kids encyclopedia robot

Quintuple meter facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Quintuple meter or quintuple time is a musical rhythm where each measure has five beats. Imagine counting "1-2-3-4-5" over and over.

These five beats can be arranged in different ways. Some beats might be stronger than others, or they can all be equally strong.

Just like more common rhythms with two, three, or four beats, quintuple meter can be simple or compound. In simple meter, each beat divides into two smaller parts. In compound meter, each beat divides into three smaller parts. The most common ways to write simple quintuple meter are with time signatures like 5
4 or 5
8. Compound quintuple meter is often written as 15
8.

What is Quintuple Meter?

Quintuple meter is a musical rhythm that has five beats in every measure. This means that when you listen to music with this meter, you'll feel a pattern of five counts before it repeats.

Music often has a steady pulse, like a heartbeat. This pulse is organized into groups called measures. The number of beats in each measure tells you the meter.

How Music is Written in Five Beats

When composers write music, they use time signatures to show the meter. For simple quintuple meter, you'll often see 5
4 or 5
8.

  • 5
    4     means there are five quarter notes in each measure.
  • 5
    8     means there are five eighth notes in each measure.

Sometimes, composers don't use a single time signature for five beats. They might use a mix of other meters that add up to five. For example, they could switch between 2
4 (two quarter notes) and 3
4 (three quarter notes). Together, these make five beats.

Compound quintuple meter means each of the five main beats is divided into three smaller parts. This is often written as 15
8. This means there are fifteen eighth notes in a measure, grouped into five sets of three.

Different Ways to Write Five Beats

Sometimes, a time signature like 15
8 might not mean a compound quintuple meter. It could mean a measure with three main beats, where each beat is divided into five parts. This is sometimes called "triple quintuple time."

Also, seeing 5
4 or 5
8 in a few measures doesn't always mean the whole song is in quintuple meter. For instance, a song might switch between 5
4 and 4
4. This creates a different overall rhythm.

A Look Back: History of Five-Beat Music

Before the 1900s, music with five beats was rare in European concert music. However, it was much more common in music from other cultures around the world.

Ancient Music with Five Beats

Rhythm in ancient Greek music was closely linked to poetry. They had patterns that we now understand as quintuple, or five-beat, rhythms.

The two Delphic Hymns from around 200 BC are examples. The First Delphic Hymn uses a five-beat pattern called Cretic meter throughout. Most of the Second Hymn also uses this Cretic meter.

Besides Cretic meter, ancient Greek music had other five-beat patterns. These included Bacchic, Palimbacchic, and four types of Paeanic meters.

Five Beats Around the World

Five-beat rhythms have been part of music in many different places for a very long time.

Music in Asia and the Middle East

In the early Abbasid period (around 750–900 AD), Arabic music theorists described rhythmic cycles that included five-beat meters. Different writers used different names for these rhythms.

One early writer, Al-Kindi, described "heavy" (slow) and "light" (quick) modes. Some of his "heavy" modes and one "light" mode were quintuple. Later writers like Al-Fārābī also described five-beat rhythmic modes.

In Moroccan Malḥūn music, which is an urban song style, 5
8 rhythms are sometimes used. Turkish classical music also has a five-beat meter called türk aksağı.

The traditional war-dance Khorumi from Adjara in Western Georgia is also in quintuple meter.

Classical music in India (Carnatic and Hindustani) uses repeating rhythmic cycles called tālas. These include both fast and slow five-beat patterns. For example, the slow quintuple tāla called Jhampā has a pattern of 7+1+2 beats. The fast quintuple tāla, khaṇḍa Cāpu, has 2+1+2 beats.

Traditional Korean court music often uses five-beat cycles, even though it doesn't have a specific name for it. This type of music dates back to the 1400s. Five-beat rhythms are also found in Korean folk music, like the Eotmori rhythm.

