# Can you really hear the "time" of a song? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 13, 2010, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243 "2010-05-13T00:44:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/61 "2010-05-14T02:28:47Z")
No comment on the OP, which has been answered fairly thoroughly (and far better than I could accomplish)…I just wanted to mention that reading this thread has buggered up my music listening…now I’m listening to every song with an ear to figuring out the time signature…this is almost as bad as when I was playing Elite Beat Agents and turned every song into a beat pattern in my head… ---
**Author:** ![Catfood\_Purrito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Catfood\_Purrito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catfood_Purrito)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/62 "2010-05-14T02:47:26Z")
> [@gladtobeblazed](#): > > I’ve been playing guitar (mostly rock music) for nearly 15 years and I don’t think time signatures have ever been important for what I play. I’ve never once had a band member stop playing to ask “what time signature are we playing in?”. It’s never come up. > > The only place where it might be important for me to know would be if I were learning a new song, but even then, since I learn mostly by ear anyways, I would probably just listen to a recording of it to get a feel for the beat. But if you didn’t have a recording of the song, but were just looking at a piece of sheet music, the time signature would tell you at what rhythm to play the piece. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/63 "2010-05-14T02:50:16Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > The bottom number in a time signature indicates what _kind of note_, i.e., what _note length_, is being used as the basic pulse. Because our system of note lengths works by dividing any given note length in **half** to get the next shorter note–we have whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, etc.–that number will always be a power of two. (Almost always 4 or 8, just because common use has made quarter notes and eighth notes the most familiar and convenient to work with.) So the reason you can’t have 3/3 is because there is no such thing as a “third note.”(That doesn’t mean you can’t divide a beat into thirds. 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8 meters all do that in a way; so does a notation called a triplet. So an actual symbol for a “third note” is unnecessary.) You can actually have 3 in the bottom part of the time signature. Look up “irrational time signature” and have your head explode. Or look at [this fun piece of music](http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/I%27itoi7-12.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/64 "2010-05-14T03:08:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You’ll occasionally see medieval chants in a Catholic church which have no time signature. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in modern music, though. Tons of music in the modern “classical” repertoire are unmetered. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/65 "2010-05-14T03:15:26Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > You can actually have 3 in the bottom part of the time signature. Look up “irrational time signature” and have your head explode. Or look at [this fun piece of music](http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/I%27itoi7-12.jpg). Yeah, I know, but that’s kind of like bringing up _i_ in a third grade arithmetic lesson. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/66 "2010-05-14T03:28:18Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Yeah, I know, but that’s kind of like bringing up _i_ in a third grade arithmetic lesson. Yeah. I’m pretty good reading and playing odd time signatures, but I quite haven’t wrapped my head around irrational meters yet. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/67 "2010-05-14T04:06:28Z")
> [@panamajack](#): > > This is only true if all 6 beats are even. That’s not always the case, though. A good number of songs in 6/4 are three sets of 2, as opposed to 2 sets of 3, which is what many 6/8 songs are. Well there would be six beats. There could be more than six notes, or fewer. The notes wouldn’t necessarily have to land on the beats, in fact it would be odd if they all did. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/68 "2010-05-14T10:18:02Z")
I use a piece of software called _Band In A Box_ to generate backing tracks. It is all well and good, but it only supports 3/4 and 4/4 rhythms, which frustrated me no end (I score the melodies in another piece of software which is far more flexible). So for 6/8, I find a rhythm that is 4/4 with a triplet feel (i.e three notes every two beats), and run the correctly scored melody through a midi stretch tool that increases every note by 4/3, then they combine fine. Took me ages to work that one out, though. Songs with really odd time signatures (like 7/4) can often be treated as alternating 4/4 and 3/4 measures. But not always. Si ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/69 "2010-05-14T12:07:41Z")
If you’ve ever done step aerobics, you’ll know 4/4 songs because the instructor will start the pattern on the 1st note and end on the 4th to make for easy repetition. If you try to do it with an odd sequence, it’ll feel all wrong. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/70 "2010-05-14T16:44:40Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#): > > No, I’m sorry. If it is really 3 sets of two, it would be better to have been written out in 3/2. If it is in 6/4, that tells me that there are two sets of three quarter notes in each bar. Sorry, you’re right. I got 6/4 & 3/2 confused. Although I would say there’s a good quantity of 6/8 music that would not be written as 6/4, and vice versa. That doesn’t go against **Hilary N. Suze** ’s original point, however. ---
