A Brief Description and Definition of Time Signatures
I was confused for so long about what a time signature was, and what information you were supposed to get out of it. It wasn’t until I went to music school that I fully understood it’s definition, and what it meant to me as a musician. You will see a time signature at the beginning of every piece of music, and most tunes (or at least most mainstream, contemporary tunes) will keep the same signature throughout the entire song (however it can change multiple times in one tune). Before you can fully understand it’s definition, I believe that you need to know some bare bones music basics. I have listed some terms below that you should be aware of before you learn about time signatures.
Staff- A set of five lines and four spaces that each represent different pitch. symbols are placed on the staff to convey musical information to the reader, including pitch, dynamic, rhythm, etc…
Staff
Barline- Vertical lines on a staff that divide music into sections called measures, or bars.
Measures Separated by Barlines
Measure- (Also known as a bar) A segment of time that consists of a given number of beats of a given duration. Every measure will be the same length until the time signature changes.
Every time signature consists of only two numbers (now there can be more than two characters in total, but only two numbers.) these numbers are known as the numerator (top number) and the denominator (the bottom number), and looks like a math fraction. Both of these numbers represent different pieces of information and, most importantly, collectively tell you the length of every measure of music until the time signature changes. It tells you this by giving you the number of beats, and the value of each beat in each bar. I have broken down both numbers below.
Top Number- Tells you the number of beats in every measure of music. This number is the easy one to understand, it’s the bottom number that gets a little confusing.
4
4
Bottom Number- The bottom number is typically defined as what type of note receives one beat of music. I think this is a bit confusing so I just see it as what note value you can put in each measure.
4
4
So in essence a time signature tells you nothing more than how many of what type of note you can put in each measure. This means that the top number can be whatever you want it to be, but the bottom number can only be one that represents a given note value. In time signatures note values are represented by their logical corresponding number, so a half note is represented by the number 2, a quarter note is the number 4, an eighth note is the number 8, a sixteenth note the number 16, and so on.
Now that we know the function of both numbers, let’s break down the most common time signature in all of music known as four-four (pictured below.) This is also known as “common time” because it is so widely used, and is represented by it’s own symbol on the staff (also pictured below.) They both mean the same thing.
Four Four/Common Time
So this time signature basically means that you have four quarter notes worth of space to work with in every measure. This doesn’t mean that you can only put four quarter notes in each measure, but just that you have the amount of space that four quarter notes takes up to work with. You can mix and match whatever note values and rests you want from bar to bar, but they need to add up to that amount of time.
The time signatures pictured below are known as six-eight and three-four, and this just meant that you have a total of six eighth notes, or three quarter notes worth of space to work with in every measure.
I hope this description of time signatures has helped you gain a deeper understanding of time signatures and their function. Please leave comments if you have any more questions, or would like any more clarification. Thanks for reading!
