Time Signatures: An Introduction

Something I haven’t touched upon on this blog yet is Music Theory. The first topic I want to begin with is Rhythm, which is a hugely important subject. As a music teacher, I have a lot of students who fixate on notes and harmony, and only think of rhythm as an afterthought once everything else is sorted. But funnily enough rhythm is one of the most important aspects of music. Try taking away the distinctive rhythm from John Williams’ The Imperial March, and you’d have something completely unrecognisable!

Today’s blog is going to focus specifically on Time Signatures.

The Basics

To begin let’s discuss what the 2 numbers mean.

This top number tells us how many beats are in a bar, i.e. what we count to. There are 4 different categories these numbers fall into: duple, triple, quadruple, and irregular. As you can see from the chart, these categories dictate how many beats are in a bar.

When counting in duple and triple, we stress the first beat of the bar. E.g. 1 2 3 1 2 3. This gives the rhythm of the piece a solid foundation to build upon. In quadruple time we still stress the first beat of the bar, but the 3rd beat also has a mini stress on it. E.g. 1 2 3 4.

The bottom number represents what type of beat we’re counting. This chart shows you which number refers to which type of beat.

For example, a 4 refers to a crotchet (a 1/4 note). Therefore, a time signature of 4/4 would tell you to count 4 crochets in a bar. While for a 3/8 time signature you would count to 3 quavers (1/8 note).

We are going to look at 3 different types of time signatures: simple, compound, and irregular.

Simple Time

Simple time is unsurprisingly the simplest form we’re going to look at. It refers to any time signature that has a 2, 3, or 4 at the top. They are very flexible, and the most widely used time signatures.

In Simple time you can divide the beat naturally into 2s and 4s. You can also divide into 3s, but to do so you have to use triplets that don’t sit naturally within the beat. For example in 4/4 (4 crotchets in a bar), we can count this bar :-

1 2 3 4 - one count per beat.

1 v 2 v 3 v 4 v - The v’s appear at the halfway point of the beat, dividing it into 2s. Note that the ‘v’ stands for ‘and’.

1 e v a 2 e v a 3 e v a 4 e v a - the e and the a cut the beat into quarters, dividing it into 4s.

It’s worth mentioning that in theory you could divide the beat into 8s and 16s, but it wouldn’t be worth it, as that kind of rhythm is rarely needed, and when used would most likely be going too fast anyway.

Now that we can subdivide our beat into 2s, and 4s, let’s put that into practice by using some simple time signatures:

In 2/4, there are 2 crotchets in a bar. So if we were to count 1 2, these numbers would represent crotchets (1/4s). If we were to count 1 v 2 v, we would now be counting in quavers (1/8s), as half a crotchet is a quaver. Meanwhile, if we were to count 1 e v a 2 e v a, we would now be counting in semiquavers (1/16s), as a quarter of a crotchet is a semiquaver. Have a look at the image on the right to see how everything relates.

Let’s now change the bottom number of that time signature: 2/2 – 2 minims (1/2s) in a bar. Now when we count 1 2, these numbers refer to minims. 1 v 2 v would be counting in crotchets, and 1 e v a 2 e v a would be in quavers.

It is vital to understand how time signatures affect the way we count. Without this understanding, it is difficult to play in any time signature that doesn’t have a 4 at the bottom.

Compound Time

Unlike simple time that naturally divides the beat into 2s and 4s, compound time divides the beat into 3s.

This leads to some interesting looking time signatures that will initially confuse you. Let’s take 6/8. As you can see from the image below, we can see 6 quavers (1/8s), beamed into 2 groups of 3. If you count the quavers, you can indeed see that there are 6 quavers in a bar, as the time signatures suggests. But it can be initially confusing when discovering that 6/8 is in fact a duple time signature (2 beats in bar), despite looking like a version of 3/4.

