Time Signature/Meter Signature :: Where we divide time into various units of measurement (hours, minutes, seconds), so we divide music into beats. You can think of the beat as the 'pulse' of the music. The association of music with 'dance' is central to much of Western music and demonstrates how responsive we are to repetitive rhythmic patterns. Dancers require that dance music be regular. It should neither speed up nor slow down. This is best achieved by imitating the dancers' steps in the rhythm of the musical line. The shape or pattern of the step sequences finds itself reflected in the pattern of strong and weak beats in the accompanying music. A march, for example, imitates the 'left-right' pattern of the marchers' steps - the meter comprises two beats; the first strong and the second weak. By convention, the first beat in a bar is usually the strongest. Bar Pattern of Beats or Meter Pattern over Four Bars 1 beat bar Strong 1: S | S | S | S | 2 beat bar Strong Weak 2: S W | S W | S W | S W | 3 beat bar Strong Medium Weak 3: S M W | S M W | S M W | S M W | 4 beat bar Strong Weak Medium Weak 4: S W M W | S W M W | S W M W | S W M W 6 beat bar Strong Medium Weak Strong Medium Weak 6: S M W S M W | S M W S M W | S M W S M W | S M W S M W The regularity of the meter is imposed on the musical line by using a regular number of beats in each bar but we have to choose which note sign is going to be the beat. The time signature is written as two numbers, one set above the other, usually placed immediately before the first note. The upper number tell us the number of beats in a bar. The lower number tells us which note sign is to represent the beat. Some examples are explained below. Time Signature Description Explanation 2 1 two beats in the bar the beat is a semibreve (whole note) a bar contains 2 times 1/1 (semibreve=a whole note) 3 2 three beats in the bar the beat is a minim (half note) a bar contains 3 times 1/2 (minim=a half note) 4 4 four beats in the bar the beat is a crotchet (quarter note) a bar contains 4 times 1/4 (crotchet=a quarter note) 6 8 six beats in the bar the beat is a quaver (eighth note) a bar contains 6 times 1/8 (quaver=an eighth note) 11 16 eleven beats in the bar the beat is a semiquaver (sixteenth note) a bar contains 11 times 1/16 (semiquaver=a sixteenth note) A bar may be made up of notes and/or rests. We give some examples below which demonstrate the use of notes and rests to complete bars. In each case the total number of beats in a bar reflects that expected from the time signature. Lesson 15 discusses in detail how to distinguish simple time/simple meter and compound time/compound meter. Click here to read about how we 'say' or 'vocalise' time signatures. When we write them as text, for example when writing about time signatures, time signatures are generally written with the top number separated from the bottom by a slash, like a fraction, e.g. 3/4. While time signatures have no particular connotations as time signatures, experience shows that certain signatures are associated with particular musical forms. Time Signature Associated use 1 1 used very rarely, several times by Edward Elgar in several of his studies 2 1 cut time or alla breve, used for marches, sometimes marked 2 2 cut time or alla breve, used for marches, sometimes marked 4 2 alla breve 2 4 used for polkas or marches 3 4 used for waltzes, minuets and scherzi 4 4 common time, also marked with a large C 5 4 used for Dave Brubeck's Take Five and the original versions of the theme from Mission:Impossible 1. It is also used in classical music by Gustav Holst in Mars from The Planets; usually grouped as 3+2 or 2+3 7 4 used for numerous Genesis songs and The Unsquare Dance by Dave Brubeck and in Money by Pink Floyd 6 8 used for fast waltzes or marches 9 8 compound triple time 14 16 used by Philip Glass' Mad Rush One of our readers, Kenneth J. Nessing, posed an interesting question: "Is there an advantage, or other reason for, writing a piece in 5/4 as opposed to 5/8? There is a convention whether to notate the lower figure in a time signature as an 8 or a 4. Usually, a 4, as the lower figure in a time signature, indicates that the music is to be played more slowly than when the lower figure is an 8. The speed difference is not as great as that found in Ars Nova mensuration (with its modus, tempus and prolatio) and so we may regard this now as just a convention. So, a jig (which is a quick 3 in a bar) is usually written in 3/8, while a minuet (which is usually a slower 3 in a bar) is written in 3/4. Unusual Time Signatures and Hypermeasures :: The second movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Pathetique, begins like a typical waltz, except for the unusual feature of a five over four time signature broken into two plus three crotchet beats per bar. Click Allegro con grazia to hear the opening of the second movement. Charles Ives, in his 114 Songs published in 1922, employs a number of unusual time notations. In some cases, for example songs no 21, 27 and 30, he uses no time signature at all, while in song no. 6 he marks a time signature of four and a half over four. In song no. 37 there is no time signature or bar lines and the performer is directed to mark off the bars to suite his taste. These effects demonstrate how composers have always tried to bend formal notation to produce novel effects. Ives used this particular set of songs to explore notation, harmony and the relationship between the artist, the music and the listener. Charles Ives : Postface to 114 Songs (selections from "Postface To 114 Songs", Essays Before a Sonata, The Majority, and Other Writings) . . . . Be that as it may, our theory has a name: it is, "the balance of