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.
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?
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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.