Like 3/4 and 4/4, 9/8 and 12/8 are triple and quadruple meters. They have nine and twelve eighth beats in each bar, but those eighth note beats can be evenly grouped into three and four dotted quarter notes respectively. Therefore it’s a duple meter.īuilding on this, we can say that 9/8 is a triple meter, and 12/8 is a quadruple meter. So six eighth notes in total, but they’re grouped into threes, creating two main beats. Why? Because when we count the eighth notes in a 6/8 bar, we don’t say “ onetwothreefourfivesixonetwothreefourfivesix (gasp for air) onetwothreefourfivesix,” we count it “one-and-a-two-and-a, one-and-a-two-and-a.” We count two beats, divided evenly into three smaller beats. Do we call it a sextuple meter? Don’t be silly, that would make sense, and this is music, where things make sense only 50% of the time and the other 50% is complete madness.Ħ/8 is a duple meter. Probably the most common time signature ever is 4/4, so that should look and sound familiar. We can call them a triple meter and a quadruple meter respectively. In the same way, 3/4 has three quarter note beats and 4/4 has four quarter note beats, each of which can be divided evenly into two eighth notes. When we count the eighth notes, we count, “one-and-two-and, one-and-two-and.”īecause this time signature has two beats in it, we can say that this is a duple meter. And importantly, the two beats can be evenly divided into two smaller beats each, two eighth notes to be precise, meaning there are four eighth note beats in the bar, grouped in twos. It’s about as straightforward as a time signature can get. (To learn all about time signatures, beats and rhythms, tonality, timbre, and everything else there is to know about musical notation, check out Soundfly’s online course, Introduction to the Composer’s Craft.) But apart from being ridiculously stupid and complex for the sake of being complex and just stupidly unwieldy, it’s not really how time signatures are actually supposed to work. Theoretically, you could have a time signature thats like 47/64. The top number, in theory, can be any whole number, while the bottom number has to be a number from the pattern 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and so on, because they correspond to a whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note and on and on. The top number ( the numerator) tells you how many beats are in each bar, while the bottom number ( the denominator) tells you what kind of note makes up the beat. If you’ve been a music student for longer than five minutes, you probably know that there are two numbers to your stock-standard time signature. These are strange days: social isolation, toilet paper hoarding, entire families reworking classics from smash musicals into contemporary Covid-19 masterpieces… Since we’re all sitting at home with nothing but time on our hands and an entire internet full of distraction, this is the perfect opportunity for us to bust out some hyper-nerdy music theory tidbits for your knowledge and enjoyment.Īnd nothing gets our educational endorphins up quicker than an in-depth explanation of time signatures. Subscribe now to start learning on the ’Fly. + Welcome to Soundfly! We help curious musicians meet their goals with creative online courses. Whatever you want to learn, whenever you need to learn it.
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