Terminology, What's It Called When You..

[thesound]

...have a song that is, for instance, in quarters only during the verse and then the drums appear to speed up or the song plays eighth notes only.. What is that called? .. a boring song? no, really I was wondering what this change is called.

Thanks

[thesound]

[MikeRobinson]

I think it's just called "a change in time-signature."

And here's the thing that I didn't "get" for a long, long time in music classes: changing the time-signature doesn't change the tempo of the song ... rather, it reflects a change in the way that the ear parses-out the notes into "measures," and how many notes and what kind of notes those measures are perceived to contain.

As far as I know, the reason why your ear perceives a difference is that the pattern of down-beats has changed. These are the notes ("one two three four" ... "one two three four five six") that you consciously or unconsciously emphasize slightly as you sing or play the phrases. When that happens, your ear starts looking for the new regular pattern ... the new time-signature.

Changes in signature are sometimes accompanied by changes in tempo (beats-per-minute), and if that occurs you'll see markings like "Accel.(erndo)" or "Rit.(ardo)" in the same area.

Edited October 31, 2011 by MikeRobinson