values," or "the circle of sources" (in these days of chameleon-like efficiency every whim must be classified under a scientific-sounding name to save it from investigation). It stands something like this: that an interest in any art-activity from poetry to baseball is better, broadly speaking, if held as a part of life, or of a life, than if it sets itself up as a whole -- a condition verging, perhaps, toward a monopoly or, possibly, a kind of atrophy of the other important values, and hence reacting unfavorably upon itself. . . . . . . To illustrate further (and to become more involved): if this interest, and everyone has it, is a component of the ordinary life, if it is free primarily to play the part of the, or a, reflex, subconscious-expression, or something of that sort, in relation to some fundamental share in the common work of the world, as things go, is it nearer to what nature intended it should be, than if, as suggested above, it sets itself up as a whole -- not a dominant value only, but a complete one? If a fiddler or poet does nothing all day long but enjoy the luxury and drudgery of fiddling or dreaming, with or without meals, does he or does he not, for this reason, have anything valuable to express? -- or is whatever he thinks he has to express less valuable than he thinks? This is a question which each man must answer for himself. It depends, to a great extent, on what a man nails up on his dashboard as "valuable." Does not the sinking back into the soft state of mind (or possibly a non-state of mind) that may accept "art for art's sake" tend to shrink rather than toughen up the hitting muscles -- and incidentally those of the umpire or the grandstand, if there be one? To quote from a book that is not read, "Is not beauty in music too often confused with something which lets the ears lie back in an easy-chair? Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason are we not too easily inclined to call them beautiful?" . . . Possibly the fondness for personal expression -- the kind in which self-indulgence dresses up and miscalls itself freedom -- may throw out a skin-deep arrangement, which is readily accepted at first as beautiful -- formulae that weaken rather than toughen the musical-muscles. If a composer's conception of his art, its functions and ideals, even if sincere, coincides to such an extent with these groove-colored permutations of tried-out progressions in expediency so that he can arrange them over and over again to his delight -- has he or has he not been drugged with an overdose of habit-forming sounds? . . . . References: The Music of Charles Ives - including excerpts from the 114 Songs The Music of Charles Ives - Exercises - showing examples of Ives' extraordinary ideas about tonality and rhythm Notation is but a means to an end. If the notation is formal nonsense then the composer's instructions will no longer have any meaning. Our task as performer is to discover the notion behind the notation. The time signature four and a half over four may be unusual but it is not nonsense. Using the information above, we realise that each bar will contain the equivalent of four crotchets plus one quaver. There is no reason why time signatures should not show more complicated groupings; for example, a group of four crotchets followed by a group of five quavers repeated over several bars might be notated 4/4 + 5/8. Rhythmic patterns like this, called odd meters, can be found in Balkan folk dance music. Time signatures compounded from smaller units, for example 4/4 next to 3/4, appear in music where the bars alternate, in this case with four and three crotchets in alternate bars. That a time signature might relate to groups made up of more than one bar has led to the concept of the hypermeasure, where the individual bars in a hypermeasure perform the same rhythmic role as individual notes in a single measure or bar. The example above, four over four plus three over four, is an example of a two-bar hypermeasure while a twelve-bar blues is an example of a twelve-bar hypermeasure. Mensuration :: Time signatures arose from mensuration, a system devised in the 13th century to govern rhythmic relationships in music. Relationships between the duration of different notes were defined as follows: The relationship between the longa and the breve was called the modus; The relationship between the breve and the semibreve, the tempus; The relationship between the semibreve and the minim, the prolatio; These relationships could be either 3:1 (perfect, or in the case of modus or prolatio, major) or 2:1 (imperfect, or in the case of modus or prolatio, minor). By adjusting these relationships and mixing them amongst each other, many different divisions of time (just like modern time signatures) were constructed. The 'perfection of 3' comes from its association with the Holy Trinity. Reference: Mensuration - An Introduction Common Time & Alla Breve/Cut Time :: In earlier times it was common practice only to indicate the number of beats in a bar. Triple metre, e.g. 3/4, or tempus perfectum was represented by a circle (according to Pythagoras the sphere represents perfection), while tempus imperfectus, i.e. 4/4, was represented by a half circle in the form of a letter C. Duple metre, i.e. 2/2, was represented by a semicircle with a vertical line. The two latter symbols have remained in use even if they now appear in a somewhat stylised form. The half circle intersected by a vertical line can also used for the time signature 2/1. The first symbol is called 'common time', representing four crotchet beats in a bar. This is illustrated in the first example below. The second symbol, similar to the first but crossed with a vertical