In modern musical parlance, a hemiola is a metrical pattern in which two bars in simple triple time (3/2 or 3/4 for example) are articulated as if they were three bars in simple duple time (2/2 or 2/4). Music is an Art form in which the medium is Sound organized in Time. In Musical notation, a bar or measure is a segment of time defined as a given number of beats of a given duration The time signature (also known as " meter signature" is a notational convention used in Western Musical notation to specify how many beats

The word hemiola derives from the Greek hemiolios, meaning "one and a half". (The term hemiola or "one and a half" was also used by the Greeks to refer to a galley powered by one and a half banks of oars). It was originally used in music to refer to the frequency ratio 3:2; that is, the interval of a justly tuned perfect fifth. Frequency is a measure of the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit Time. In Music theory, the term interval describes the relationship between the pitches of two Notes Intervals may be described as vertical In music just intonation is any Musical tuning in which the frequencies of Notes are related by Ratios of Whole numbers Any interval The perfect fifth ( is the Musical interval between a note and the note seven Semitones above it on the musical scale

Later, from around the 15th century, the word came to mean the use of three breves in a bar when the prevailing metrical scheme had two dotted breves in each bar. In Music notation, a note value indicates the relative Duration of a note, using the color or shape of the Note head, the presence ^[1] This usage was later extended to its modern sense of two bars in simple triple time articulated or phrased as if they were three bars in simple duple time. (The pulse stays constant, and the duration of the beat changes. ) An example can be found in measures 64 and 65 of this excerpt from the first movement of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Sonata, K. 332:

The effect can clearly be seen in the bottom staff, played by the left hand: the accented beats are those with two notes; hearing this passage one gets a sensation of "1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2, 1 2, 1 2". The Piano Sonata in F major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, K 332/300k was written at the same time as the Piano Sonata K

Hemiola is found in many Renaissance pieces at areas of cadential repose such as the compositions of Josquin des Prez and Jacob Obrecht. Josquin des Prez (c 1450 to 1455 &ndash August 27 1521 often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. Jacob Obrecht (1457/1458 &ndash late July 1505 was a Dutch composer of the Renaissance.

Perhaps one of the most obvious examples is the Ukrainian Bell Carol, Carol of the Bells. "Carol of the Bells" (also known as the "Ukrainian Bell Carol" or as "Ring Christmas Bells") is a choral miniature work originally composed

Hemiolas (in the modern sense) often occur in certain dances, particularly the courante. Dance (from French danser, perhaps from Frankish) is an Art form that generally refers to movement of the body usually rhythmic The courante, corrente, coranto and corant are just some of the names given to a family of Triple metre dances from the late Renaissance Composers of classical music who have used the device particularly extensively include Arcangelo Corelli, George Friedrich Handel and most famously in the music of Johannes Brahms (e. Classical music is a broad term that usually refers to mainstream music produced in or rooted in the traditions of Western liturgical and Secular music WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> Arcangelo Corelli (February 17 1653 &ndash January 8 1713 was a French Violinist Johannes Brahms ( pronounced ˈbʁaːms (May 7 1833 &ndash April 3 1897 was a German Composer g. the opening of Symphony no 3).

Musicians' common speech has extended the definition of "hemiola" to include any occasion of a "three-against-two" metrical feel --- including some mixed meters and polyrhythms --- contrary to the word's original meaning. For example, "America" from Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story is often said to contain good examples of hemiola. "America" is a well-known song from the musical West Side Story. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> WikipediaWikiProject Classical music#Biographical_infoboxes West Side Story is a musical by Arthur Laurents (book Leonard Bernstein (music and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics However, though "America" does alternate between 6/8 time and 3/4 time, this is not strictly hemiola; hemiola is specifically the regrouping of notes in simple triple meter into groups of two beats rather than three.

Likewise, three-against-two polyrhythms are not hemiola, since 1) they may or may not occur over two bars of triple meter, and 2) in hemiola, the triple-meter feel is altogether absent from the two bars in question.

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 two beat one, the pattern of 2:3 would be known as sesquialtera. (Note, this does not specifically refer to the "sesquialtera" organ stop. )

References

See also

• African hemiola style
• Syncopation

African hemiola style is a Music rhythm common in Africa. A Hemiola involves two bars in triple time (3/2 or 3/4 for example In Music, syncopation includes a variety of Rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced

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