Can someone explain time signatures to me?

Factual Questions
1

I’m not sure how, but I got through eight years of singing and dancing in school without ever actually learning about time signatures. I mean, I know that one number has something to do with the number of “beats” in a measure, and the other which kind of note has a one count? Or something? But I don’t really get what that means.

From dance, I can tell when a piece of music has an “8 count”, like “1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8” but does that mean it’s 1/4 or 2/4 or 3/4 or 4/4? How can I tell from listening to it?

At drum circles with really good drummers, I sometimes hear a “7 count”: “1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4,5,6,7” with both the 7 and the 1 accented. It’s like an 8 count with a hiccup. Is there a 1/7 time signature?

So can anyone enlighten me, preferably in very small words?

2

In general, the top number is how many strong beats there are per measure, and the bottom is what size of note gets that strong beat. So, 4/4 has four beats per measure and a quarter note gets the beat. 3/2 has three beats and a half note gets the beat.

Most people can’t tell from listening to music whether they’re hearing one measure with four beats in it or two measures with two beats each; it all just sounds like four beats.

If they know enough about music to have played that style enough, there are some stylistic things built in which would help them figure it out (some styles of music will have, say, a pattern of four or eight measures, with a certain number of beats per measure, all being played as one musical phrase).

3

Number on top: beats per measure.

Number on bottom: indication of value of each beat, in that if it’s 2, each beat is a half note; if it’s 4, each beat is a quarter note; if it’s 8, each beat is an eighth note. If you mentally replace the top number with “1” you have a fraction that tells you this.

So 2/2 time has two half notes per measure. 3/4 (“waltz”) time has three quarter notes per measure. 4/4 time has four quarter notes per measure. 6/8 time has six eighth notes per measure.

The “8 count” you mention might be 4/4 time (since two eighth notes = one quarter note) or 8/8 time.

There is such a thing as 7/8 time. This would be seven eighth notes per measure. Presumably this is what you’ve heard in the drum circle. Note that “1/7” time wouldn’t make much sense, in that it would one note per measure (why bother?) and it would be a seventh note (essentially doesn’t exist).

I’m not an expert on this, but I believe this is accurate so far. Surely someone else can clarify/expound a bit.

4

OK, so I think I get the number on top part, it’s the bottom number that I just can’t wrap my head around.

[QUOTE=Ethilrist]
In general, the top number is how many strong beats there are per measure, and the bottom is what size of note gets that strong beat. So, 4/4 has four beats per measure and a quarter note gets the beat. 3/2 has three beats and a half note gets the beat.
[/QUOTE]

I’m not sure what “gets the beat” means.

[QUOTE=Gary T]
So 2/2 time has two half notes per measure. 3/4 (“waltz”) time has three quarter notes per measure. 4/4 time has four quarter notes per measure. 6/8 time has six eighth notes per measure.
[/QUOTE]

But 4/4 time won’t have four quarter notes in *every *measure, will it? That just sounds boring. Sometimes it might have 2 half notes, or 2 quarter notes and 4 eighth notes or something. So what’s the difference between a measure that has 2 half notes in 2/2 time and a measure that has 2 half notes in 4/4 time?

Ah. that makes sense.

5

[QUOTE=WhyNot]

But 4/4 time won’t have four quarter notes in *every *measure, will it? That just sounds boring. Sometimes it might have 2 half notes, or 2 quarter notes and 4 eighth notes or something. So what’s the difference between a measure that has 2 half notes in 2/2 time and a measure that has 2 half notes in 4/4 time?

[/QUOTE]

4/4 time must have the equivelent of four quarter notes per measure. That can be four actual quarter notes, eight eighth notes, two eighth notes, a half note, and a quarter note, or any other combination.

Similarly, 2/2 time must have the equivelent of two half notes per measure. And two half notes is the same length as four quarter notes.

So what’s the difference between 2/2 and 4/4? Not much as far as melody and timing goes; the real difference is in the rhythm and percussion. In 4/4, you’ll generally have a strong downbeat followed by three weaker beats on each quarter-measure, and in 2/2, you’ll have a strong downbeat followed by one weak beat at the half-measure.

6

[QUOTE=friedo]
In 4/4, you’ll generally have a strong downbeat followed by three weaker beats on each quarter-measure, and in 2/2, you’ll have a strong downbeat followed by one weak beat at the half-measure.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t mean to confuse the issue, but generally in 4/4 you also get a secondary stress at the half-measure (on beat 3).

