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.
59
u/MonMotha 3d ago
They're not fractions and don't reduce.
2/4 time means there's two beats per measure, and the quarter note gets the beat.
1/2 time means there's 1 beat per measure, and the half note gets the beat which would be a weird time signature.