10 ms·

8 time signatures

95 points by mathisonian 8y ago

aftbit 8y ago
I'm a pretty non-musical person, and time signatures have always confused me. Unfortunately, this explanation left me just as confused. I can hear the difference between the two sample beats but I cannot figure out how to generalize this to other time signatures beyond the 3/4 and 6/8 described here.
- glitcher 8y ago
  May or may not be helpful, but the way I learned it: numerator = beats per measure denominator = which note "gets the beat" 3/4 time has 3 beats per measure, where quarter (1/4) notes get the beat. 6/8 time has 6 beats per measure, where eighth notes get the beat. etc...
  - theoh 8y ago
    The denominator is not as important as the numerator. (The Wikipedia page on time signatures makes that clear) One thing about 6/8 that is not literally communicated by the notation is the rhythm: the first and fourth beats of the bar are stressed. But not equally, because that would be indistinguishable from 3/8.
    - pishpash 8y ago
      The denominator is not important at all, though there seems to be a convention of keeping the rhythm fraction around 1, so 6/8 instead of 6/4, but say, 5/4 instead of 5/8. And 6/8 says nothing about the beat structure within the 6 beats. You're stating the most common occurrence, but that's not the definition of 6/8.
      - theoh 8y ago
        You're not the only one in the comments on this article who has asserted that some pieces in 6/8 have a different pattern of stresses. So I'm totally prepared to hear about it, even if basic music theory doesn't cover those cases. The point stands that time signatures are not rational numbers (as you acknowledge, the unit of the denumerator can be scaled) so 3/4 and 6/8 aren't part of some equivalence class. They have different meanings which are only sustained by the presence of a cyclical pattern of stressed notes. So if there's some music theory you can link to which elaborates on all the possible different rhythmic patterns of 6/8 vs 3/4, that would provide examples of the distinction we both agree exists.
  - lenzm 8y ago
    Additionally, when you are listening to music the denominator has no meaning. You can hear how many beats to the bar (the numerator) but the way that it is notated (quarter note gets the beat or eighth note) is just a matter of how it is written.
  - abruzzi 8y ago
    Not quite. It is correct to say that the numerator is the count and the denominator is what is counted. So 3/4 is 3 quarter notes, and 6/8 is 6 eighth notes. However which notes get the beat is a bit more fuzzy. 6/8 is usually but not always two beats per measure, with three eighths per beat (counted 1-tee-ta 2-tee-ta) That gets to the concept of simple and compound meter. In simple meter the the beat gets divided in two and in compound the beat gets divided in three. (Complex is a mix, like 7/8 may be divided 1-and 2-and 3-tee-ta). Ultimately, the beat can be more interpretive. The 2nd movement of Beethoven’s 9th symphony is in (mostly) 3/4 but it is so fast, no conductor beats it in three, they beat in in one.
    - delinka 8y ago
      "... two beats per measure, with three eighths per beat (counted 1-tee-ta 2-tee-ta)" I've never heard this. I've only ever heard it as "1 2 3 4 5 6"
      - yesenadam 8y ago
        or 1 and a 2 and a..
- moomin 8y ago
  It's a bit strange, but here's the rule: if you can divide the time signature by 3/2 (and not get 1 anywhere), it's the same as the result, but in triplets. So 6/8 is a variant of 2/4, with 2 main beats in the bar. 3/4 has 3 beats to a bar. Or in quavers, 6/8 is Da du du Da du du, whilst 3/4 is Da du Da du Da du.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  If you really want to confuse yourself, try figuring out the time signature for Kiss By A Rose by Seal. https://open.spotify.com/track/3YKptz29AsOlm7WAVnztBh https://open.spotify.com/track/3YKptz29AsOlm7WAVnztBh
  - sparky_z 8y ago
    I'm would call that 6/8, no question. It's slow enough that the accompaniment often subdivides into 16ths, giving the immediate impression of each measure divided into two 3/4 bars. But listen to underlying drum beat, and it clearly repeats every 6 beats, so I'm comfortable calling it 6/8. I might almost call it 6/4, which wouldn't exactly be wrong (as long as you double all your note values when notating). But that's conventionally reserved for unusual beat groupings like 4/4 + 2/4.
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      Waltzes are usually notated in 3/4, and the measures usually come in pairs, which fits nicely with a rotary waltz doing a complete turn in 2 measures. 6/4 is extremely common when notating Renaissance music, btw. Although the originals are often in 6/2. Or lack bar lines, so they're X/2.
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    It's a waltz. Normally waltzes are notated in 3/4.
    - sparky_z 8y ago
