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How to read music notes: Time Signatures
Music usually has two numbers at the beginning, one on top of the other. This is called a timesignature. The time signature indicates how many beats there are in a
measure
- the space between bar lines, as well as what the general pace (rhythm) of a song will be.Bar lines are vertical lines that intersect the entire stave at regular intervals. The end of a piece of music is indicated by a double bar line.The top number of a time signature indicates how many beats are in a measure. The bottom number indicates the type of note that makes up each beat.For example:4/4 - means that there are
4 quarter notes per measure
. This is the most popular time signature.3/4 - means that there are
3 quarter notes per measure.
5/2 - means that there are
5 half notes per measure.
6/8 - means that there are
6 eighth notes per measure
.There are also 2 other common things you might see where the time signature should be:Common Time same as 4/4 time.Cute Time , same as 4/4 time, but everything is cut in half. Example: a half note = 1 quarter note, a whole note = 1 half note.
How to read music notes: Basic Counting
One of the most obvious questions is how musicians know when to play. Well, its easy.. they learnto count the beats.
As you also know:
1 whole note = 2 half notes = 4 quarter notes = 8 eighth notes = 16 sixteenth notes.
Keep that in mind while looking at these examples:
Example 1
This musical fragment is written in
.T
he Time Signature is 4/4. It means -
In the first measure the whole note gets all the beats (1, 2, 3 and 4) because 1 whole note = 4 quarter notes, andthere are a total of 4 quarter notes per measure.In the second measure, each half note gets 2 beats because 2 quarter notes = 1 half note.In the third measure, each quarter note gets its own beat because there are 4 quarter notes per measure.
Example 2
In this example the "
+
" sign means "
and
". If you said 1 + 2 + ... out loud it would sound like this:
1 and 2 and3 and 4 and
Each eight note is 1/2 of a quarter note, therefore it takes
2
eighth notes to equal
1
quarter note.Think of it like this: the
1
and the
"and"
are both half of one quarter note and together they form 1quarter note.
Example 3
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