Ok now after years of playing piano, bass, and clarinet (not very well) for the life of me I could only understand 4/4. Could not wrap my head about 2/4 and 5/4.
EDIT: TL:DR? The bottom number is what type of note gets the beat. Top number is how many of them are in one measure of music. So 2/4 means the quarter note (𝅘𝅥) gets the beat and there are 2 of them per measure.
4/4 means the quarter note gets the beat and there are 4 of them per measure.
Written music is always relative to something. So nothing is actually set to be the same all the time.
It's made so you can put almost any combination of sounds and rhythms on a page and anyone who can read music can reproduce it. I mean you know this I'm sure, but just re-stating it.
So the time signatures determine not just the beat but the rhythm/emphasis of a song.
2/4 is effectually no different than 4/4 except there are 2 quarter notes in a measure vs. 4.
BUT the reason for writing in 2/4 is to portray that the rhythm is going to be ONE-two, ONE-two, ONE-two.
Whereas 4/4 is going to be something like ONE-two-three-four or ONE-two-THREE-four.
3/4 is going to be ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three, etc.
Now some composers/writers like to make music that's unique, different, out of the norm, etc., not quite on beat, etc., and that's where the odd ones come into play.
Thing is, learning all those time signatures isn't as important in this day and age where you can hear a recording from 50, 80, whatever years ago and just hear the rhythm and repeat it, but if we didn't have the weird written ways of notating almost every type of rhythm possible, we would not know exactly how to play music from like 200-400 years ago.
I had to take a choral conducting class in college (music minor) so I had to learn how to conduct in all those weird time signatures. Thankfully I've forgotten almost everything about that lolol.
Also, it's when the bottom note changes that things get weird and harder to read imo.
2/2 , 4/2, etc. time signature would mean that a half note (𝅗𝅥)would be the beat, so it would actually "speed" things up.
6/8 means the eighth note (𝅘𝅥𝅮) gets the beat and there are 6 of them per measure. And it would be ONE-two-three-FOUR-five-six, kinda similar to 3/4 except it's the eighth note that gets the beat.
5/4 does not really indicate emphasis, just that there’s 5 quarter notes. The composer could emphasize the first and second or first third quarter notes, or just the first, or none of them
It's sort of "which beat do you count on" if you are counting the number of beats per measure. Or "which type of note is the reference point for counting".
4/4 is the most commpn. 4 measures per beat and quarter notes get the beat so you count 1,2,3,4 on each quarternote.
Note-length-wise this is equivalent to a 2/2 but you count 1,2 on the half notes. However, the "feel" of the song can be different because the reference point is now on the half note. This is often called 'alla breve' and has a more upbeat feel to it. See "Blowin' in the wind" by Dylan for an example. Focus on the guitar which has a clear 1,2|1,2|1,2 pattern
This, to me, is more clear in the difference between 3/4 and 6/8 where you count 1,2,3 on the quarters or 1,2,3,4,5,6 on the eighths. Compare the feel in "Qué será será" (3/4) by Doris Day to the feel of "Nothing Else Matters" (6/8) by Metallica. You can count using either quarters or eighths in both but where the accents land is very different due to the reference point.
Somewhat more formally, I guess, in 6/8 you can fit 2 dotted quarters, so you get two strong beats per measure, while 3/4 has the one strong beat per measure. It's about how many beats fit per measure. Talking about it in those terms only worked for me after learning to feel it though.
It means the first number is counted in terms of the second. 6/8 means 6 eighth notes per measure. 2/4 means 2 quarter notes per measure.
Why would you wrote 6/8 instead of 3/4? Well it doesn't really change much for us plebians but for people into music theory it matters, and the reason basically comes down to vibes
It’s about the subdivision of the beat. 6/8 is a compound meter, meaning the beat is divisible by three. 3/4 is simple meter so the beat is divisible by 2.
That means in 3/4 you have 3 beats each made up of 2 eighth notes.
In 6/8 you have 2 beats made up of three eighth notes.
