A Waltz? or not a Waltz?

Today was very much a day of intense arrangement of my Sicilian styled piece. I was initially thinking of making this piece a "canzone" which is a song, different than an aria which is a singe solo song from an opera,  but I am seeing a better outcome for this piece as a chamber piece with mandolin parts and bass and cello parts as well. In regard to my time frame, I am always keeping the idea of its practicality of completion and it seems doable to record the piano part and a mandolin and bass part. The cello and string section is a bit too complicated to arrange and write out for now; also considering the long and tedious rehearsals I would have to have with a string section- for now and I will save this for a future date. One problem that I have found was that the piece has a “waltz” feel and these are usually written in 6/8 time. The piece is written with in 6/8 time, though it has the feel of a 4/4 time and I felt I had to conduct some research to determine whether or not I am doing something wrong. First off, I listened to some waltzes and I listened for their “feel”, while in my head, my piano part played along.

Johann Strauss – “Vienna Waltz”

 The two matched and I felt I was on to something, but I still felt I needed more reassurance. To do this, I wrote out the lead to the mandolin part with the octaves part to the piano (they’re the same) and I found that 4/4 would be holding the phrase over and it didn’t flow. The temp I was looking for was that waltz feel where, as counted as quarter notes in rhythm, is 1- 2 -3, 1- 2 – 3, 1-2 -3, and so on and so forth.

With this, I found a YouTube video with a great explanation two why 6/8 is 6/8.

YouTube- Difference Between 4/4 And 6/8 In Music

 It went over the aspect of how 4/4 can be similar, but instead there are 6 eighth notes that are counted “like quarter” notes in the aspect that they are counted as one beat.