"Time Signatures Made Easy!"
Sometimes, no matter how long you've been around music, time signatures can be a pain or tough to explain or comprehend. Even seasoned musicians sometimes have no idea how to even begin to talk about time signatures, even if they do understand the idea for themselves! Then, there are most people in general who only understand basic 4/4 count and nothing else. So, how can you possibly make these easy?!
You have to break it down! You obviously have a top and bottom number. The top number is the number of beats per measure, which is easy to grasp. If you see a 4, then there are 4 beats. If you see a 3, there are 3 beats. If you see 15, there are 15 beats! but what about that god awful bottom number that puzzles everyone? Don't get so hung up on it, all it is is the type of note that equals one beat! If you see a 4, its a quarter note! If you see an 8, its an eighth note! A 16 means a 16th note takes up one beat per measure! Not as bad as you think!
To simplify more, just count to the top number when youre counting along with your song! A bottom number of 4 should tell you not to even really think about that number at all. If its 7/4, a fairly odd time, count to 7 every bar! 1,2,3,4,5,6,7..1,2,3,4,5,6,7! Now if your bottom number is 8, its still not bad! An eighth note is one beat instead! So instead of counting 8th notes as "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7" (cause thats 14 beats..double of a 7/8!), each 8th note counts as 1..no ands! Just as in 4/4, 16th notes count as "1 e and a, 2 e and a, 3 e and a, 4 e and a", but if your bottom number is 16, they count as "1, 2, 3, 4".
The point is, rule of thumb says to count to the top number each bar, and use the bottom number as nothing more than to tell what kind of note counts as ONE! After that, ignore the bottom number and put it out of your mind unless you're counting the wrong note as being ONE!
Hope this helps, Solo Bassist Mark McAnaney
Sometimes, no matter how long you've been around music, time signatures can be a pain or tough to explain or comprehend. Even seasoned musicians sometimes have no idea how to even begin to talk about time signatures, even if they do understand the idea for themselves! Then, there are most people in general who only understand basic 4/4 count and nothing else. So, how can you possibly make these easy?!
You have to break it down! You obviously have a top and bottom number. The top number is the number of beats per measure, which is easy to grasp. If you see a 4, then there are 4 beats. If you see a 3, there are 3 beats. If you see 15, there are 15 beats! but what about that god awful bottom number that puzzles everyone? Don't get so hung up on it, all it is is the type of note that equals one beat! If you see a 4, its a quarter note! If you see an 8, its an eighth note! A 16 means a 16th note takes up one beat per measure! Not as bad as you think!
To simplify more, just count to the top number when youre counting along with your song! A bottom number of 4 should tell you not to even really think about that number at all. If its 7/4, a fairly odd time, count to 7 every bar! 1,2,3,4,5,6,7..1,2,3,4,5,6,7! Now if your bottom number is 8, its still not bad! An eighth note is one beat instead! So instead of counting 8th notes as "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7" (cause thats 14 beats..double of a 7/8!), each 8th note counts as 1..no ands! Just as in 4/4, 16th notes count as "1 e and a, 2 e and a, 3 e and a, 4 e and a", but if your bottom number is 16, they count as "1, 2, 3, 4".
The point is, rule of thumb says to count to the top number each bar, and use the bottom number as nothing more than to tell what kind of note counts as ONE! After that, ignore the bottom number and put it out of your mind unless you're counting the wrong note as being ONE!
Hope this helps, Solo Bassist Mark McAnaney
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