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Moods/Modes of Common Time must have something in common or they
woulnd't all be called "Common Time."

If we ask how many notes of equal duration can fill a measure, the answer is

1 2 4 8 16 32 etc.

for each of the modes of Common Time.

If we ask where the accents fall, the answer is that the major accent
falls at the beginning of the first note of a "2" measure, that a
minor accent falls at the beginning of the second note of a "2"
measure, and that these accents persist in the same places in "4",
"8", "16", "32", and related compound measures (measures in which not
all notes are of equal duration), except when altered by syncopation.

Each of the above is true whether the time signature is 2/2, 4/4, or 2/4.

These are the things that characterize time as "Common."

2/2, 4/4, and 2/4 represent increasing tempos.  In some of the older
books there was at least one more mode of Common Time (yet another
tempo).

Any mode of Common Time can be beat in two (or in one, or in four, or
in eight, etc.)

It is debatable, I think, what the top numeral means.  Some take it
to mean the number of beats in a measure, and that's OK with me.  A
leader may or may not mark each of those beats.

I prefer to think that the numerator gives instead the number of
notes of the denominator type that it takes to fill a measure.  Thus,
2/4 means that two quarter notes will fill a measure, and 4/4 means
that it takes four quarter notes.  This deals with notation, not
beats or leading.

Fundamentally, I see all the modes of Common Time as the same,
differing only in tempo.

John

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john garst    ga...@chem.uga.edu