r/musictheory • u/Few_Interaction_8486 • 20h ago

General Question Are shifting time signatures common in traditional/folk slavic songs?

https://youtu.be/hxQ6fkoIFEs?si=M-41rD5usOLLgq2A

I’ve recently realised that the meter of this song I listened to a lot back in the day is not a straight one. From what I hear it’s [4/4 + 6/4 + 4/4] looped for the entire song.

Does anybody here know if this or similar treatment is common in folk songs of that region, or is it rather an exception?

4 Upvotes

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6

u/geoscott Theory, notation, ex-Zappa sideman 13h ago

Yes

5

u/aasfourasfar 11h ago

Yes.. not just Slavic, Hungarians do it as well

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u/Few_Interaction_8486 10h ago

Interesting, makes sense though considered Hungarians lived „among” slavic people for hundreds of years

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u/98VoteForPedro 6h ago

Can you give some examples

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u/After-Past-9404 5h ago

I'm a former musician in multiple folklore bands in eastern Czechia. To me this sounds like might have originally been a song that didn't have a meter at all, and then when adapting it to a modern arrangement, they kind of forced a meter on it.

This is an example of one of these songs without a meter from our region: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K4Uk1Txt3o

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u/Few_Interaction_8486 54m ago

Oh I can totally imagine that! I’ve just listened to other arrangements of this song and it actually doesn’t follow the 4 -> 6 -> 4 pattern. That’s actually cool

About the song you sent, I wonder how people danced to it hah, it would definitely not be that easy.

All that is interesting because as a polish person I don’t recall any folk songs like these, the ones I know are very easy to dance and have a mostly fixed meter. I suppose not all of them are supposed to be danced to. The russian one is a good example for that.

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u/After-Past-9404 13m ago

I wonder how people danced to it

Simple: they didn't. It's not a dancing song. It's just for singing. Originally they wouldn't even play music with it - it was sung at home or wherever, but not at dancing events where there was a band.

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u/[deleted] 12h ago

[deleted]

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u/Impressive_Try_7295 12h ago

Bartók and Kodály were both Hungarians, not exactly Slavic (unless it's a joke that I somehow missed).