Return to “Performing Philidor’s Drum Beatings” or “18th C. French Drumming”.
Unfortunately, we fall into some problems understanding the triple time signatures, including 3, 3/2, 3/8, and 3 cut.
According to Herissone, throughout the 1600s, new time signatures were developing to understand the shift in triple time’s meter. Problematically, she notes:
“the French sign 3 which Playford was the first to use was soon adopted as the most common symbol of triple time, and, for many, it continued not to be associated with any particular pulse”
Herissone (69)
For this reason, these differing time signatures do not always appear to indicate different meters or to indicate the modern meter we would expect.
The beatings that appeared as 3/8 and 3 cut appeared to represent a typical 3/8 structure and had rudimental structures that were consistent with what appeared when the 6/4 and 3 beatings were cut and translated into 6/8. For this reason, 3/8 was understood as 3/8. 3 cut was also understood as 3/8.
Based on Herissone’s comments on triple time, we might understand the two time signatures – 3/8 and 3 cut – to mean the same thing. More research might illuminate a more nuanced interpretation and the answer may be found in Apel’s or Herissone’s books which deal with Mensural Notation and early time signatures.
See: Willi Apel, The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900-1600 (5th ed. Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of American, 1953) and Herissone, Music Theory in Seventeenth-Century England, 68-71.
Performing 3/8
Here’s an example of how a beating in 3/8 sounds in Philidor’s “Le Drapeau”, the first version listed in Philidor, on page 146.
Want to learn more about Tempo and how to perform Triple Time in the 18th Century?
More Resources:
If you want more music from Philidor’s Collection, check out my book ‘Philidor’s Drum Beatings’.
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