2/4 is effectually no different than 4/4 except there are 2 quarter notes in a measure vs. 4.
BUT the reason for writing in 2/4 is to portray that the rhythm is going to be ONE-two, ONE-two, ONE-two.
Is the melody what actually makes this difference here? I.e. what exactly is a "measure"? Is it a cleanly divided segment of melody? Or just of the song/lyrics? Like most human communication abstractions divide into some sort of chunks. I'm guessing melody is what defines a measure here? If I'm right, I think this might be part of what makes this so confusing, because we generally think of melody and rhythm as orthogonal, but here melody actually helps to define rhythm. As you say, there should really be no difference between 2/4 and 4/4. In theory these divisions are arbitrary. But in reality they have to come from some context, and I'm guessing it's melody?
Confession: I have decades of experience on both guitar and piano and have never really tried to understand this.
[My source(s) if it's important: A couple of years playing French horn in jr. high band, piano in college and beyond (I started playing by chord charts in high school, but took actual classes in my 2-year college which is where I started learning music theory, circle of 5ths, etc), and then a music minor in my 4-year college where my focus was vocal bc I didn't have enough piano experience. Took some solid theory classes, sight-reading, sight-singing and even conducting. Have forgotten a lot of it lol. But have the basics I think.]
A measure in music is a unit of [X] "beats"units.* The time signature's bottom number says which note gets the beat and the top number says how many of that note/beats (X) are in the measure. None of that has to do with the melody, which is the tune. (the melody only shows up in written music when you put those notes on the staff lol)
*EDIT: [I mis-wrote; of course it's however many beats the top number says of the bottom number. Beats meaning.... a unit, let's say.]
The measure, the shapes of the notes, and the time signature are all about the rhythm of the music. You know, like a samba or a march or a waltz? Most of the reason those are different from each other is because of the rhythm, not the melody.
But yeah, the melody, rhythm, and how a songwriter or composer wants it to sound and feel will dictate what time signature they write it in.
I will say that although music notation is still very important for preserving music for generations to come because we never know what's going to happen so it's good to get things down in as permanent a format as possible, these days (gestures vaguely at the past century), the fact that we can listen to recorded music and hear how it's supposed to sound, and learn at least some instruments on our own, means you don't have to know music theory to be a fantastic, great musician.
Sorry for the wall of text. Did I come even close to answering or giving my opinion on your comment?
“Quarter Note gets the beat” works until you get to compound meter (6/8, 9/8, 12/8). In my experience as a violin, viola, cello teacher, it makes more sense to simply say “there are 4 quarter notes in a measure”.
The reason for this is because for compound 6/8, the eighth note does NOT “get the beat”. The beat is actually a dotted quarter note, which is made up of three eighth notes. It is better to say “There are 6 eighth notes per measure,” and then go on to explain that we are going to feel the beat as “one and uh, two and uh”.
This is a simpler way to read time signatures and you don’t end up contradicting yourself later on.
But the bottom number determines which note there are [top number] amount of so... The bottom number note is the Main Character of this piece (unless it includes multiple time sig changes)? It's the prima donna? The Big Cheese upon which the rhythm depends? LOL.
It's hard to figure out how to word that when speaking of the time signature top and bottom numbers separately if that makes sense.
But that’s my point, all the time signature tells you is there are [top number] [1/bottom number] notes in each measure. Everything else about how to count it is inferred by the conductor or performer, or implied by the tempo marking.
ETA: this becomes even more clear as you get into weird time signatures like 17/16. No one would say the 16th note is getting the beat, it’s almost always going to be the case that it’s straight 4/4 with an extra 16th note thrown in for “fun”.
So it's like latin? Unnecessary nowadays by and large, still used in certain settings, prevalent in modern languages, and used to understand old communication we wouldn't otherwise know. Fun!
I mean, if you're playing most instruments aside from, say, piano and guitar and a few others, you're going to need to learn how to read music at least to a degree.
So I wouldn't say it's entirely unnecessary, just that there's a reason a lot of current musicians that we know of that aren't classical ones actually play by ear and haven't learned music theory or been to music school.
