Re: irrational meters

[David Zelinsky]

Kieren MacMillan <kieren@kierenmacmillan.info> writes:

> Hi Silvain,
>
>> I wonder about the term “irrational” meter. Should not we say “irregular” ??
>> as in mathematics, an irrational number is a number which cannot be 
>> represented as a fraction...
>
> As both a published composer *and* a published number theorist, I
> wholeheartedly concur with your intuition — I’ve been pushing for
> decades against “irrational” as a descriptor for time signatures
> [except where it actually applies, of course, as in π/4].
>
> “Irregular” is better… but ultimately I prefer “non-dyadic” to
> describe any time signature where the bottom number
> (a.k.a. “denominator”, a label I also avoid) is not an integer power
> of 2.
>
> Cheers,
> Kieren.

As another professional number theorist and musician (though not a
composer), I also find this use of "irrational" to mean "non-dyadic"
very grating.  But I once said as much on the Music Engraving Tips
facebook group, and got summarily shot down as ignorant and elitist.
The argument, such as it was, held that this is about *music*, not
*mathematics*, so there's no reason to adopt mathematicians' quirky
terminology.  This left me rather speechless, so I gave up.  However, if
I ever have reason to discuss this type of meter, will always call it
"non-dyadic".

-David