# Music Notation Question **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 25, 2010, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340 "2010-02-25T01:46:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runs_With_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/1 "2010-02-25T01:46:11Z")
I don’t know/can’t read music, so my terminology will be wrong. On the cute little lines where the notes and time signatures are, what does a big C mean…in the same area where the time signature goes? Thanks 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/2 "2010-02-25T01:55:19Z")
That’s another way of notating 4/4, aka “common time.” It means four beats (quarter notes) per measure. ---
**Author:** ![Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runs_With_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/3 "2010-02-25T01:57:00Z")
> [@choie](#): > > That’s another way of notating 4/4, aka “common time.” It means four beats (quarter notes) per measure. Thank you! Wow…“All You Need Is Love” by The Beatles goes from 4/4 to 3/4 to 2/4. ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/4 "2010-02-25T02:01:03Z")
Actually (I could be wrong but) I think I believe “All You Need…” is partly in 7/4, at least during the verses. You want lots of time signature changes in the Beatles… “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” is _all_ over the map. ---
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/5 "2010-02-25T02:50:33Z")
> [@choie](#): > > Actually (I could be wrong but) I think I believe “All You Need…” is partly in 7/4, at least during the verses. > > You want lots of time signature changes in the Beatles… “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” is _all_ over the map. Well yeah, the chorus alternates between 4/4 and 3/4, which can certainly be written as 7/4. And “Happiness”… word. In one 4-measure stretch, it goes 12/8, 9/8, 10/8, Common time. Poor Ringo! ---
**Author:** ![Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runs_With_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/6 "2010-02-25T02:53:10Z")
> [@choie](#): > > Actually (I could be wrong but) I think I believe “All You Need…” is partly in 7/4, at least during the verses. > > You want lots of time signature changes in the Beatles… “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” is _all_ over the map. This is what prompted my question. A friend asked me if it was in 7/4 time. I told him I’d look it up in my big Beatles score book. He said that adding 2/4 + 2/4 +3/4 gives 7/4 time. I haven’t the slightest idea if it works that way. I’d love more edumacation as well as discussion of their time signatures…this is fascinating. (And reminds me that I need to take a music theory class.) ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/7 "2010-02-25T03:23:50Z")
It’s usually notated as a bar of 4/4 and then a bar of 3/4. I think that makes more sense… it has a feel of of common time with missing beats. As others have said, not unusual for John Lennon. Across the Universe and Don’t Let Me Down haphazardly have bars of 5/4 ---
**Author:** ![Eureka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/74df32/32.png) [@Eureka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eureka)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/8 "2010-02-25T03:56:30Z")
> [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](#): > > This is what prompted my question. A friend asked me if it was in 7/4 time. I told him I’d look it up in my big Beatles score book. He said that adding 2/4 + 2/4 +3/4 gives 7/4 time. I haven’t the slightest idea if it works that way. > > I’d love more edumacation as well as discussion of their time signatures…this is fascinating. (And reminds me that I need to take a music theory class.) Yes it works that way. (more or less) The top number is the number of beats in the measure, the bottom number tells which kind of note gets the beat–4 means quarter note, 8 means eighth note, 2 means half note. If there are ever any other numbers on the bottom, I don’t know about it. Now, the reason I say more or less above is this–knowing how many beats there are in the measure also tells you something about which beats are stressed. Waltzes have a **1** 2 3 feel (the ones get more stress than the twos or the threes), stuff in four four time often gets stress on the first and a lighter stress on the third, and there’s a lot more subtleties than I can explain–especially in print. Funky time signatures in something like music from the Beatles _might_ be caused by deliberate writing, but is more likely (in my opinion) to have been caused by someone singing what inspired him and then someone writes it down wih painful accuracy so it can be replicated by other people. Hope that helps. ---
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/9 "2010-02-25T04:38:08Z")
> [@Eureka](#): > > Yes it works that way. (more or less) > > The top number is the number of beats in the measure, the bottom number tells which kind of note gets the beat–4 means quarter note, 8 means eighth note, 2 means half note. If there are ever any other numbers on the bottom, I don’t know about it. I’ve seen 16 and 32 as the bottom numbers, but not often… ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/10 "2010-02-25T04:49:40Z")