Five Beats in Folk Dances

Quintuple meter also appears in traditional music from many European countries. It's especially common in Slavic cultures.

For example, the Bulgarian "paidushko" dance is a fast five-beat rhythm, counted as 2+3. In north-eastern Poland, five-beat measures are often found in wedding songs. Traditional Russian wedding songs also use quintuple time.

The Finns, Sami people, Estonians, and Latvians also share this use of five-beat meter. In Finland, many epic folk songs are in quintuple meter.

Greek folk music is known for its asymmetrical rhythms. The Doric tsakonikos dance from the Peloponnese region is in 5
4 time. The Epirus region also has slow five-beat dance melodies.

Spanish folk music also uses quintuple meter. Famous examples include the Castilian rueda and the Basque zortziko. It's also found in music from Extremadura, Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia. Some French gavotte dances from Lower Brittany are in 5
8 meter.

In the Alsace region, a peasant dance called the Kochersberger Tanz is in 5
8 time. It's similar to a Bavarian dance called Der Zwiefache, which switches between two-beat and three-beat measures.

Five Beats in Classical Music

In European classical music, it became easier to write five-beat rhythms clearly in the 1300s.

Early Classical Music

Some pieces from the late 1300s had long enough five-beat sections to be considered a regular meter. The earliest complete European songs in quintuple time were seven villancicos composed between 1516 and 1520.

Other examples from the 1500s include pieces by Christopher Tye, Jacob Obrecht, and Heinrich Isaac. Keyboard music from this time also shows some five-beat passages.

In the Baroque and Classical periods (1600s-1700s), quintuple meter was even rarer. One possible example is in Claudio Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo. George Frideric Handel used two short 5
8 passages in his opera Orlando to show the main character's madness.

An 18th-century example is an entire song in 5
4 time from Andrea Adolfati's opera Arianna (1750). William Reeve's Gypsy's Glee (1796) is also noted for having five distinct beats in every measure.

19th Century: More Five-Beat Music

In the 1800s, composers started using quintuple time more often, though it was still not common. There were a few reasons for this:

  • To show off their technical skill.
  • To create a special mood, like unease or excitement.
  • To include folk music elements, especially as nationalistic music became popular.

Early examples include a fugue by Anton Reicha (1805) and a tenor song from François-Adrien Boieldieu's opera La dame blanche (1825). Frédéric Chopin also used it in his first Piano Sonata (1828).

Russian composers like Mikhail Glinka used quintuple meter to reflect Russian folk music. His opera A Life for the Tsar (1834–1836) was one of the first to use five-beat meter for Russian wedding songs. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky also used it in his folk-song settings, often by alternating 3
4 and 2
4.

Other 19th-century examples include short passages in music by Hector Berlioz and Alexander Borodin. Carl Loewe's ballad "Prinz Eugen" (1844) is entirely in 5
4 time.

The piano virtuoso Charles-Valentin Alkan was interested in unusual rhythms and wrote several pieces in quintuple time. Richard Wagner included some 5
4 bars in his opera Tristan und Isolde. Johannes Brahms used 5
4 throughout his vocal quartet "Nächtens".

Three very famous examples of quintuple meter in orchestral music from the late 1800s are:

FirstDelphicHymn800
Transcription of the opening of the First Delphic Hymn, by Athenaeus, son of Athenaeus

Jean Sibelius used a five-beat pattern in his work Kullervo (1891–1892). This reflected the Karelian rhythms and nationalistic themes in his music.

In piano music, the "Promenade" from Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) mixes 5
4 with other meters.

Compound quintuple meter (like 15
8) was less common. An example is in the middle section of the third movement of Brahms's Piano Trio No. 3 (1886). Claude Debussy's "Fêtes" from Nocturnes also has a recurring passage of two 15
8 bars.

20th Century: Modern Five-Beat Music

In the early 1900s, quintuple meter became more common due to composers using folk music traditions.

