Time Signatures
- Music Page
- May 8, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: May 14, 2020
Time signatures are used to specify how many beats in a bar and which note is equivalent to a beat.
The top figure shows how many beats in a bar.
The bottom figure shows what kind of note is to be used to represent the beat. The most common are:
2 = minims = half notes
4 = crotchets = quater notes
8 = quavers = eighth notes
So if the time signature is 3/4, the 3 on the top would show that there are three beats in a bar and the bottom would show you that those three beats are quarter notes. Which means that one bar is 3 quarter notes long (3/4).
A piece can change time signature from bar to bar the whole piece does not have to be all the same time signature all the time.
Examples:
Change in time signature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naoknj1ebqI
The verse is in 3/4 and the chorus is in 4/4. You can hear this change at (0:47)
Common and cut time
Time signatures were not always written in figures they used to be expressed as symbols such as circles and half circles, sometimes crossed with a vertical line, although most had disappeared out of use by the early 17th century. Except for two though in a modified form.
Referred to as Common time and means 4/4. It is called common time as 4/4 is the most common time signature used in Western music.
Referred to as Alla breve or Cut time and means 2/2. Cut time is twice as fast as common time.
This is an example of a piece going from common time to cut time.
Subdivisions
There are two ways for a beat to be subdivided in Western music. Either into 2 notes or into three smaller notes. All other subdivisions are either multiples of these two subdivisions or a complex form of adding them together.
Subdivisions can be put into 3 classifications.
Simple time.
Compound time.
Irregular time.
Simple time
Simple time is any meter whose basic note division is in groups of 2.
Examples of simple time: 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 2/2, 2/1, Common time, Cut time.
These are simple time because the whole note can be divides equally into 2 half notes, the half note can be divides equally into 2 quarter notes and the quarter note can be divides equally into 2 eighth notes.
Compound time
Compound time is any meter whose basic note division is in groups of three. If there is an 8 at the bottom of the time signature it is not going to be simple time. When there is an 8 on the bottom and a multiple of 3 on the top of the time signature the eighth notes should be
grouped in groups of three.
6/8 = 2 groups of 3 eighth notes.
9/8 = 3 groups of 3 eighth notes.
12/8 = 3 groups of eighth notes.
Irregular time
Irregular or uneven time covers everything else. The most common irregular meters mix simple and compound time together in one measure. Which means that in each measure
there are grouped in 3's and 2's.
Examples include: 5/8 and 7/8.
Since 5/8 and 7/8 have uneven and prime beats in a bar (top number on the time signature), they have to have a combination of groups of 3's and 2's to divide up the measure.
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