line, is called alla breve (Italian, literally 'according to the breve') or cut time. It represents two minim beats in a bar. This is illustrated in the second example. Again, bars can be made up of notes and/or rests. Reference: Metrical Displacement and the Compound Measure in Eighteenth-Century Theory and Practice Cut time as used in dance music or jazz generally means that the music is played twice as fast as you would ordinarily expect, based on the notes. Where normally a crotchet would correspond to a beat, now the minim becomes the unit of counting. Merengue music is usually notated in cut-time; each of the "one - two" steps corresponds to a minim instead of a crotchet as might have been expected. Changing Time Signatures :: When the time signature of a piece remains unchanged it will only appear at the beginning of the first bar of the work. However, if the composer wants to change the time signature during the piece, this takes place at the beginning of the bar where the change is required, and the change remains in force until the end of the piece or until a further change is made. An example of this is given below. The Whole Bar Rest :: While, in general, every bar will contain the number of beats set by the time signature, in the form of beats, notes or both, there are two occasions where a bar might appear to have an incorrect number of beats. The first of these is where a whole bar rest, identical to the semibreve rest has been used. The time value of a whole bar rest is set by the time signature. This rest is illustrated below in four bars each with a different time signature. Where there are a number of successive bars all marked in the score as whole bar rests they may be 'collected together' when printed in an individual part. We illustrate below a multiple bar rest lasting 21 bars. Incomplete Bars :: The second occasion when a bar may not contain the expected number of beats occurs when the first beat of a work is not a strong beat and so the first bar is incomplete. An opening that begins on a weak beat is called an anacrusis, a term derived from poetry. An example of a weak beat opening is given below. It is good practice to balance the incomplete bar at the beginning of the piece with a truncated or short bar at the end. The two bars taken together should have the same number of beats as an inner bar. However, this is no more than a 'convention' and nowadays it is often ignored. Time signatures are considered further in lesson 15. Ametric Music :: One of the earliest needs for a methodical approach to musical notation arose from a desire to systematise religious chant. Guido d'Arezzo was not the first to notice that an oral tradition where the learning of musical lines passed from teacher to pupil, from choir director to choir member, would lead to the introduction of error and variation from the prescribed forms laid down in Rome, but he was one of the first to suggest how this might be overcome. The rhythmic detail in chant follows from the words and so a musical line with the words written above or below the notated line would suffice to guide the singer. There is no need to add bar lines to show a regular underlying pulse because chant, on the whole, does not have any formal regularity. In performance and conception the musical line is tied to the religious text and this is irregular. In early consort music, interesting musical effects were produced by placing parts together where the juxtaposition of rhythm in one line against a different rhythm in another made it impossible to bar both in any meaningful way. For the performer, the absence of barlines actually makes the individual part easier to play and produces a greater freedom in the interpretation of the musical line. In essence, the music is less 'vertical', less 'harmonic'; rather, it is more 'horizontal', more 'melodic'. In the twentieth century, composers looked again to ametric music as a way of freeing musical expression from the repetitive rhythmic patterns that the use of formal time signatures implies. Chant, which is generally unbarred, much of the consort music from the 17th century, and more modern compositions, where barring is irregular or absent and the music has no rhythmic regularity, is said to be ametric. During the 1930s, Messiaen took rhythmic ideas from India (deci tala), ancient Greece and the Orient and developed ametrical rhythm, describing it in a treatise published in 1944. The techniques he used included augmented or diminished rhythms, retrograde rhythms and polyrhythm, also called cross-rhythm. Michael Ball writes about Messiaen and about his approach to rhythm: "(As) teacher and lecturer at the Paris Conservatoire, he held classes in analysis, theory, aesthetics and rhythm but it wasn't until 1966 that he was officially appointed Professor of Composition. Many famous 'names' passed through these classes including Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, Alexander Goehr and later George Benjamin for whom Messiaen had a particular fondness and admiration. Perhaps the one thing that rubbed off on all these composers was Messiaen's avoidance of regular metre, citing it as artificial, relating to marches and more popular music. Messiaen supported his argument by pointing out that in nature things are neither even nor regular. For example, the branches of a tree and the waves of the sea are not even patterns. However, what is 'true' is 'natural resonance', and this 'true' phenomenon is what his music is based on." For other examples of ametric music examine Gregorian chant, 17th century consort music in facsimile (much was unbarred). Ligeti's Atmosphères (1961) or Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune.