Is that a hemiola or what?
I found myself listening to Mumford and Sons' Babel, and my friend and I couldn't quite agree on how to describe the rhythm. I won that battle since my way led to groups of four figures, whereas his led to groups of six. So, this rhythm:
(Ignore the inconsistent line-widths (still), it is not an indication of stress. I'll try again with png and hard-coded res.)
That thing at the end, is that a hemiola or what?
Wikipedia says
Were the metrical impulse to be not a three-beat pattern changing to a two beat one (as in the Mozart example above), but one where a two-beat impulse changes to a three-beat one, the pattern of 2:3 would be known as subsesquialtera.
But the terms appear to apply only to whole measures, not partial measures, so would it be a demi-subsesquialtera?
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The Harvard Dictionary of Music defines Sesqui- as "Prefix used to denote fractions whose numerator is larger by one than the denominator, e.g., sesquialtera: 3:2 (one plus one half)." It goes on to say that "Another term for sesquialtera is hemiola."
It seems that they are two words for the same thing really. Both words, in early music theory, could also refer to ratios of intervals as well as with temporal values. The word "Sesquialtera" is also strongly connected with an organ stop that combined the octave and the fifth.
The words were probably originally used in different contexts; however, as music history rolled along, they became interchangeable.
It would be a hemiola if you were trying to cram the six eighth notes into the time that two quarter notes should occupy. However, simply defining them to be split up the way you have them is not a hemiola per se, as you don't really have "three against two."
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