> [@Eureka](#): > > Yes it works that way. (more or less) > > The top number is the number of beats in the measure, the bottom number tells which kind of note gets the beat–4 means quarter note, 8 means eighth note, 2 means half note. If there are ever any other numbers on the bottom, I don’t know about it. > > Now, the reason I say more or less above is this–knowing how many beats there are in the measure also tells you something about which beats are stressed. Waltzes have a **1** 2 3 feel (the ones get more stress than the twos or the threes), stuff in four four time often gets stress on the first and a lighter stress on the third, and there’s a lot more subtleties than I can explain–especially in print. > > Funky time signatures in something like music from the Beatles _might_ be caused by deliberate writing, but is more likely (in my opinion) to have been caused by someone singing what inspired him and then someone writes it down wih painful accuracy so it can be replicated by other people. > > Hope that helps. That said, you can’t ALWAYS just add measures willy-nilly to get a time signature. Two bars of 2/4, while functionally equivilent to 4/4 in theory, aren’t always 100% compatible. Specifically is tends to go 2/4 x 2 STRESS weak | STRESS weak whereas 4/4 STRESS weak stress weak The third beat is stressed in 4/4, but often less so than the first beat of the second 2/2 measure. That said, there are exceptions both ways, but things like Marches tend to follow that rule pretty closely on 2/2. Compound signatures can be correctly expressed as 7/4 or 4/4 + 3/4, but again, you have to be a little careful about whether it’s stressed the way you would implicitly assume it is when you divide the measures. Of course, articulation markings help in any case and it’s not anywhere near a hard and fast rule for either simple or compound times. > [@DooWahDiddy](#): > > Poor Ringo! The Beatles are evil, in high school we did a Paul McCartney show and the last part of the show was Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End. It’s actually okay (even if The End can get a little fast), but there is a particularly nasty 5/8 (iirc) bar that comes out of nowhere in Carry That Weight. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/11 "2010-02-25T04:52:28Z")
> [@DooWahDiddy](#): > > Well yeah, the chorus alternates between 4/4 and 3/4, which can certainly be written as 7/4. > > And “Happiness”… word. In one 4-measure stretch, it goes 12/8, 9/8, 10/8, Common time. Poor Ringo! Wouldn’t be surprised if that was about the time he quit the band for a few days in frustration; IIRC it was also around then that Paul was telling the others how to play their instruments. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/12 "2010-02-25T04:54:31Z")
> [@K364](#): > > It’s usually notated as a bar of 4/4 and then a bar of 3/4. I think that makes more sense… it has a feel of of common time with missing beats. As others have said, not unusual for John Lennon. > > Across the Universe and Don’t Let Me Down haphazardly have bars of 5/4 Yeah, I think of it as 4/4 and 3/4, rather than 7/4. A better example of 7/4 is Pink Floyd’s “Money.” As for wacky time signatures in the Beatles, you can also look to “Here Comes the Sun,” which has 11/8 to 4/4 to 7/8 in the bridge “sun, sun, sun/here it comes.” ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/13 "2010-02-25T05:01:22Z")
> [@DooWahDiddy](#): > > I’ve seen 16 and 32 as the bottom numbers, but not often… I’ve seen 64, too. But, as I’ve learned here, there are also so-called “irrational” time signatures, where I’ve seen 5, 6, 10, 12, 24, and the such as the bottom numbers. It’s not something I’ve come across in any music I’ve played, but it does exist. ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/14 "2010-02-25T05:02:50Z")
> [@Eureka](#): > > The top number is the number of beats in the measure, the bottom number tells which kind of note gets the beat–4 means quarter note, 8 means eighth note, 2 means half note. If there are ever any other numbers on the bottom, I don’t know about it. Nitpick; generally if the bottom number is 8 and the top number is more than 4, the eighth note doesn’t get the beat. Instead, it’s either a compound or complex meter. So 6/8 is actually two beats where the the dotted quarter gets the beat (9/8 is three beats, 12/8 four). 5/8 is a two beat pattern where one beat is slightly longer than the other (one set of three eighths and one of two). 7/8 has three beats: two sets of two and one of three. 8/8 is generally three beats: two sets of three and one of two. I’ve also seen 9/8 where there are four beats in the measure: three beats of two and one of three. The same can be said of meter signatures with 16 at the bottom, although they’re comparatively rare. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/15 "2010-02-25T05:05:47Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > That said, you can’t ALWAYS just add measures willy-nilly to get a time signature. Two bars of 2/4, while functionally equivilent to 4/4 in theory, aren’t always 100% compatible. Specifically is tends to go > > 2/4 x 2 > STRESS weak | STRESS weak > whereas 4/4 > STRESS weak stress weak Though in popular music, isn’t it often weak/STRESS/weak/STRESS? I read somewhere that this is essentially characteristic of a lot of African-American music, e.g. blues, R&B, etc. In a lot of early R&B this gives it a swing which was generally toned down by white musicians when they covered it. Even with Chuck Berry, who’s usually thought of as a sort of crossover rather than R&B I notice it. Berry sings, Roll OVER ,Bee THOVen, Roll OVER Bee-THOVEN which sounds to me like he’s stressing the 2 and 4, though I have to admit that I may be counting from the wrong point. George Harrison stresses the