7

Ah, so it’s the difference between BUM bum BUM bum (4/4) and BUM bum **BUM **bum (2/2, 2 measures) while I can sing “la la la la” to either.

Am I close?

But then how is 2/4 different than 2/2? The first is 2 quarter notes (or their equivalents) per measure. The second is 2 half notes (or their equivalent) per measure. So is 2/2 just slower than 2/4, because it takes longer to play a half note than a quarter note? Does the time signature tell us the tempo of the music, as well as how many beats per measure?

For that matter, does a whole note have a specific length regardless of the piece it’s in, and a half note half that length and so on? Or is the length of the note determined by the artist and/or conductor?

8

A little more info:

Often dance choreography will be based on an 8 count, making up two measures of a 4/4 tune, as it is very common to have musical “phrases” that are two measures long.

Waltzs choreoghraph similarly, to a 6 count, two measures of a 3/2 (waltz time) tune. This will be done regardless of phrasing, because you want the “one” count of every dance movement to start with the same foot, and using a 3 count sould force you to alternate
feet.
Finally, to really screw things up, it is VERY common for musicians to count tunes written in 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8 tunes as having 2,3,or 4 beats per measure. An irish jig in 6/8, for example, would require counting at around 360 beats/minute (6 per second) if you stuck to the time signiture as written. Instead, you change it to a 2 count, at ~120 beats/minute. Each beat then gets 3 eighth notes or the equivilent. This is known as “compound time”.

9

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Ah, so it’s the difference between BUM bum BUM bum (4/4) and BUM bum **BUM **bum (2/2, 2 measures) while I can sing “la la la la” to either.

Am I close?
[/quote]

So close, I wish I could cut & paste this into some of my students.

There’s no real difference between 2/4 and 2/2, or even 2/8 or 2/16. Time signatures alone tell us nothing about tempo. In a specific context, it may have particular relevance, but in standard classical repertoire you can easily find a fast 2/2 piece where the half-notes fly past, and a slow 3/8 movement where the eighth-notes are drawn out.

10

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
OK, so I think I get the number on top part, it’s the bottom number that I just can’t wrap my head around.

But 4/4 time won’t have four quarter notes in *every *measure, will it? That just sounds boring. Sometimes it might have 2 half notes, or 2 quarter notes and 4 eighth notes or something. So what’s the difference between a measure that has 2 half notes in 2/2 time and a measure that has 2 half notes in 4/4 time?

[/QUOTE]

The difference is that one called 2/2 time and one is called 4/4 time. :smiley: Actually, friedo covered it pretty well and from your last post it looks like that was helpful to you. When you figure that in either of those time signatures you have the equivalent of one whole note, in some fashion or other, the difference can be subtle to those who haven’t really studied it.

The measures are shorter.

No, tempo is a separate issue.

No, there’s not a specific length of time. There is a typical range of tempos/time lengths of notes, generally indicated by words like allegro or largo, and sometimes a specific number of beats per minute is written on the sheet music by the composer. But in practice, anything can be sped up or slowed down without changing the time signature or how the notes are alloted per measure.

I would say that what it comes down to is, those well versed in this subject can draw distinctions that may be useful to them, but to ordinary schlubs like you and me it doesn’t really matter 90+% of the time. In that sense in can be thought of as somewhat arbitrary and based on convention

11

Here you go.

Time signatures.

Tempo.

And among the 44 lessons in that series, probably anything else you wanted to know about music theory.

12

The bottom number doesn’t affect how the song is played. it affects how the song is written. If the bottom number is a 2, then a half-note represents one beat, and consequently a whole note two beats, a quarter note half a beat, etc. If the bottom number is a 4, then a quarter note is one beat, and the other notes change accordingly. If it’s an 8, than an eighth note is one beat. You can also think of the bottom number as how many beats a whole note reperesents, and calculate the other notes from that.

By the way, the rock band Tool has a lot of songs with 7 beats per measure. It can trip you out if you’re not used to it. Also, Nine Inch Nails’ March of the Pigs sounds like it has 3 1/2 beats per measure. I’m guessing they right it as 7 beats per measure, but I’d sure like to see the music written since it’s so odd.

13

I have personally never seen 2/2 written on any piece of music, its more often refered to as “cut” time, while 4/4 is often refered to as “common” time. So 2/2 is 4/4 “cut” in half. That might not make sense, considering they both have the same amount of notes in a measure (2 half notes= 4 quarters). But I will put a conductors point of view to help clarify: for 4/4 time, the conductor would usually conduct each quarter note indivdually, while for 2/2 he would conduct each half note. This does not mean that the 2/2 would be faster than the 4/4, but rather how the rhythm and flow of a piece would be. Listenening to a piece, you would probably not be able to tell the difference between 2/2 and 4/4, unless you were able catch the slight differences between the phrasings, I know I probably couldn’t.

