I never got around to learning about time signartures...

  • Thread starter Thread starter kidkage
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kidkage

kidkage

Bored of Canada
I understand tempo. But I have absolutely no clue what things like "4/4" "3/4" "8/16"
"867530", etc. mean.
 
notes in a measure are broken down into whole notes half notes quarter notes eigth notes 16th notes and so on the top number is how many beats per measure and the bottom is what type of note gets the count so examples 4/4 is 4 beats per measure with quarter notes getting the count so 4 quarter notes per measure 6/8 time is 6 beats per measure with eigth notes getting the count so 6 8th notes per measure make sense?
 
Top number=number of beats in a measure

Bottom number=the type of note (4=quarter, 8=eighth, etc.) that qualifies as 1 beat for the song
 
No Offence, brother man !

one guy said:
notes in a measure are broken down into whole notes half notes quarter notes eigth notes 16th notes and so on the top number is how many beats per measure and the bottom is what type of note gets the count so examples 4/4 is 4 beats per measure with quarter notes getting the count so 4 quarter notes per measure 6/8 time is 6 beats per measure with eigth notes getting the count so 6 8th notes per measure make sense?
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Not without full stops. They don't cost much but they transform 'stream of consciousness' into 'easy to follow'.
 
Playing in 5/4 can be a bitch.

Sting recorded a song with a few measures of 15/16 in it that really had the drummer banging his head against the wall.
 
I like to include bits here and there in weird time signatures. It really throws people though, especially drummers. Because I've gone through the pieces in my head so many times, they just appear normal to me. But I can see why it fazes people. When I listen to Indian ragas, I can rarely make out where a sequence begins and ends.
 
grimtraveller said:
I like to include bits here and there in weird time signatures. It really throws people though, especially drummers. Because I've gone through the pieces in my head so many times, they just appear normal to me. But I can see why it fazes people. When I listen to Indian ragas, I can rarely make out where a sequence begins and ends.
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Grimmy, I play mostly Middle Eastern music these days and I'm a drummer. I can confuse most melodic players with some of the weird time signatures that I play. Asian Indian drummers can confuse the hell out of me with some of the weirder time signatures that they play (Ravi Shankar wrote a memorial piece of music to George Harrison that had 9 1/2 beats per measure. I thought my head was going to explode when I heard it.) :0

I commonly play 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, 7/8. 8/4, 9/8, 10/8, 11/8, 12/8, and 13/8 signatures. In standard maqams (Arabic modes), there are rhythm changes that you just have to know.

Kidkage, these are things that you are just going to have to learn. Even when you think you have it all covered, you'll make mistakes and get into (friendly) arguments with band mates about signatures. Some of the recording programs will not allow you to enter odd signatures and they can get confused when you are changing signatures within a song, so you have to count it yourself and just go with it.
 
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