**Author:** ![JerseyFrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bcef8e/32.png) [@JerseyFrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerseyFrank)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/71 "2010-05-14T17:25:30Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > this is almost as bad as when I was playing Elite Beat Agents and turned every song into a beat pattern in my head… When you were listening to music then, did you tend to skip back on songs because your hands were in the way? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/72 "2010-05-14T20:43:20Z")
I’m a tap dancer, and tap dancers need a beat. Usually a time-step is done to 4/4 time. If it’s a slow 4/4, the movements of the dance are doubled to stay with the beat. A time step for 3/4 time is called a waltz clog, and instead of going ONE two three four ONE two three four it goes ONE two three ONE two three. Once, for fun, my dance teacher came up with a time step for 5/4 time. Mayhem in the studio! But we learned it, eventually. There is also a 6-count swing step, which also is usually done to 4/4 time, but the step itself takes a measure and a half, so half the steps aren’t starting with the beginning measure. You can tell that most popular music has a beat because people are tapping their feet, nodding their heads, etc. In the words of Count Basie, “If you play a tune and a person don’t tap their feet, don’t play the tune.” Hilarity–who taps her feet to Brubeck’s “Unsquare Dance” but not necessarily on the beat ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/73 "2010-05-14T23:36:48Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > If the question is “what is a key?”, I think there’s a simple answer that will do for a start. Most songs don’t use all the notes on a keyboard (or all the frets on a guitar), just a certain subset of them. Start on C and play a full chromatic scale up to the next C and back down again. It doesn’t sound like much. Then play a major scale, skipping over the black keys, and see if that sounds familiar to anyone. > > Why are there keys? Answering that could take years. Simplified answer: When we first started dividing notes, we divided the octave into 7 notes, each with a letter name. The actual pattern of notes was uneven. Some people wanted to the exact same song, but start on a different pitch. In order to keep the pattern the same, some notes had to be raised or lowered. We found out that, with a total of 12 notes to an octave, we could play the same pattern starting on any note. Thus, we now had the concept of a key. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/74 "2010-05-15T03:32:17Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Simplified answer: Or really simplified: they’re those white or sometimes black rectangles on a piano. Push them down and music happens. And if you push them in the right order, it sounds less crappy. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/75 "2010-05-15T10:51:32Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > “America” from “West Side Story” famously switches between 6/8 and 3/4. “I like to be in A-” is in 6/8, “-mer-i-ca” is in 3/4. And just before that you can hear the same switches in the music and the clapping. This exact pattern persists throughout the song except for a few spots, the discovery of which is left as an exercise to the listener. 🙂 What I’ve always found interesting is that that makes the “-mer-i-ca” sound like a one-bar triplet. Percy Grainger wrote a lot of stuff in some pretty odd time signatures. Ever try playing something in 2.5/4? ---
**Author:** ![grimpixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/76 "2010-05-15T12:08:42Z")
[![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR-MTqOIFzs) Sting’s “I hung my head” has always intrigued me - I think it’s a 9/8 rhythm, am I right? ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/77 "2010-05-15T13:11:24Z")
> [@grimpixie](#): > > Sting’s “I hung my head” has always intrigued me - I think it’s a 9/8 rhythm, am I right? Right, but it’s an irregular 9/8, subdivided 2+2+2+3. The “standard” 9/8 is 3+3+3, as in Irish slip jigs. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/78 "2010-05-15T13:16:25Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > What I’ve always found interesting is that that makes the “-mer-i-ca” sound like a one-bar triplet. It pretty much is. > [@](#): > > Percy Grainger wrote a lot of stuff in some pretty odd time signatures. Ever try playing something in 2.5/4? Sounds like you could pretty much treat it as 5/8 and be fine. I was learning a new piece last year (that for some reason was never performed; they just couldn’t ever seem to get all the ensemble together) which has a constantly shifting meter: 3/4 to 2/4 t 4/4 all the time with no discernible pattern. Then on one page it rapidly goes from 12/16 to 5/16 to 7/16. A bit of a headache. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/79 "2010-05-15T15:33:50Z")
I believe “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” was written in 4/4 time, and Madonna (for the **Evita** movie soundtrack) changed it to 3/4 time for more of a tango rhythm. Compare the Patti Lupone and Madonna versions of the song. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243/80 "2010-05-16T06:56:36Z")
On Pink Floyd’s Obscured by Clouds album there are two songs, Burning Bridges and Mudmen, that have a similar melody played over the same chord pattern but one is in 6/8 and the other a slow 4/4. It gives the songs a totally different feel. The melody of the 6/8 song is 3 sets of 2 per measure but the drums emphasize the first and third beats for a ONE two THREE four five six feel. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-really-hear-the-time-of-a-song/539243.md?page=5)