Quintuple meter
Quintuple meter or quintuple time is a musical meter characterized by five beats in a measure, whether variably or equally stressed.
Like the more common duple, triple, and quadruple meters, it may be simple, with each beat divided in half, or compound, with each beat divided into thirds. The most common time signatures for simple quintuple meter are and ; compound quintuple meter is most often written in.
Notation
Simple quintuple meter can be written in or time, but may also be notated by using regularly alternating bars of triple and duple meters, for example +. Compound quintuple meter, with each of its five beats divided into three parts, can similarly be notated using a time signature of, by writing triplets on each beat of a simple quintuple signature, or by regularly alternating meters such as +.Another notational variant involves compound meters, in which two or three numerals take the place of the expected numerator. In simple quintuple meter, the 5 may be replaced as or for example. A time signature of, however, does not necessarily mean the music is in a compound quintuple meter. It may, for example, indicate a bar of triple meter in which each beat is subdivided into five parts. In this case, the meter is sometimes characterized as "triple quintuple time".
It is also possible for a time signature to be used for an irregular, or additive, metrical pattern, such as groupings of eighth notes or, for example in the Hymn to the Sun and Hymn to Nemesis by Mesomedes of Crete,, which may alternatively be given the composite signature.
Similarly, the presence of some bars with a or meter signature does not necessarily mean that the music is in quintuple meter overall. The regular alternation of and in Bruce Hornsby's "The Tango King", for example, results in an overall nonuple meter.
History
Before the 20th century, quintuple time was rare in European concert music, but is more commonly found in other cultures.Ancient Greek music
Rhythm in ancient Greek music was closely tied to poetic meter, and included what are understood today as quintuple patterns. The two Delphic Hymns from the second century BC both provide examples. The First Delphic Hymn, by Athenaeus, son of Athenaeus, is in the quintuple Cretic meter throughout. The first nine of the ten sections of the Second Hymn, by Limenius, are also in Cretic meter.In addition to the Cretic meter, which consisted of a long-''short-long'' pattern, ancient Greek music had seven other quintuple meters: Bacchic, Palimbacchic, four species of Paeanic, and hyporchematic.
Asia, Transcaucasia, and the Middle East
Arabic theorists already in the early Abbasid period described modal rhythmic cycles, that included quintuple meters, though taxonomies and terminology vary amongst writers. The first figure to describe these rhythms was Abū Yūsuf Ya‘qūb al-Kindī, who divided them into two broad categories, ṯẖaqīl and khafīf. Two of his ṯẖaqīl modes—ṯẖaqīl thānī and ramal —and one khafīf mode are quintuple. The most important writers of the later Abbasid period were Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā. Al-Fārābī elaborated the rhythmic system established a century earlier by another important early Abbasid musician, Isḥāq al-Mawṣilī, who had based it on local traditions, without any knowledge of classical Greek music theory. Isḥāq's and al-Fārābī's system consisted of eight rhythmic modes, the third and fourth of which were quintuple: called ṯẖaqīl thānī, and khafīf al-ṯẖaqīl thānī, both of which are short-short-short-long, in slow and fast tempo, respectively. This terminology and these definitions continued to be found as late as the 12th century in Muslim Spain, for example in a document by Abd-Allāh ibn Muḥammad ib al-Ṣīd al-Baṭaliawsī.In the Moroccan Malḥūn repertory, rhythms are sometimes introduced into the basic meter of. Turkish classical music employs a system of rhythmic modes, which include units ranging from two to ten time units. The five-beat meter is called türk aksağı.
The traditional music of Adjara in Western Georgia includes an ancient war-dance called Khorumi, which is in quintuple meter.
The cyclically repeating fixed time cycles of Carnatic and Hindustani classical music, called tālas, include both fast and slow quintuple patterns, as well as binary, ternary, and septenary cycles. In the Carnatic system, there is a complex "formal" system of tālas which is of great antiquity, and a more recent, rather simpler "informal" system, comprising selected tālas from the "formal" system, plus two fast tālas called Cāpu. The slow quintuple tāla, called Jhampā is from the formal system, and consists of a pattern of beats; the fast quintuple tāla is called khaṇḍa Cāpu or ara Jhampā, and consists of beats. However, the pattern of beats marking the rotation of the cycle does not necessarily indicate the internal rhythmic organization. For example, although the Jhampā tāla, in its most common miśra variety, is governed by, the most characteristic rhythm of melodies in this tāla is.