      Why do you say it's a waltz? The intended audience is clearly not ballroom dancers. You might argue that anything in "waltz time" is a waltz, but then your argument becomes circular. You would be saying it's a waltz because it's in 3/4 time and it's in 3/4 time because it's a waltz.
      - greglindahl 8y ago
        I have no idea what the intent of the artist is, but it's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of rock music is in ballad meter, not 3. So this is extremely unusual music for the audience this artist usually plays for. For this piece, I think it's a waltz because it's in 3/4, at a typical waltz tempo, and it "feels like" a waltz, which is to say that the emphasis on the beats and their precise timing feels like waltz music usually does. So no, I would not argue that anything in "waltz time" is a waltz.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  It's not a math thing. It's more about feel than counting. 3/4 is ONE two three, with a foot stomp on the ONE. It's a dance beat - STOMP skip skip. 4/4 is so common it appears in a lot of variations, from the bass drum beat of EDM to all the different rock and pop variations. The usual - not infallible, but strongly suggestive - tell is how often the chords change. Failing which, there's often a unique rhythm marker at the starter of each bar. 6/8 is skiddledeediddledee - often used in folk and/or ethnic music. It's a much lighter, more skittery feel. You can generalise the /8 time sigs to 9/8 and 12/8, although they're more rare. They're often used to signify something exotic, alien, ethnic, or maybe a bit spiritual. Like this, which you've probably heard, and is in 12/8 when it eventually gets going. The clue is in the phrase length: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLnL63cXmD8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLnL63cXmD8 Exotic sigs like 5/4 and 7/4 are much less standardised, so they're open to interpretation. You can play 5/4 as 2+3 or 3+2 or 4+1. Or just as 5. Likewise 7/4 (listen to the snare): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    > with a foot stomp on the ONE How can you talk about feet stomping when that's not part of the music? Two people could chose to stomp their feet on different beats or on more or fewer beats.
    - wildrhythms 8y ago
      The term "foot stomp" is just referring to what's actually called a downbeat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(music)#Downbeat_and_upbeat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(music)#Downbeat_and_upbe...
  - jefftk 8y ago
    > 6/8 is skiddledeediddledee - often used in folk and/or ethnic music. It's a much lighter, more skittery feel. There are two common forms of 6/8 (jigs) at least in the kinds of traditional music I'm used to: single jigs and double jigs. A double jig is "skiddledeediddledee" as you said, like the song "99 bottles of beer on the wall", while a single jig is more like "humpty dumpty".
- acjohnson55 8y ago
  Beyond the basic principle of noting "beats per measure" and "note size of a beat", it's really just convention when it comes to the meter (the accent pattern). You learn the common mapping, but there are definitely exceptions.
- gp7 8y ago
  Time signatures are about writing and reading music. A beat being in 3 or 6 is independent from the time signature, which is whatever the transcriber thought best (you can always count a song in 6 in 3.) A piece in 4 might have pervasive use of triplets, so it would make it more readable to notate in 12/8 rather than 4/4, but there is no triplet-pervasiveness threshold for when to prefer one over the other. Likewise, it would be foolish to have the stress in a waltz occur on the 1st and 4th, then 3rd, then 2nd beat of the bar (this happens if you notate one in 4), but any enterprising composer would be able to thwart any rules you cared to come up with to codify that without much effort. So: the time signature just describes how many times to count within a bar/measure, and what subdivision (that corresponds to a certain notation) you are counting. For communicating to another musician the rhythm of a song you'd just drop the subdivision part, because it's only relevant to notation.
  - tmh88j 8y ago
    As someone who casually plays the guitar and piano and understands the basics of time signatures, your explanation left me more confused and almost forgot what I already know. You seem like a very knowledgeable person, but don't seem to realize that what is common knowledge to you is meaningless technical jargon to everyone else.
    - gp7 8y ago
      That’s fair, but my assumption was that someone reading my reply would also have read the others, and I didn’t want to repeat what has already been said.
  - lmm 8y ago
    > you can always count a song in 6 in 3. You would lose something by doing so; when a song is written in 6 it's because (unless someone is playing silly buggers) it has some kind of 1-2 pattern. For a lot of songs in 6, if you want to count something smaller you're better off counting it in 2s (with some level of triplet-pervasiveness).
