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TIME SIGNATURES are all about keeping steady time.

All music has a TIME SIGNATURE.

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The TIME SIGNATURE tells the musicians how the composer wants the musical piece to be counted.

Before we go any further we need to talk about some language.

Many music books use the terms whole, half, and quarter when naming notes.

Other music books use the terms whole, 1/2, and 1/4 when naming notes.

Still, I've seen music books using both terms interchangeably.

We believe in Clarity!!!

Although both ways of writing are correct, we decided to be consistent with the use of fractions - whole, 1/2, 1/4 notes. Why? Because music and rhythm incorporates the use of math, so our decision is to explain topics from a math point of view.

It will make things easier to understand and clearer.

The most standard time signature used today is 4/4 and it is written as below.

The time signature is written at the beginning of a musical piece, in the first measure.

If we were to count four measures of 4/4, it would be counted like this.

All you do is count up to 4 and repeat. Now don’t forget the first part of this lesson, TEMPO. The count is at a steady repeatable tempo. Listen again and count with it.

The numbers in the TIME SIGNATURE tell us two things:

The top number tells us the number of beats in a measure,

... and

The bottom number tells us what note value gets one beat. Let's look at it below.

Here is a different way to look at it. Remember in math class when we studied fractions? Sure you do. Look at it as a fraction.

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The bottom number is the important one. It tells us what type of note gets one beat in the measure.

When you see,

see this:

First, don’t pay attention to the top number. In your head, cross it out, and make it the number 1. Yes, the number 1.

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Now you clearly see we are talking about, one quarter (1/4). We know that 1/4 represents one quarter in math so … in music, it must also represent one quarter, in the case of music it means a 1/4 note.

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Now we can take the top number 4 and say, “Ohh, the top number represents how many 1/4 notes are in a measure.” It’s 4! I get it, four 1/4 notes per measure. That's why the audio count we listened to counted 1, 2, 3, 4 then repeated. Four 1/4 notes per measure.

This is a 1/4 note

and there are four 1/4 notes in one measure. So one measure of 1/4 notes would look like this.

Let's listen to some music written in 4/4.

Below is an uptempo song written in 4/4 time signature.

The song has a steady tempo. Let's practice counting the tempo of the song without the music track. C'mon count with me. It's a good habit and it helps to get the beat in you.

Now that we have practiced counting the rhythm, let's count with the music track.

There are other time signatures besides 4/4.

The top number tells us the number of beats in a measure,

...and

2. The bottom number tells us what note value gets one beat. Let's look at it below.

Here is a different way to look at it. Remember in math class when we studied fractions? Sure you do. Look at it as a fraction.

🤔

The bottom number is the important one. It tells us what type of note gets one beat in the measure.

When we see:

see this:

Don’t pay attention to the top number. In your head, cross it out, and make it the number 1.

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Now we clearly see what we are talking about, one eighth (1/8). We know that 1/8 represents one eighth in math so … in music, it must also represent one eighth. In the case of music it means an 1/8 note.

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Now we can take the top number 6 and say, “Ohh, the top number represents how many 1/8 notes in a measure.” It’s 6! I get it, six 1/8 notes per measure.

This is an 1/8 note