The tālas in Hindustani music are somewhat more complicated. To begin with, they are not systematically codified, but rather comprise a miscellany of patterns from a number of different repertories. Secondly, the counting units of each tāla are grouped into segments called vibhāg, which constitute slower "beats" of from to 5 of those counting units. Third, in addition to the sounded vibhāg, marked by hand-claps, there are also vibhāg marked only by a wave of the hand—the so-called khālī beats. The two quintuple tālas in these repertories are Jhaptāl——and Sūltāl—. Both are measured by ten mātrā units, but Jhaptāl is divided into four unequal vibhāg in two halves of five mātrā each, and Sūltāl is divided into five equal vibhāg, the second and fifth of which are khālī.
The kasa repertory of traditional Korean court music often employs cycles in quintuple time, even though Korean traditional music terminology has no specific term for it. This repertory can be traced back in some cases to the fifteenth century. Quintuple meter is also occasionally found in folk music, with perhaps the most well-known example being the Eotmori rhythm often employed in Sanjo. Quintuple is the oldest surviving traditional Korean meter.
Australia
Quintuple meter occurs as a variation in some women's dance songs of indigenous Australians, where a measure is occasionally inserted into songs with a basic duple or four-beat pattern.The Americas
Traditional dance songs of the Yupik of Alaska are accompanied by frame drums, beaten with a long thin wand, most commonly in a crotchet–dotted crotchet pattern.European folk music
Many European folk and traditional repertories also feature quintuple meter. This is particularly true of Slavic cultural groups. The Bulgarian "paidushko" dance, for example, is in a fast, counted. In north-eastern Poland, five-beat bars are frequently found in wedding songs, with rather slow tempos and not accompanied by dancing. Traditional Russian wedding songs also are in quintuple time. The Poles and Russians share this proclivity for quintuple meter with the Finns, Sami people, Estonians, and Latvians. In Finland, the Kalevalaic "runometric" songs are the most distinctive feature of folk music, and the most common melody of these epic songs is in quintuple meter. This melody was described in the oldest study of runo singing in 1766, but first published in a musical transcription only about 20 years later. One South Slavic example is recorded in a manual published in 1714 by the Venetian dancing master Gregorio Lambranzi. It is a forlana titled "Polesana", probably meaning "From Pola", a city in Istria—today a part of Croatia but a Venetian possession until 1947. Although Lambranzi notated this dance in time, its recurring phrase structure shows it to be in compound-quintuple time, so that its correct form is actually written in.Greek folk music is also characterized by rhythms in asymmetrical meters. The repertory of the Peloponnese, for example, includes the Doric tsakonikos from Doric-speaking Kynouria in time. The Epirus region of Northern Greece also has dance melodies in a slow 5.
Spanish folk music is also noted for the use of quintuple meter, particularly well-known examples being the Castilian rueda and the Basque zortziko, but it is also found in the music of Extremadura, Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia. Some types of the folk dances collectively referred to as gavottes, and stemming from Lower Brittany in France are in meter, though,, and are also found. In the Alsatian region of Kochersberg, a peasant dance called the Kochersberger Tanz is in time, and is similar to a dance of the Upper Palatinate in Bavaria called Der Zwiefache or Gerad und Ungerad, because it alternates even and uneven bars.
European art music
Medieval and Renaissance
In European art music it became possible only in the 14th century to notate quintuple rhythms unambiguously, through the use of minor or reversed coloration. In some instances from the late-14th-century Ars subtilior period, quintuple passages occur which are long enough to regard as an established meter. For example, in the secunda pars of an anonymous two-voice Fortune, a "clear and definite rhythm" in the upper part creates a meter set against the of the lower part. The earliest complete European compositions in quintuple time, however, appear to be seven villancicos in the Cancionero Musical de Palacio, which were composed between 1516 and 1520. Notation of the quintuple meter in these seven pieces is achieved in various ways:- Juan del Encina uses the mensuration in "Amor con fortuna", but in "Tan buen ganadico", he uses a signature of .
- Juan de Anchieta uses , in both "Con amores, mi madre", and "Dos ánades, madre".
- The anonymous "Pensad ora'n al" uses the mensuration.
- "Las mis penas madre" by Pedro de Escobar and "De ser mal casada" by Diego Fernández both use just the proportion sign.