- skywhopper 8y ago
  The full time signature is arbitrary, and partially related to how the notes are written. It's wrong to put too much weight on "6/8" vs "3/4" per se. There are conventions that have developed in western music as to which time signature matches which natural beat pattern, but there's nothing _inherent_ in the time signatures that's important. Instead, I find it useful to think about combinations and layers of twos and threes. So the different being talked about in this article is about whether the beat pattern is more of three groups of two, or two groups of three. Convention has mapped those, typically, to 3/4 and 6/8 respectively, but again that's entirely arbitrary. Likewise 9/8 time is usually three groups of three. 4/4 is two groups of two (though the second two often have slightly less emphasis, whereas 2/4 time is just single groupings of two). 7/8 is a group of three and two groups of two (could be 2-2-3, or 3-2-2, or 2-3-2). 5/4 or 5/8 is a group of two and a group of three. But ultimately time signatures are just a convenient way to hint at the beat pattern expected, and to give a framework in which to write the musical notation. The actual _music_ is not so easily transcribed.
  - jballanc 8y ago
    One of my favorite songs for helping to explain the importance and differences between time signatures is "Question!" by System of a Down (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENBv2i88g6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENBv2i88g6Y). The intro is 9/8 (as a 3-2-2-2 grouping), followed by a section in 5/4. The verses are the same 9/8, except for regular jumps to 6/8 (during the phrase "Are you dreaming?"). The chorus is 6/4, with repeats of the same 5/4 section from the intro. The bridge is a mash-up of the 5/4 again with jumps between 9/8 and 3/4 and the outro is 4/4 back to a final 9/8 section. It's not always easy to pick out what specific signature is being played at every point in the song, but the "suspended" feeling of hanging beats as the signature changes is very obvious.
  - soperj 8y ago
    Can you explain what the difference between /4 and /8 are? like for example, what is the difference between 9/8 and 9/4? I've made something up that has an 11 time signature, 2-3-3-3(or 3-3-2-3), but how do I know if it's 11/8 or 11/4?
- cube2222 8y ago
  You may be confused. I've spent 9 years in a music school, and whenever there was an exercise to tell the measure by listening to the music I've always been confused how others manage to discern 3/4 from 6/8. Or 2/2 vs 4/4 for that matter. However, I've got the hang of it in the latter years. Point being, this is something that just requires some bigger time commitment to learn. Basically you try to hear what groups of notes are "played as one". You also hear how the accents are distributed among the notes. It's easier to get the hang of it if you have to actually adhere to it when playing an instrument.
monochromatic 8y ago
Site doesn’t work for shit on mobile.
- yellowapple 8y ago
  Works fine for me on Firefox for Android (surprisingly, since a lot of these sorts of things tend to only work on Chrome). You just have to tap the things instead of hovering over them.
tgb 8y ago
Hm, not sure I like the example for 6/8 time. It's so much slower tempo than 3/4 time example that it's very hard to compare the two for me.
- yellowapple 8y ago
  Agreed. The differences are much clearer at equal BPM (or even equal measures per minute).
nerflad 8y ago
There is no difference between 3/4 and 6/8 unless you are trying to decide on which one makes your score easier to read. It's just different ways of conceptualizing the phrase. Mathematically (and therefore rhythmically) they are the same, of course. Maybe the site is trying to make some other differentiation but it didn't work at all in Firefox. (Source: I am a professional drummer)
- DavidPiper 8y ago
  This is not the case. While some inexperienced composers/arrangers/scorers may transcribe 3/4 pieces in 6/8 to make the score look better, it is a fundamentally incorrect thing to do. 3/4 has one significant beat per bar: ONE two three | ONE two three - Think any waltz you've ever heard. 6/8 has two siginficant beats per bar: ONE two three Four five six | ONE to three Four five six - Think Follow the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz, or We Are the Champions by Queen. The second down beat has less significance than the first. In this way 6/8 is like 2/4, except in triple form, not duple form. Pieces in 6/8 do not (and generally should not) feel the same as pieces written in 3/4. The only thing 3/4 and 6/8 share is the number of note-lengths that fit into a bar, which has no bearing on the feel, sound or rhythm of a piece. Sources: https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/15 https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/15 , https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/36fn1g/i_still_cant_tell_the_difference_between_34_and_68/ https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/36fn1g/i_still... , and own experience
