the familar 4/4, there are four notes in every measure, and the quarter note receives one beat. Well, let's think about 6/8. The six tells us there are six beats per measure, and the bottom eight tells us that the eighth note receives one beat.

As for counting the beats, 6/8 is usually divided into two groups of three notes each (think of triplets in 4/4): 123 456. A conductor will usually conduct a piece in 6/8 using a two beat pattern (like the one used for 2/4), unless the piece is very slow. This helps you to see the beats in the two groups.

Does any of this help? It probably seems confusing, I'm not always good at explaining things. Let me know if this helps, and I'd be happy to try to clarify anything for you.

Rickey

as "clarinetguy" says, there are 6 quavers in every bar(measure)
a quaver is a coloured in note with 1 flag, (in case you use American terms)
to play this, we generally count in groups of '3'. for example; this would be counted as
QUAVER 1 2 3 4 5 6
COUNT AS 1 & a 2 & a

so, for one bar, the emphasis will be on the 1st and 4th quaver;
QUAVER 1 2 3 4 5 6
EMPHASIS < <

this is all i can think of saying without uploading some manuscript
i hope this helps you, write back if you need more help

Kato


<Added>

ARG - the computer doesnt like where i put more than 1 space
emphasis is on 1&4, and will be the major strokes of the conductors baton

I got the basics of it. That there are six counts in each measure, and the 8th note gets the beat. I just have a hard time counting it. Ive been doing it in triplets (123 456). I'm just having a hard time with it. But i think i'll get used to it the more i play it and learn the music