Double-time

Not to be confused with Alla breve.

In music and dance, double-time is a type of meter and tempo or rhythmic feel. It is also associated with specific time signatures such as 2/2. Contrast with half time.

In jazz the term means using note values twice as fast as previously but without changing the pace of the chord progressions. It is often used during improvised solos.[1]

"Double time [is] doubling a rhythm pattern within its original bar structure.":[2]

1   2   3   4
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Rhythm pattern characteristic of much popular music including rock, quarter-note (crotchet) or "regular" time  play 
Double-time: notice the snare moves to the "&" beats while the hi-hat begins to subdivide sixteenth notes (semiquavers). Play  Note also, for example, that the eighth notes (quavers) 'sound like' quarter notes (crotchets) in two tiny measures (bars).
Same tempos
Double-, common, and half- time offbeats at the same tempo.  Play 
Equivalent tempos
Double-, common, and half- time offbeats at equivalent tempos.  Play 

See also

Sources

  1. ↑ Randel, Don Michael (2003). Harvard dictionary of music, fourth edition, p. 253. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01163-5.
  2. ↑ Gray, Acia (1998). The Souls of Your Feet: A Tap Dance Guidebook for Rhythm Explorers, p.?. ISBN 0-9667445-0-0.