  - pishpash 8y ago
    6/8 doesn't need 2 (or any static number of) significant beats. As long as there are really 6 rhythmic atoms before the pattern repeats, it deserves a 6/x. The easiest way that happens is lcm(2,3).
    - quadrangle 8y ago
      It's called convention. By convention (not by anything about the notation itself), 6/8 is used for compound time with 2 significant beats.
pishpash 8y ago
Site's trying to imply that any slower 2/4 rhythm subdivided into triplets can be re-written as 6/8, whereas 3/4 does not have more rhythmic subdivisions in the three beats.
- dylan604 8y ago
  When I think of 6/8 time, I think of triplets as well. Not saying triplets don't play out in standard 4/4, but I remember thinking about how many triplets were going to be in the music whenever we were handed new music in 6/8 time. I just assumed it was me making that assumption rather than it being an actual thing.
matchagaucho 8y ago
A lot of work into visualization and media on that page. Impressive. But a minor nit... I wish the publisher had done a more apples-to-apples comparison between 6/8 and 6/4. 3/4 is universally accepted to be a Waltz by composers and performers. However, there's not much consensus in the 6 and 7 beat signatures whether the notes should be quarter or eighth notes.
jancsika 8y ago
Bug: rapid calls to 3/4 get parsed as 6/8 1. Take the 3/4 example and convince yourself you fully understand the difference between 3/4 time and 6/8 time. 2. Let your ostensible understanding lead you to listen to a waltz. 3. Get familiar enough with the waltz that you can sing along with the melody. 4. Now ask yourself: does the melody sound like it divide up into groups of measures, or is the melody just freely moving around in no discernible pattern? 5. Realize very quickly that the melody divides up into groups of measures. 6. Realize that the melody very likely divides up into groups of two measures to build larger phrases. 7. Realize that many waltzes move at a rapid tempo so that each measure of 3/4 moves by quite quickly. 8. Realize that regularly recurring fast 3/4 measures which divide up perceptually into two-measure groups sounds exactly like... 6/8. This bug affects all CPUs. The only currently known workarounds are genre literacy and knowledge of notational convention.
- rhapsodic 8y ago
  My understanding is rudimentary compared to yours, but I learned (perhaps incorrectly) long ago that for 3/4 time (waltz time) you can count: ONE two three TWO two three ONE two three TWO two three and that indeed sounds more similar to the article's 6/8 example than its 3/4 example.
  - bdhess 8y ago
    That’s a common thing to hear when trying to follow the steps for a waltz (counting out RIGHT left right LEFT right left can only be correct for one partner at a time).
- LanceH 8y ago
  I just stick with 4/4 and do two lines of melody every three measures.
- tgb 8y ago
  I don't think genre literacy counts as a workaround: I think it's really the definition of what is or is not 6/8. The 6/8 time wheel gives a heavy bass drum on the four count. I don't notice such a thing in the waltz every other measure. I'm more familiar with 4/4 time due to the genres I know well, but it's a similar thing there. I used to think that the 1 and the 2 beats were indistinguishable - you can start off by one and it still repeats with period 4. But now I can reliably pick up the difference, generally by listening to where the bass drum lands versus the high hat. However I'm not as good at telling the 1 and 3 counts apart or the first measure in a phrase from the second. These are just more subtle conventions on longer scale. 6/8 and all time signatures are just notations, just ways to encode information about the song. There's a correct answer but yes, it depends upon conventions. You can call it 1/1 time if you want, but it's not going to help you play your part or dance along if the conductor tells you that.
fenomas 8y ago
Side note: If you're on Chrome and you check the JS console, you'll see that the audio for this page will stop working in October when Chrome reinstates the ill-considered audio policy they rolled out in May and then removed because it broke a bunch of sites. The audio policy in question: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-policy-changes#webaudio https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-p... HN discussion when the policy was instated/removed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079724
bitwize 8y ago
