Talk:Minuet

Adapted from 1911 enc.

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With an OCR error. 1/8 time would be stupid. Dictionary.com returns "A slow, stately pattern dance in 3/4 time for groups of couples, originating in 17th-century France."

the Oxford English Dictionary says "A slow, stately dance, in triple measure, for two dancers; derived from France in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and fashionable throughout the eighteenth." In other words, 3/4 since they didn't specify 3/8 or 3/16.

I thought that a minuet is in 6/8 time, but I haven't changed the entry in that regard. User:Wetman

You're part right - the most familiar type of minuet (at least in classical music) is in the French style - it's slow and stately, and is written in 3/4. However, in Italy, the minuet was considerably faster, and it's often written in 3/8 or sometimes 6/8 (you sometimes get these at the end of Italian overtures). I'll tweak the article a bit to reflect this. --Camembert

(Afterthought) - actually, I've feeling I've seen minuets by Rameau in 6/8 as well (which means maybe Lully wrote them that way also), but I could be imagining it. --Camembert