Examples include works by George Enescu, Béla Bartók (in his Mikrokosmos), and Maurice Ravel. Carlos Chávez's Sinfonía india (1935–1936) uses a lot of 5
8 time.

Another reason for using quintuple meter was to bring back ancient Greek culture. The five-beat meter in the "Danse générale" from Ravel's ballet Daphnis et Chloé (1909–1912) is a famous example.

Gabriel Pierné used quintuple meter in his music for the play Ramuntcho (1907) to include Basque traditional melodies. He also used it in his Piano Quintet (1917) and Fantaisie basque (1927).

Igor Stravinsky is known for his rhythmic innovations. He sometimes used quintuple meter, for example, in his Octet (1922–1923). More often, he used five-beat bars within constantly changing meters, as in his ballet The Rite of Spring (1911–1913).

Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring, Sacrificial Dance
Stravinsky, "Sacrificial Dance" (excerpt), from The Rite of Spring

Many composers followed Stravinsky's lead, making irregular meters more common after the 1920s. However, entire movements with a constant five-beat rhythm were still less frequent.

A notable example before World War II is the popular first movement, "Aria (Cantilena)" (1938), of the Bachianas Brasileiras no. 5 by Heitor Villa-Lobos. This piece for soprano and cellos is mostly in 5
4.

During the war, Benjamin Britten's String Quartet No. 1 (1941) included a movement in 5
4. Paul Hindemith's Ludus Tonalis (1942) also has several examples of quintuple meter.

After the war, Gian Carlo Menotti used a five-beat funeral march in his opera The Consul (1950). Dmitri Shostakovich used 5
4 throughout several fugues in his Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues (1950–1951).

Quintuple meter is also used in variations within a piece. For example, Gustav Holst's Double Concerto (1929) and Leonard Bernstein's The Age of Anxiety (1949) use it in some variations.

In minimal music from the late 1960s, quintuple meter is rare. One exception is Steve Reich's early work Reed Phase (1966), which uses a repeating five-note pattern. Reich's 1979 Octet (later called Eight Lines) is entirely in quintuple time.

Five Beats in Jazz and Pop Music

Before the 1940s, quintuple time was almost unheard of in American jazz and popular music.

Five Beats on Broadway

In 1944, Igor Stravinsky composed music for a Broadway show. The musicians, used to traditional Broadway rhythms, struggled with the 5
8 sections in Stravinsky's score.

However, things changed. In 1956, Leonard Bernstein's musical Candide opened on Broadway. It featured songs with various meters, including a quartet in 5
4 and a song in 5
8.

Later examples in musical theater include "Everything's Alright" from Jesus Christ Superstar (1971) by Andrew Lloyd Webber, which is mainly in 5
4. Stephen Sondheim also used 5
8 in "Ladies in Their Sensitivities" from Sweeney Todd (1979).

Jazz Music with Five Beats

In 1959, the Dave Brubeck Quartet released Time Out, a jazz album with music in unusual meters. It included Paul Desmond's famous song "Take Five", which is in 5
4 time.

Dave Brubeck had studied with French composer Darius Milhaud, who was influenced by Stravinsky. Brubeck helped introduce asymmetrical rhythms into jazz, sparking a lot of interest in the 1960s.

The 1960 Max Roach album We Insist! also features three tracks using 5
4.

Starting in 1964, trumpeter Don Ellis combined big-band styles with rhythms from Indian and Balkan music. His work Variations for Trumpet includes sections in 5
4. Two other Ellis songs, "Indian Lady" and "5/4 Getaway," are entirely in 5
4.

In 1966, the TV show Mission: Impossible started with its famous 5
4 theme song by Lalo Schifrin. He also composed the 5
4 "Tar Sequence" for the movie Cool Hand Luke.

In 1968, pianist Johnny Guarnieri believed that 5
4 would become very popular. He released an album called Breakthrough in 5/4 with original songs and jazz standards in quintuple time.