So, yes, your example of “BUM bum BUM bum (4/4) and BUM bum BUM bum (2/2, 2 measures)” is correct.

The difference between 2/4 and 2/2 COULD be that 2/2 is slower, but not necessarily, it all depends on the tempo. Though I don’t think anyone would would write a piece with only 2 quarter notes per measure, it just seems like a very weird way to write a piece.

A whole note always equals 4 quarter notes, unless it is the only note in the measure, than it means the length on the entire measure. For example, it would be possible for a piece in say 12/8, to have a whole note in a single measure and it would equal 6 quarter notes, though it would probably be written as a dotted whole note, indicating it is a whole note and half in length, but it could be written as just a whole note and be understood.

The relationship between notes is always the same, 2 eighths=1 quarter, 2 quarter= 1 half, etc… But the tempo of the piece always determines. For example you will see terms at the top of a piece of music, such as allegro. Allegro can mean fast, but how fast is up to the conductor or performer. Sometimes, though, a the tempo can be indicate as “quarter=120” which means there are 120 beats per minute, and the quarter note gets the beat.

Hope that helps a bit.

14

[QUOTE=Sir Not Appearing on This Site]
I have personally never seen 2/2 written on any piece of music
[/QUOTE]

Trust me, it’s common enough.

15

Thank you guys (and gals, if there were any) so much! I think I finally have at least a basic understanding of it, which is so much more than I had before. I think I’ll leave the details and the more complex time signatures to the pros, but I feel like I’ve finally conquered the rudimentary theory - the lack of which I’ve been hiding from choir directors and choreographers for years! :smack:

[QUOTE=GorillaMan]

[QUOTE=Sir Not Appearing on This Site]

I have personally never seen 2/2 written on any piece of music
[/QUOTE]

Trust me, it’s common enough.
[/QUOTE]

Don’t you mean “cut” enough? :smiley:

16

[QUOTE=Sir Not Appearing on This Site]
I have personally never seen 2/2 written on any piece of music, its more often refered to as “cut” time, while 4/4 is often refered to as “common” time.
[/QUOTE]

I’m surpised. 2/2 or cut-time (either represented by 2/2 or the “C” with the line through it) was introduced to me in the first two or three years of classical piano study. It’s not exactly a rare time signature.

17

Okay, it’s time for the middle school band teacher to check in. I have been teaching this lesson all week. I have read most of the responses in this thread and there is lots of good info here. Since I teach hormonal youngsters, I’m used to teach/re-teach and using small words. I am a very visual teacher, so I draw a lot on the board. This won’t work here, but here we go.

top number = # of beats per measure
bottom number = kind of note that equals one beat

Examples: 4/4 time (pronounced four-four-time). Four beats per measure, quarter note gets the beat. 2/2 time - two beats per measure, half not gets the beat. 3/4 time - three beats per measure, quarter note gets the beat. 6/8 time - six beats per measure, eighth note gets the beat (but there’s more to this little guy).

Most beginning band kids start with selections in 4/4 and generally proceed to 2/4 and 3/4. That gets them a long way. Come seventh grade, we teach some other time signatures.

When teaching 2/2 (cut time), I begin with a warm up we have that is all half notes and whole notes. We play it normally. Then, I conduct the warm up faster. Then we go faster, still. Eventually, we’re flying through the warm up and I’m flapping my arms like I’m going to take off. I am adament that my students tap their feet when we play, so they’re ankles are sore, too. I say, “Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a way we could go fast like that without my having to pull my arm out of the socket and you wouldn’t have to have your feet fall off?” We then play the warm up at the same fast tempo, but I conduct only half as fast, effectively creating cut time. I then show on the board how I am now conducting each half note instead of each quarter note. As they pat their feet, they are only patting each half note, instead of quarter notes.

6/8 time is a whole new animal. First, I explain that we count each eighth note. 1-2-3-4-5-6. I come up with several rhythms on the board involving quarters and eighths and we count and play them. They get the idea pretty easily. I also show how you can cover up a beam (the dark horizontal line at the top of the eighth notes and sixteenth notes) and it shows how the notes would look in 6/4 time. The students usually get that pretty readily. Then it gets really fun. We start playing those simple rhtyhms faster and faster, eventually getting the same effect as the above paragraph. We get to a point where we go to 1-2-3-4-5-6 and I’m conducting the strong beats. This gets us into compound 6/8, or march time. Now, there’s two beats in a measure and the dotted quarter gets the beat. This blows their minds.