The way I understood it was that 3/4 is used to notate waltzes and other music where you are supposed to "feel" all three beats per bar, and 6/8 is used to notate music where you only "feel" the downbeats. Things like swung rhythms. Though (again as I understand it) actual swing music is often notated in common or cut time, but played as though the first eighth note of each beat is about twice as long as the second. Just to pick two of my favorite songs: per my understanding, the opening theme to Vision of Escaflowne would be notated in 3/4, while "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger might be notated in 6/8.
dylan604 8y ago
While being a marching band nerd, we always thought of 3/8 as 6/8 for the simple fact that one is always the left foot. Counting in 3/8 would alternate one to be on the right every other measure. It's hard enough to get new members to march to the right beat, but having 3/8 time was just never going to work even for experienced members
FraKtus 8y ago
I wish I could use that to better understand the beat of Pink Floyd hit "Money" that was composed in 7 / 8 ...
- jlebar 8y ago
  If that hurts your brain, try counting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKDXe0FP2wc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKDXe0FP2wc.
raverbashing 8y ago
Oh now I see. 6/8, in typical musical theory fashion, is an awful name for something like (3/4)/2 It is technically precise and in practice misses the point completely. (And don't get me started on mode names. Just don't)
- kaoD 8y ago
  More like 6/4 = 2×(3/8) but 3/8 is not a scalar because it also carries division and subdivision information, and × is a new operator that is barely similar to multiplication. ________ A time signature N/B is actually a tuple...: (division-of-N, subdivision-of-N, B) ...with units: (beats/measure, base_notes/beat, base_notes/whole_note) ...where division-of-N and subdivision-of-N are inferred from N (see explanation at [0] and table at [1]). E.g. 3/4 is actually a tuple: (3 beats/measure, 2 base_notes/beat, 4 base_notes/whole_note). ________ The × operator works like...: A × (N/B) = = A × (D, S, B) = = (A * 1 division, D * 1 subdivision/division, B / 2) ...where X is a unitless scalar. E.g. 2×(3/8) = = 2×([division-of-N-3, subdivision-of-N-3, 8 base_notes/whole_note]) = = 2×([3 beats/measure, 2 base_notes/beat, 8 base_notes/whole_note]) = = [2 beats/measure, 3 base_notes/beat, 8 base_notes/whole_note / 2] = = [2 beats/measure, 3 base_notes/beat, 4 base_notes/whole_note] = [division-of-N-6, subdivision-of-N-6, 4 base_notes/whole_note] = 6/4 ________ _UNINTENTIONALLY BURIED THE LEDE, IT'S HERE_ But honestly this just works only with traditional time signatures which follow this neat table-simple-compound-duple-triple-quadruple nonsense; for other compound N like 5/4, 7/4 etc. it won't work. E.g. 5/4 is either (2/4 + 3/4) or (3/4 + 2/4) depending on the song (can't think any of the former off the top of my head, but Mission:Impossible's theme and Take Five are representatives of the latter). It can even be (1/4 + 3/4 + 1/4). Or, like Gorillaz's 5/4 which sounds like (2.5/4 + 2.5/4) (which I'd argue is actually not 5/4 but 10/8 and the guitar definitely sounds like it). Also the lyrics+drums are actually in 4/4 so it's just a polyrhythm and both rhythms synchronize every LCM(5, 4) = 20 beats (4 guitar bars, 5 lyrics+drums bars) and in fact the macro song structure changes every 20 beats instead of 16 like in traditional 4/4 so maybe it is 5/4... or 10/8. Or 4/4 with 5 measures per hypermeasure? Or both? Or neither? It's all just implicit. It's on your ears. Listen for the subdivisions. This IMHO is the right way to look at time signatures. [0] https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/15 https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/15 [1] - N=2 simple duple - 2 beats/measure * 2 base_notes/beat = 4 base_notes/measure - N=3 simple triple - 3 beats/measure * 2 base_notes/beat = 6 base_notes/measure - N=4 simple quadruple - 4 beats/measure * 2 base_notes/beat = 8 base_notes/measure - N=6 compound duple - 2 beats/measure * 3 base_notes/beat = 6 base_notes/measure - N=9 compound triple - 3 beats/measure * 3 base_notes/beat = 9 base_notes/measure - N=12 compound quadruple - 4 beats/measure * 3 base_notes/beat = 12 base_notes/measure Notice how N=3 and N=6 share the same base_notes/measure hence the confusion.
wodenokoto 8y ago
It would have been nice with a negative example, e.g being able to play the 6/8th on top of the 3/4th piece, in a suitable tempo.
yellowapple 8y ago
I think a lot of the confusion/misunderstanding around here has to do with how folks are defining "beat"; seems like folks are defining the "beat" to be each eighth-note, when (in my experience) it's actually each quarter note, whether plain (for 3/4) or dotted (for 6/8). That is: 6/8 is approximated not by 3/4, but rather by a very-triplet-heavy 2/4. The article explains this somewhat ("one and two and three and" v. "one and ah two and ah"), but the comparisons/examples don't really do a good job of demonstrating it in practice.