ROLL a lot more than Berry did in the original; I wouldn’t say he completely changes it to the 1 and 3, but I sure don’t notice the 2 and 4 stress as much, in the Beatles’ version. > [@](#): > > The third beat is stressed in 4/4, but often less so than the first beat of the second 2/2 measure. That said, there are exceptions both ways, but things like Marches tend to follow that rule pretty closely on 2/2. > > Compound signatures can be correctly expressed as 7/4 or 4/4 + 3/4, but again, you have to be a little careful about whether it’s stressed the way you would implicitly assume it is when you divide the measures. Of course, articulation markings help in any case and it’s not anywhere near a hard and fast rule for either simple or compound times. > > The Beatles are evil, in high school we did a Paul McCartney show and the last part of the show was Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End. It’s actually okay (even if The End can get a little fast), but there is a particularly nasty 5/8 (iirc) bar that comes out of nowhere in Carry That Weight. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/16 "2010-02-25T05:44:45Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Though in popular music, isn’t it often weak/STRESS/weak/STRESS? I read somewhere that this is essentially characteristic of a lot of African-American music, e.g. blues, R&B, etc. In a lot of early R&B this gives it a swing which was generally toned down by white musicians when they covered it. Even with Chuck Berry, who’s usually thought of as a sort of crossover rather than R&B I notice it. Berry sings, > > Roll OVER ,Bee THOVen, Roll OVER Bee-THOVEN > > which sounds to me like he’s stressing the 2 and 4, though I have to admit that I may be counting from the wrong point. > > George Harrison stresses the ROLL a lot more than Berry did in the original; I wouldn’t say he completely changes it to the 1 and 3, but I sure don’t notice the 2 and 4 stress as much, in the Beatles’ version. Depends on how you define “popular music.” I know various Jazz subsets do it, I’m not familiar enough with R&B to really say. Rock (and metal) especially tends to drift between the zones of popular music and symphonic music in terms of a lot of stuff, in my observation at least. Sometimes within the same song. The Beatles like to drift quite a bit, I can hear a couple songs in my head that I can’t name offhand that definitely stress the second beat, but at the same time a lot of their songs (She’s Leaving Home, for instance, but I think that’s in 3 so not a good example) are very much in the “regular” stress pattern. I’ve also noticed that sometimes while the first beat is stressed musically, the second beat is “highlighted” by a hi-hat hit or something, and that can be confusing. Now if you really want confusion on stress, let’s start talking about hemiola. Oh, and polyrhytms are even more fun. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/17 "2010-02-25T05:46:24Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > Nitpick; generally if the bottom number is 8 and the top number is more than 4, the eighth note doesn’t get the beat. Instead, it’s either a compound or complex meter. So 6/8 is actually two beats where the the dotted quarter gets the beat (9/8 is three beats, 12/8 four). 5/8 is a two beat pattern where one beat is slightly longer than the other (one set of three eighths and one of two). 7/8 has three beats: two sets of two and one of three. 8/8 is generally three beats: two sets of three and one of two. Sure, 6/8 has two main beats, but I believe what **Eureka** is trying to say is that in 6/8, a measure is the length of 6 eighth notes. In 7/8, a measure’s length is equivalent to 7 eighth notes. And so on. ---
**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:** [February 25, 2010, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/18 "2010-02-25T05:51:55Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Though in popular music, isn’t it often weak/STRESS/weak/STRESS? Yes, in pop music (such as rock, r&b, etc.) the backbeat (2 & 4 in 4/4 time–where the snare hits fall) is the beat that’s stressed, rather than the 1 & 3. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/19 "2010-02-25T06:27:28Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > I’ve also noticed that sometimes while the first beat is stressed musically, the seond beat is “highlighted” by a hi-hat hit or something, and that can be confusing. Something similar often happens in ragtime. The typical “oom-pah” bass line can give either a ONE/two ONE/two (most ragtime is 2/4), or one/TWO/one/TWO, depending on a number of factors. But rhythmic or dynamic variation in the right hand provides a contrasting emphasis on the twos (when not actually syncopated). ---
**Author:** ![DooWahDiddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2010, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340/20 "2010-02-25T07:02:49Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > The Beatles are evil, in high school we did a Paul McCartney show and the last part of the show was Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End. It’s actually okay (even if The End can get a little fast), but there is a particularly nasty 5/8 (iirc) bar that comes out of nowhere in Carry That Weight. Hmm, strange, I’m not hearing that 5/8 measure and it’s not in the score either. “The End” briefly goes to 3/8… is that possibly what you’re thinking of? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-notation-question/530340.md?page=2)