Sooooo, we use a familiar melody to hammer it home. Yesterday, it was The Addams Family. Hum it in your head. That’s compound 6/8. There are two beats in a measure and each beat is divided into three subdivisions. The finger snaps are dotted quarter notes. Da-da-da-DUM snap snap. It works.

The important thing to remember is that the relationship between the notes doesn’t change. A whole note equals four quarters, equals eight eighths, etc. It just comes down to how you tap your foot.

Reading it makes this seem so hard. If you were in my class, I’d get you doing it easy. I do this stuff all the time.

18

[QUOTE=pulykamell]
I’m surpised. 2/2 or cut-time (either represented by 2/2 or the “C” with the line through it) was introduced to me in the first two or three years of classical piano study. It’s not exactly a rare time signature.
[/QUOTE]

From the rest of his post, I suspect he meant he never saw “2/2” written as opposed to the cut-time symbol.

19

[QUOTE=Kevbo]

Finally, to really screw things up, it is VERY common for musicians to count tunes written in 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8 tunes as having 2,3,or 4 beats per measure. An irish jig in 6/8, for example, would require counting at around 360 beats/minute (6 per second) if you stuck to the time signiture as written. Instead, you change it to a 2 count, at ~120 beats/minute. Each beat then gets 3 eighth notes or the equivilent. This is known as “compound time”.
[/QUOTE]

Kevbo’s got it. Here’s a post I wrote about this from this thread a few years ago:

[QUOTE=Moe]
Actually there is a bit of a misconception about the bottom number. The buttom number is determined by the way the beat is subdivided. If the subdivisions are duple the bottom number is 4 and if they are triple it’s 8.

4/4 is counted: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

(the 3 tends to be stronger than 2 and 4 but weaker than 1).

3/4 is counted: 1 & 2 & 3 &

In the first case there are 4 beats in each measure (cycle) and in the second there are 3 and each are divided in half (or multiples of 2). A quarter note represents one beat of time and quite nicely divides into 2 eighth notes. Want 4 subdivisions? We have 16th notes for just that purpose.

But say you wanted to divide the beats into 3 equal parts? To represent that on paper you need a note that can represent a third of a beat. Well, there really isn’t a note that does that exactly. The best they’ve come up with is to use 3 eighth notes and then a bracket joining them with a little “3” above it to let you know that they are triplets. That works fine if you need it here and there, but if the entire piece has a triplet feel all those brackets will get quite distracting very quickly.

The solution is to simply count the triplets as ordinary 8th notes. Afterall, it is pretty arbitrary what you actually call the notes. By putting an 8 on the bottom of the time sig, it tells us to count each measure according to it’s 8th notes. It does NOT, however, mean that the 8th notes are the beats. In fact the beat is actually moving in dotted quarter notes (a dotted quarter = 3 eighth notes). Hence:

6/8 is counted: 1 2 3 4 5 6

There are 2 beats and each are divided into 3. Likewise 9/8 has 3 beats and 12/8 has 4, the first beat always being stronger than the others.

Let me see if I can think of some popular examples. Everyone knows the Beatles, right?

The Sgt. Pepper reprise opens up with a solo drum intro in a very clear 4/4, with the duple subdivision explicitly stated by the bass drum on beat 3. i.e. 1 2 3 & 4

Now take Norweigen Wood. You could count it in 4/4:




I        once had a girl     or should I say     she once had me?
1        2          3        4           1       2            3        4

But it’s much more descriptive of the rhythmic feel if you account for the triple subdivisions inherent in the music and particularly the vocal/sitar melody:



I        once had a  girl      or should I   say     she once had me?
**1**  2  3  **4**    5   6  **7**  8  9  **10**  11    12   **1**  2  3 **4**   5    6   **7**  8  9   **10**  11  12

Thus it is in 12/8 by my count.

(That was a coding nightmare).
[/QUOTE]

20

[QUOTE=snailboy]
By the way, the rock band Tool has a lot of songs with 7 beats per measure. It can trip you out if you’re not used to it. Also, Nine Inch Nails’ March of the Pigs sounds like it has 3 1/2 beats per measure. I’m guessing they right it as 7 beats per measure, but I’d sure like to see the music written since it’s so odd.
[/QUOTE]
Pink Floyd’s Money is the first one that comes to mind. The opening base riff is quite clearly in 7/4 time (though the time signature does shift elsewhere in the song).