95 points by mathisonian 8y ago

I'm a pretty non-musical person, and time signatures have always confused me. Unfortunately, this explanation left me just as confused. I can hear the difference between the two sample beats but I cannot figure out how to generalize this to other time signatures beyond the 3/4 and 6/8 described here.

glitcher 8y ago
May or may not be helpful, but the way I learned it: numerator = beats per measure denominator = which note "gets the beat" 3/4 time has 3 beats per measure, where quarter (1/4) notes get the beat. 6/8 time has 6 beats per measure, where eighth notes get the beat. etc...
- theoh 8y ago
  The denominator is not as important as the numerator. (The Wikipedia page on time signatures makes that clear) One thing about 6/8 that is not literally communicated by the notation is the rhythm: the first and fourth beats of the bar are stressed. But not equally, because that would be indistinguishable from 3/8.
  - pishpash 8y ago
    The denominator is not important at all, though there seems to be a convention of keeping the rhythm fraction around 1, so 6/8 instead of 6/4, but say, 5/4 instead of 5/8. And 6/8 says nothing about the beat structure within the 6 beats. You're stating the most common occurrence, but that's not the definition of 6/8.
    - theoh 8y ago
      You're not the only one in the comments on this article who has asserted that some pieces in 6/8 have a different pattern of stresses. So I'm totally prepared to hear about it, even if basic music theory doesn't cover those cases. The point stands that time signatures are not rational numbers (as you acknowledge, the unit of the denumerator can be scaled) so 3/4 and 6/8 aren't part of some equivalence class. They have different meanings which are only sustained by the presence of a cyclical pattern of stressed notes. So if there's some music theory you can link to which elaborates on all the possible different rhythmic patterns of 6/8 vs 3/4, that would provide examples of the distinction we both agree exists.
- lenzm 8y ago
  Additionally, when you are listening to music the denominator has no meaning. You can hear how many beats to the bar (the numerator) but the way that it is notated (quarter note gets the beat or eighth note) is just a matter of how it is written.
- abruzzi 8y ago
  Not quite. It is correct to say that the numerator is the count and the denominator is what is counted. So 3/4 is 3 quarter notes, and 6/8 is 6 eighth notes. However which notes get the beat is a bit more fuzzy. 6/8 is usually but not always two beats per measure, with three eighths per beat (counted 1-tee-ta 2-tee-ta) That gets to the concept of simple and compound meter. In simple meter the the beat gets divided in two and in compound the beat gets divided in three. (Complex is a mix, like 7/8 may be divided 1-and 2-and 3-tee-ta). Ultimately, the beat can be more interpretive. The 2nd movement of Beethoven’s 9th symphony is in (mostly) 3/4 but it is so fast, no conductor beats it in three, they beat in in one.
  - delinka 8y ago
    "... two beats per measure, with three eighths per beat (counted 1-tee-ta 2-tee-ta)" I've never heard this. I've only ever heard it as "1 2 3 4 5 6"
    - yesenadam 8y ago
      or 1 and a 2 and a..
moomin 8y ago
It's a bit strange, but here's the rule: if you can divide the time signature by 3/2 (and not get 1 anywhere), it's the same as the result, but in triplets. So 6/8 is a variant of 2/4, with 2 main beats in the bar. 3/4 has 3 beats to a bar. Or in quavers, 6/8 is Da du du Da du du, whilst 3/4 is Da du Da du Da du.
jdietrich 8y ago
If you really want to confuse yourself, try figuring out the time signature for Kiss By A Rose by Seal. https://open.spotify.com/track/3YKptz29AsOlm7WAVnztBh https://open.spotify.com/track/3YKptz29AsOlm7WAVnztBh
- sparky_z 8y ago
  I'm would call that 6/8, no question. It's slow enough that the accompaniment often subdivides into 16ths, giving the immediate impression of each measure divided into two 3/4 bars. But listen to underlying drum beat, and it clearly repeats every 6 beats, so I'm comfortable calling it 6/8. I might almost call it 6/4, which wouldn't exactly be wrong (as long as you double all your note values when notating). But that's conventionally reserved for unusual beat groupings like 4/4 + 2/4.
  - greglindahl 8y ago
    Waltzes are usually notated in 3/4, and the measures usually come in pairs, which fits nicely with a rotary waltz doing a complete turn in 2 measures. 6/4 is extremely common when notating Renaissance music, btw. Although the originals are often in 6/2. Or lack bar lines, so they're X/2.
- greglindahl 8y ago
  It's a waltz. Normally waltzes are notated in 3/4.
  - sparky_z 8y ago
    Why do you say it's a waltz? The intended audience is clearly not ballroom dancers. You might argue that anything in "waltz time" is a waltz, but then your argument becomes circular. You would be saying it's a waltz because it's in 3/4 time and it's in 3/4 time because it's a waltz.
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      I have no idea what the intent of the artist is, but it's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of rock music is in ballad meter, not 3. So this is extremely unusual music for the audience this artist usually plays for. For this piece, I think it's a waltz because it's in 3/4, at a typical waltz tempo, and it "feels like" a waltz, which is to say that the emphasis on the beats and their precise timing feels like waltz music usually does. So no, I would not argue that anything in "waltz time" is a waltz.
TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
It's not a math thing. It's more about feel than counting. 3/4 is ONE two three, with a foot stomp on the ONE. It's a dance beat - STOMP skip skip. 4/4 is so common it appears in a lot of variations, from the bass drum beat of EDM to all the different rock and pop variations. The usual - not infallible, but strongly suggestive - tell is how often the chords change. Failing which, there's often a unique rhythm marker at the starter of each bar. 6/8 is skiddledeediddledee - often used in folk and/or ethnic music. It's a much lighter, more skittery feel. You can generalise the /8 time sigs to 9/8 and 12/8, although they're more rare. They're often used to signify something exotic, alien, ethnic, or maybe a bit spiritual. Like this, which you've probably heard, and is in 12/8 when it eventually gets going. The clue is in the phrase length: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLnL63cXmD8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLnL63cXmD8 Exotic sigs like 5/4 and 7/4 are much less standardised, so they're open to interpretation. You can play 5/4 as 2+3 or 3+2 or 4+1. Or just as 5. Likewise 7/4 (listen to the snare): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > with a foot stomp on the ONE How can you talk about feet stomping when that's not part of the music? Two people could chose to stomp their feet on different beats or on more or fewer beats.