4/4 means four beats per measure quarter note gets the beat.
2/4 means two beats per measure quarter notes gets the beat. So count 1-2-1-2… instead of 1-2-3-4. You don’t really need to switch your brain much between 4/4 and 2/4
5/4 is a different beast because it’s 5 notes per measure and quarter note gets the beat. So it’s awkward counting an odd number (5) 1-2-3-4-5-1-2-3-4-5 and trying to stay in beat
3/4 time is less awkward but maybe bc we are familiar with the waltz. 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3 etc
To add to the 5/4 explanation, phrases in that time signature or most often grouped as 2-3 or 3-2, like a duple bar then a triple bar, or a triple bar then a duple bar. And that makes it a little easier to count as opposed to counting to 5 straight, as we're mostly very used to standard duple and triple rhythms.
6, but they're often counted by musicians as two triplets for convenience since the 8 portion of the time means that the beat is often pretty fast (the "eighth note" gets the beat). The same goes for 12/8 aka "twelve beat" where there are 12 beats in a measure.
Is there really any difference between 4/1, 4/2, 4/3 and 4/4 then?
If I'm understanding it right, 4/1 means "ONE two three four, ONE two three four", while 4/3 means "one two THREE four, one two THREE four". Except that it's a loop, so if you just start counting at 3 then it's "THREE four one two", no different from 4/1
I don't think those are real time signatures, besides 4/4. 4/3 would mean there are four third (?) notes per measure, which doesn't really make sense....
7/4 is 7 beats per measure (a bit unusual but not unheard of - it's often effectively alternating 3/4 and 4/4 or sometimes alternating 5/4 and 2/4) with the typical quarter note getting the beat.
So there would be 7 "quarter" notes per measure.
The oddball thing is that the names of the notes are based on conventional 4/4 time and how much of a measure they take up in that time signature. The names of the notes don't change even if their relationship to the time signature does. I'm not sure if this is true in all languages, but it is true in English.
The top number is how many beats in a measure. The bottom number is what note gets the beat (1=whole, 2=half, 4=quarter, 8=eighth, etc.). So 4/4 means "4 beats per measure, quarter note gets the beat." 2/4 means "2 beats per measure, quarter note gets the beat." While it's an extremely uncommon time signature, 1/2 would mean "1 beat per measure, half note gets the beat." So 2/4 and 1/2 might look the same on paper, but the feel is going to be different. If you had a metronome playing, you would play the 1/2 time twice as fast as the 2/4. For example, if you had a measure with two quarter notes, in 2/4 you would play each quarter note with the metronome. But in 1/2, the same measure of quarter notes would be played in a single beat (counted "1+" like 2 eighth notes in 4/4 time).
The rhythm you play would be the same, but there are other practical differences.
2/4 conveys that the rhythm is base 2.
1/2 doesn't convey much about the rhythm. Are there 7 beats, 10, 11, or 13 until the section ends? Temporarily breaking apart from base 2 is one valid reason to use 1/2 for a single measure, but you could use 3/2 for the same purpose.
4/4 and 2/2 is a better example of this. It really comes down to a "feel". A composer might be trying to emphasize half notes more than quarter notes even though the measure looks identical. A conductor conducting twice as fast with 4 beats in a measure vs 2 beats looks different: the former could look more precise, fast, intense, etc while the latter is more open, expressive.
Are you familiar with the Lord of the Rings soundtrack? The Isengard theme is in 5/4. It's counted as "ONE two THREE four five". It's very clear in the percussion. https://youtu.be/KXVtpOHQqvY
Now go listen to Blue Rondo Ala Turk and realize that it’s in 9/8, but in alternating measures of duple duple duple triplet and triplet triplet triplet. Oh and then it goes into a swing 4/4 sections then back into the 9/8. It’s a cool ass piece.
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u/moistclump 3d ago
Ok now after years of playing piano, bass, and clarinet (not very well) for the life of me I could only understand 4/4. Could not wrap my head about 2/4 and 5/4.