There is no musical reason to consider this as changing meter, and I'll tell you why: the phrase is two bars of 3 or one bar of 6. Preferably 3; because 6, as containing a factor of 2, is considered a compound meter with a basis of 2 beats; 6/4 is two dotted half notes. or minims if you like that. 3/4 is 3 quarter notes. You may introduce some ambiguity and hemiola*, but that's the first principle for that choice conventionally.Auplant wrote: ↑Fri May 31, 2019 8:15 pm I have to read into syncopation. I'm just wondering now in relation to a piece of music in 3/4 time signature - what if I don't strictly use 3 beats in each measure? so I break the rules and use only 1 beat instead of 3.
It seems that in 3/4 by convention, if I want to have only one note in the bar then I'm forced to use a dotted minum in that bar to make up the 3 beats.
It seems that composers tend to stick to the same time signature the entire piece.
That's not the problem and that's not necessarily anything, it's about the idea.
For an example, Sondheim/Bernstein America exploits a *hemiola in 6/8, ie., it alternates between the bar being two beats and then 3:
I want to be in A mer_i_ca.
It's written in 6/8 with no change; why? The 3 feel is obvious and nobody in the orchestra really needs to see 3/4 to follow it. So it's just simpler. If you wrote 6/8 and 3/4, a change at every bar, it's a perfectly cromulent way to write it but why bother?
Or let's say something is all notated in 4/4, but a lot of it is a definite up/down 2 feel. Why bother? OTOH the conductor may well conduct those bits in 2/4, or even all of it. No problem, but why create work for the copyist?
Considering the meaning of 1/4 is illustrative: 1/4 can show emphasis, you could for instance write 5/4 or 4+1/4, or the 1/4 has some musical meaning. '1/4' could contain a musical idea which is significant per that measure (just spitballing here), eg., you have an upbeat of say pentuple 16ths the one time (and every time?), or essentially the meaning is an insertion of an anacrusis. IE: some actual idea, such as a way to convey some weight or sudden brilliance or shock for example.
1 2 3 4 YIKES! 1.
These considerations are about the idea before rules. But your actual idea is so clearly 3 + 3 that 1/4 has no real moment.