  - wildrhythms 8y ago
    The term "foot stomp" is just referring to what's actually called a downbeat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(music)#Downbeat_and_upbeat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(music)#Downbeat_and_upbe...
- jefftk 8y ago
  > 6/8 is skiddledeediddledee - often used in folk and/or ethnic music. It's a much lighter, more skittery feel. There are two common forms of 6/8 (jigs) at least in the kinds of traditional music I'm used to: single jigs and double jigs. A double jig is "skiddledeediddledee" as you said, like the song "99 bottles of beer on the wall", while a single jig is more like "humpty dumpty".
acjohnson55 8y ago
Beyond the basic principle of noting "beats per measure" and "note size of a beat", it's really just convention when it comes to the meter (the accent pattern). You learn the common mapping, but there are definitely exceptions.
gp7 8y ago
Time signatures are about writing and reading music. A beat being in 3 or 6 is independent from the time signature, which is whatever the transcriber thought best (you can always count a song in 6 in 3.) A piece in 4 might have pervasive use of triplets, so it would make it more readable to notate in 12/8 rather than 4/4, but there is no triplet-pervasiveness threshold for when to prefer one over the other. Likewise, it would be foolish to have the stress in a waltz occur on the 1st and 4th, then 3rd, then 2nd beat of the bar (this happens if you notate one in 4), but any enterprising composer would be able to thwart any rules you cared to come up with to codify that without much effort. So: the time signature just describes how many times to count within a bar/measure, and what subdivision (that corresponds to a certain notation) you are counting. For communicating to another musician the rhythm of a song you'd just drop the subdivision part, because it's only relevant to notation.
- tmh88j 8y ago
  As someone who casually plays the guitar and piano and understands the basics of time signatures, your explanation left me more confused and almost forgot what I already know. You seem like a very knowledgeable person, but don't seem to realize that what is common knowledge to you is meaningless technical jargon to everyone else.
  - gp7 8y ago
    That’s fair, but my assumption was that someone reading my reply would also have read the others, and I didn’t want to repeat what has already been said.
- lmm 8y ago
  > you can always count a song in 6 in 3. You would lose something by doing so; when a song is written in 6 it's because (unless someone is playing silly buggers) it has some kind of 1-2 pattern. For a lot of songs in 6, if you want to count something smaller you're better off counting it in 2s (with some level of triplet-pervasiveness).
skywhopper 8y ago
The full time signature is arbitrary, and partially related to how the notes are written. It's wrong to put too much weight on "6/8" vs "3/4" per se. There are conventions that have developed in western music as to which time signature matches which natural beat pattern, but there's nothing _inherent_ in the time signatures that's important. Instead, I find it useful to think about combinations and layers of twos and threes. So the different being talked about in this article is about whether the beat pattern is more of three groups of two, or two groups of three. Convention has mapped those, typically, to 3/4 and 6/8 respectively, but again that's entirely arbitrary. Likewise 9/8 time is usually three groups of three. 4/4 is two groups of two (though the second two often have slightly less emphasis, whereas 2/4 time is just single groupings of two). 7/8 is a group of three and two groups of two (could be 2-2-3, or 3-2-2, or 2-3-2). 5/4 or 5/8 is a group of two and a group of three. But ultimately time signatures are just a convenient way to hint at the beat pattern expected, and to give a framework in which to write the musical notation. The actual _music_ is not so easily transcribed.
- jballanc 8y ago
  One of my favorite songs for helping to explain the importance and differences between time signatures is "Question!" by System of a Down (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENBv2i88g6Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENBv2i88g6Y). The intro is 9/8 (as a 3-2-2-2 grouping), followed by a section in 5/4. The verses are the same 9/8, except for regular jumps to 6/8 (during the phrase "Are you dreaming?"). The chorus is 6/4, with repeats of the same 5/4 section from the intro. The bridge is a mash-up of the 5/4 again with jumps between 9/8 and 3/4 and the outro is 4/4 back to a final 9/8 section. It's not always easy to pick out what specific signature is being played at every point in the song, but the "suspended" feeling of hanging beats as the signature changes is very obvious.
- soperj 8y ago
  Can you explain what the difference between /4 and /8 are? like for example, what is the difference between 9/8 and 9/4? I've made something up that has an 11 time signature, 2-3-3-3(or 3-3-2-3), but how do I know if it's 11/8 or 11/4?
cube2222 8y ago
You may be confused. I've spent 9 years in a music school, and whenever there was an exercise to tell the measure by listening to the music I've always been confused how others manage to discern 3/4 from 6/8. Or 2/2 vs 4/4 for that matter. However, I've got the hang of it in the latter years. Point being, this is something that just requires some bigger time commitment to learn. Basically you try to hear what groups of notes are "played as one". You also hear how the accents are distributed among the notes. It's easier to get the hang of it if you have to actually adhere to it when playing an instrument.