The reason 6/8 is a duple time signature is because each beat in compound time divides into 3. So here are the places the beats land:

Because each beat is divided into 3, this does an interesting thing to the top number of the time signature, we multiply it by 3. E.g. triple time is 3 in simple time, but becomes 9 in compound time. See the chart:

So how do we count compound time? There are a few approaches, but my way is tag on 2 and 3 to every beat.

For example 9/8 would count 1 2 3 2 2 3 3 2 3.

It is important when playing with this rhythm you have a little emphasis on each main beat, otherwise it will end up losing its shape… what I like about using numbers is that it gives the opportunity to use ‘v’s (ands), when having to divide the beat. See example:

*Here the ‘v’ represents the semiquaver beat*

The first 6 and half minutes of this by David Bennett explains compound time (specifically 12/8) very well:

Compound Time v Simple Time

As mentioned in David Bennet’s video, compound and simple time signatures can be easily interchangeable. Sometimes it’s worth trying a piece out in both ways to see which fits the feel you want to convey.

To convert simple time into compound time, you first have to convert the time signature. Both numbers need to change. For the top number, use the chart from before, for the bottom number if we’re going from simple to compound, we have to double the number, or halve it if going from compound to simple. Eg 2/4 is the equivalent of 6/8, while 3/8 is the equivalent of 9/16.

Why does the lower number double? In compound time, 6/8 might be telling us that there’s 6 quavers in a bar, but the way we normally interpret this is to think of 2 dotted crotchets in a bar (dotted 1/4s) – that is 2 groups of 3 quavers. So in theory 6/8 could be called 2/3 (where 3 represents a dotted crochet). 2/4 and 2/3 would be pretty easy to compare. But as that doesn’t exist in the mainstream, we’ll have to settle for 6/8 instead.

With the time signatures in place we then need to use dots, triplets, and duplets to switch between the rhythms. See the example below:

Simple to Compound:

*If you were to clap these rhythms, they would sound the same.*

Irregular Time

So far, we’ve seen that simple time divides the beat naturally into 2s and 4s, while compound time divides the beat into 3s. In irregular time we use a mixture of all 3! As a result we can end up with some odd looking time signatures – 5/4, 7/8, 13/16 etc!

How these beats break down is completely up to the composer. It is important to be clear with your writing, through use of beaming, to make sure the performer understands how you want it to be played. For example, 5/8 will have one group of 3 quavers (1/8s) and one group of 2 quavers. We could count it like this: 1 2 3 1 2, or 1 2 1 2 3.

Note that the first beat of the bar has the main stress, but it’s also important you can hear the other beat. Unlike compound time where I count 1 2 3 2 2 3 etc, I tend to go back to 1 each time with irregular time to keep it simpler, as they can be less consistent. There is no clear rule that the division needs to be the same each bar, but bear in mind that the rhythm will be more coherent if it stays consistent.

5/8 is just one example, but in 7/8 there are even more possibilities, like 1 2 3 1 2 1 2, 1 2 1 2 3 1 2, or 1 2 1 2 1 2 3. Try counting these examples out loud, while clapping on the 1. You should be able to hear the potential of these time signatures!

Here’s a video by the YouTube channel Reverb that has some good examples of songs using irregular time signatures:

Time Signatures in Cubase

One final thing to mention is how to program different beats into Cubase. If you add any time signature into Cubase via the Signature track, you’ll find that Cubase will automatically click to the note value of the lower number in the time signature. For example, in 4/4 Cubase clicks in crotchets, which works fine. But in 6/8 or 7/8, Cubase will click in quavers, with only a single stress on the first beat of the bar. Thankfully Cubase has a setting allowing you to choose which beats in the bar are stressed. If you look at the screenshot, there is a little plus symbol next to the time signature.

Double click on this ‘+’ (NOT the time signature), and a new box will open. This box allows you to design the click in any way you want. See the other screenshots for potential ways of doing 6/8 and 7/8, with louder clicks on the beat. You can even save your patterns, useful for more complicated time signatures such as 13/8.

That’s it for today! Hope this is helpful.

Daniel