Time Signatures & Grouping
Time Signatures & Grouping
The time signature specified a regular rhythm for a song or piece of music. In this section we will be discussing time signatures and how notes are grouped in each of the time signatures to allow for better reading. There are three subdivisions in our table of time signatures, viz., simple time, compound time and irregular time.
What do the numbers in the time signature mean?
The time signature looks like a fraction with a numerator and denominator. Lets take a look at the example below, which is pronounced four, four time. The top number refers to the beats and the bottom number refers to the type of beat that will be prevalent in the piece of music. Notice that the key signature appears first and is followed by the time signature, in our illustration.
The type of beat - where do we get that?
The type of beat may be a minim, crochet, quaver, semiquaver, demisemiquaver. We learned about note types in an earlier discussion and will use them here. The American names of the note types are, the half note, quarter note, eighth note, sixteenth and thirty second note among others.
The numerator of the time signature refers to the beats in a bar or music, while the denominator refers to the type of beat.
whole note = 1half note / minim = 1/2quarter note / crochet = 1/4eighth note / quaver = 1/8sixteenth note / semiquaver = 1/16
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