Rock Music with Five Beats

In the late 1960s, five-beat meters started appearing in rock music, especially in progressive rock. This style explored rhythms other than the common 4
4.

One early example is "Grim Reaper of Love" by The Turtles (1966). Another is "Within You Without You" by George Harrison on The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).

Later, another Beatles song, "Happiness Is a Warm Gun", also used 5
4. The Byrds' album The Notorious Byrd Brothers (1968) had two songs with quintuple meter: "Get to You" and "Tribal Gathering".

Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake & Palmer also started using unusual meters. His first five-beat piece was "Azrael, the Angel of Death" (1968). The song "Eruption" from the album Tarkus (1971) also uses this meter.

Frank Zappa often played in five-beat time. Examples include "Flower Punk" (1968) and "Five Five Five." Zappa even had a hand signal to tell his band to switch to a quintuple meter during live shows.

More Songs with Five Beats

Here are some other popular songs that use quintuple meter:

Songs Fully in Five-Beat Time

Songs Partially in Five-Beat Time

  • "Alphys" (from Undertale) by Toby Fox – the last part is in 5
    4    .
  • "Animals" by Muse.
  • "Cleopatra" by Weezer. It switches between 5
    4     and 4
    4    .
  • "Come On! Feel the Illinoise!" by Sufjan Stevens (2005) (5
    4     and 4
    4    ).
  • "Down And Out" by Genesis (5
    4    ).
  • "ENDYMION" (from Dance Dance Revolution A) by fallen shepherd ft. RabbiTon Strings (5
    4    ).
  • "Erotomania" by Dream Theater. It starts with several measures of 5
    4    .
  • "The Fixer" by Pearl Jam. It begins in 5
    4     but mostly uses 6
    4     and 4
    4    .
  • "Four Sticks" by Led Zeppelin. The verses switch between 5
    4     and 3
    4    .
  • "The Grudge" by Tool.
  • "The Hammer" from Matilda the Musical by Tim Minchin: begins in 5
    4    .
  • "Happy Jack" by the Who. Parts of the verses are in 5
    4    .
  • "Innuendo" by Queen.
  • "Larks Tongues In Aspic" by King Crimson (partially in 5
    4     and 5
    8    ).
  • "Lorca" by Tim Buckley (1970).
  • "Moon" by Björk (17
    8     and 5
    8    ).
  • "Mother" (from The Wall) and "Two Suns in the Sunset" (from The Final Cut), both by Pink Floyd (5
    4    ).
  • "My Wave" by Soundgarden, the verse is in 5
    4    .
  • "Neon Pattern Drum" by Jon Hopkins has 5
    4     and 4
    4     time signatures playing at the same time.
  • "953" by Black Midi.
  • "The Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden.
  • "Og det bli'r sommer igen" by Lars Lilholt Band; bar 3 is in 5
    4    .
  • "Overground" by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
  • "Pray You Catch Me" by Beyoncé, James Blake, and Kevin Garrett, alternating 2
    4     + 3
    4    .
  • "Prequel to the Sequel" by Between the Buried and Me has some parts in 5
    8    .
  • "Question!" by System of a Down (5
    4    ).
  • "Red" by King Crimson (5
    8    ).
  • "The River" by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard is in 5
    4     until the end.
  • "Sound Chaser" by Yes, the main theme is in 5
    4    .
  • "Kid Gloves" by Rush.
  • "Streamline" by System of a Down, most of the chorus is in 5
    4    .
  • "We Are the Involuntary" by Underoath has some parts that can be written in 5
    4    .
  • "White Room" by Cream. It starts with a 5
    4     section.
  • "YYZ" by Rush opens in 5
    4    .

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Metro quíntuple para niños

kids search engine
All content from Kiddle encyclopedia articles (including the article images and facts) can be freely used under Attribution-ShareAlike license, unless stated otherwise. Cite this article:
Quintuple meter Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.