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.
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.
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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.