Reply To: Cut Time and 6/8

[nafmeadmin]

I’ve explained it like this…

“Cut Time is when we cut the conducting in half. If I were to conduct this piece at full tempo (then I try it at quarter note equals 200+), I can only conduct it so many bars and then I get slow and it doesn’t work – plus my shoulder would fall off. So, we cut that in half. (Here I would begin counting 1-2-3-4 and conducting 1—2—).”

From here, we may examine a few measures, but that typically does the trick.