The "Other" Time Signatures
6/8
For reasons best known to themselves, it is an article of faith with some people that "6/8's have to be played fast.". Unfortunately, it seems to be an idea that's particularly prevalent among bass drummers. It's something that's been going on since time immemorial - I can remember forty years ago loping up and down a drill hall and skidding on the turns as we practiced Bonnie Dundee.
The whole idea, of course flies in the faceof logic. Here you are, having a nice , leisurely parade at 84 paces a minute, when the pipemajor call the 6/8 set and you step it up to 96 until the set is over, with everyone trying desperately to get all the notes in, and you can just forget about even trying for doublings. Then, as soon as the set is finished, you drop back to your normal 84 bpm (assuming you don't actually have to stop and wait for the rest of the parade to catch up}.
The end result of this is that nobody likes playing 6/8's. The band learns the ones they need for massed bands and cobbles up a street set out of them, and that's it. Then they get on with playing real music. The fact is, of course, that these tunes are marches, and just like any oother marches, they should be played at your normal marching pace. If you do that, you'll find that not only is there some real music in the tunes, but that they have a swinging rhythm that makes them the easiest of tunes to march to.
3/4
The big difficulty that people seem to have in learning 3/4 tunes comes from approaching them with a 2/4 mindset. Hand them a sheet of 3/4 music, and to hell with the note values, they're going to find some way to make their left foot come down on the bar line. This can certainly make for some interesting interpretations of the tune before they give up in disgust..
The only way I know of to overcome this is to set about learning the tune beat by beat. Forget the bar lines, keep the beats even, and the tune will come out. The good news is that after you've done this a few times, you'll develop a feel for the 3/4 timing and it will seem perfectly natural to you.
There's also a tendency, probably arising from the rather mournful nature of these tunes, to drag them out and play them too slowly. Again, they're retreat marches, the operative word being "march". Play them at your normal marching pace.
9/8
Yes, there really are such things. They're usually retreats, so they should be played too slowly, but they're compound time like 6/8's, so they should be played too fast. Oh dear, oh dear. No wonder nobody bothers with them.
The upside is that since this is an unusual form, nobody uses dreadful ones for filler in tune books. The few that you're likely to find are all good tunes and worth the effort of learning them.
Slow Marches
Yes, you can learn to play them, but how do you march to them without tipping over?
The answer to that one is that the slow march pace is actually a two-part pace. First, dont lift your foot as high as you would for a normal pace. Then, as your feet come together, don't stop, but hesitate slightly before going on to complete the pace. Hesitate again before starting the next pace.
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