mike’s music pages

In previous lessons we have discussed only 4/4 time. You learned that in 4/4 time there are 4 beats to a measure and a quarter note gets 1 beat. You learned that a measure is the space between two bar lines, so if there are 4 beats to a measure there must be notes and rests between the bar lines that add up to 4 beats.

Fig. 1

You learned that in 4/4 time a whole note gets 4 beats, a half note gets 2 beats, a quarter note gets 1 beat, an eighth note gets 1/2 beat, and a sixteenth note gets 1/4 beat. You also learned that there are rests that correspond to each note value: whole rests, half rests, quarter rests, eighth rests and sixteenth rests.

In this post you will learn about some other time signatures and how to count them.

Remember that a time signature is a fraction where the top number shows the number of beats in a measure and the bottom number shows what kind of note gets 1 beat. Figure 2 shows examples of some common time signatures.

Fig. 2

The first time signature is 2/4 which means that there are 2 beats to a measure and a quarter note gets 1 beat. Since there are only 2 beats in a measure we do not use whole notes  because whole notes get 4 beats.

The second time signature is 3/4 which means that there are 3 beats to a measure and a quarter note gets 1 beat. This is also known as “waltz time” because waltzes are written in 3/4 time. We also do not use whole notes in 3/4 time.

Fig. 3

The third time signature is 4/4 time which we have already discussed. 4/4 time is also know as “common time” and may be denoted by “c” (see figure 3).

The last time signature in figure 2 is 6/8. In 6/8 time there are 6 beats to a measure and an eighth note gets 1 beat. In the other time signatures that we have talked about it is the quarter note that gets 1 beat, but since the bottom number is 8, an eighth note gets 1 beat. This means that a quarter note gets 2 beats and a half note gets 4 beats. A sixteenth note gets 1/2 beat.

Counting music in 2/4 or 3/4 is the same as counting music in 4/4, you just don’t have as many beats. However, counting music in 6/8 is different from counting music in 4/4 because of the different note values. The example in Fig. 4 shows how to count in 6/8 time.

Fig. 4

In 6/8 time there are 6 beats to a measure and an eighth note gets one beat, so you count 1-2-3-4-5-6 1-2-3-4-5-6. I have underlined beats 1 and 4 because they are “strong” beats.

Pay attention to the dotted notes in measures 6, 7, 9 and 11. Remember that the dot extends the duration of the note by half, so in 6/8 time a half note gets 4 beats and a dotted half note gets 6 beats; a quarter note gets 2 beats and a dotted quarter note gets 3 beats; an eighth note gets 1 beat and a dotted eighth note gets 1 and 1/2 beats.