Question for the experts.
The music: Memories (from Cats)
Time Sig. 3/4
Towards the end of the song, there's a piece immediately after the last verse, the lyric line is: "When you touch me, you'll understand what happiness is".
My question, has anyone put together this piece successfully (apart from Weber)with the quick time signature change followed by a return to 3/4 time?
Just wunderin'....

Leon, (NOEL, for Christmas???)
The ending just changes tempo, not time signature. You can shut off the drums, and play the notes of:

Un
Der
Stand
What...
(back to tempo on) Happiness is...

That'll work, but at that point I like to retard the ending anyway, so you may not want to turn the rhythm back on at all.

Dont want to start a catight (arf arf) but in the original version theres a 2/4 thrown in at this point as opposed to the 6/8.

The Barbera Streisand version differs; she sings 4 to the bar over 6/8 but the time signature is unaltered.

This "adjustment" occurs twice in the song, doenst it?


[This message has been edited by MacAllcock (edited 12-03-2003).]

Memory is written in 12/8, which is a compound time signature, with four beats to the measure, so first off, using 3/4 will not work, you should use a 12/8 ballad rhythm, which of course has four pulses to the measure, not three. (If you were to count in fours of course each beat is divided into 3 eighth note triplets, hence as I'm sure you know the beat in 12/8 is a dotted quarter note).

It changes in the section you mention (eg: with the lyric "lamp-light the wi-thered leaves col...", and much later as you mention "When you touch me, you'll un-der-stand what").

Actually it changes to 10/8 for this section. You might take this to be 6/8 followed by a bar of 2/4, although, it is better represented by a bar of 10/8, as counting the 2 compound beats of 6/8 followed by two simple beats of 2/4 might be a bit strange......... (ie changing from a beat of a dotted quarter note to a beat of a quarter note. It's easier to count it as 10/8!)

There is also a 6/8 measure starting on the second syllable of "be-gin" in "new day will be-gin", at the end of which the piece modulates from Bb to Gb.

The simple answer to the question of how to play this absolutely as written on an arranger with a style is that you either need to program a style which includes a variation for the odd measures, or maybe use a properly programmed Midi file as your accompaniment.

The other answer is to ignore the score and to stop the rhythm at those points, or you could as MacAllcock says take the Streisand approach of altering the timing to fit, which she executes superbly.

I still think the desired effect comes from retarding the tempo. It's the difference between playing for dancers and performing an artistic interpretation for an audience in a theater. I don't care who printed out the sheet music - it's bound to be wrong, or interpreted differently. If you listen closely, and subdevide the beats in time .... it all fits in logical manner. You don't even need drums in a song like that - the melody and harmony can carry it quite well. A truly great song can stand alone with no gingerbread.

I have the published album from the show, but if I had written it out I would have come up with the same result, as the original cast recordings from the show are performed in the same way. I don't doubt that it has been altered by various artists along the way, but I'm writing about the original version composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, so the sheet music can hardly be wrong.

I also don't doubt that there is a ritardando in various interpretations of it including the originals, but that alone won't make the METRE accurate.

It's very strange to say that it is all about tempo. Of course if you play four quarter notes at 120 bpm followed by four quarter notes
at 240 bpm the result will be of four quarter notes followed by four eighth notes, played at 120 bpm. (Or four half notes followed by
four quarter notes played at 60 bpm....or....... anyway, you'd agree this is would be a more than slightly ridiculous way of notating it)

The original question was about how to play this piece correctly... that's the answer.

Thank You all, for your help. As it turns out I'm not going to be able to get back to it (Memories) for a while.
I'm looking at surgery in the next little while. It's a major cut, and I'm going to be laid up for a while. Thank You again for your endless help.
Hopefully, I'll manage to drop in again...just can't say when.
...Later

Talk about bad timing. Sorry to hear you have to have surgery at all...but especially during the holiday period. Good luck and speedy recovery.
Eddie

what a shame, hope it all goes well for you.

Thanx for your thots people....and I'll hopefully be back on my feet soon.