monochromatic 8y ago

Site doesn’t work for shit on mobile.

yellowapple 8y ago
Works fine for me on Firefox for Android (surprisingly, since a lot of these sorts of things tend to only work on Chrome). You just have to tap the things instead of hovering over them.

tgb 8y ago

Hm, not sure I like the example for 6/8 time. It's so much slower tempo than 3/4 time example that it's very hard to compare the two for me.

yellowapple 8y ago
Agreed. The differences are much clearer at equal BPM (or even equal measures per minute).

nerflad 8y ago

There is no difference between 3/4 and 6/8 unless you are trying to decide on which one makes your score easier to read. It's just different ways of conceptualizing the phrase. Mathematically (and therefore rhythmically) they are the same, of course. Maybe the site is trying to make some other differentiation but it didn't work at all in Firefox. (Source: I am a professional drummer)

DavidPiper 8y ago
This is not the case. While some inexperienced composers/arrangers/scorers may transcribe 3/4 pieces in 6/8 to make the score look better, it is a fundamentally incorrect thing to do. 3/4 has one significant beat per bar: ONE two three | ONE two three - Think any waltz you've ever heard. 6/8 has two siginficant beats per bar: ONE two three Four five six | ONE to three Four five six - Think Follow the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz, or We Are the Champions by Queen. The second down beat has less significance than the first. In this way 6/8 is like 2/4, except in triple form, not duple form. Pieces in 6/8 do not (and generally should not) feel the same as pieces written in 3/4. The only thing 3/4 and 6/8 share is the number of note-lengths that fit into a bar, which has no bearing on the feel, sound or rhythm of a piece. Sources: https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/15 https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/15 , https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/36fn1g/i_still_cant_tell_the_difference_between_34_and_68/ https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/comments/36fn1g/i_still... , and own experience
- pishpash 8y ago
  6/8 doesn't need 2 (or any static number of) significant beats. As long as there are really 6 rhythmic atoms before the pattern repeats, it deserves a 6/x. The easiest way that happens is lcm(2,3).
  - quadrangle 8y ago
    It's called convention. By convention (not by anything about the notation itself), 6/8 is used for compound time with 2 significant beats.

pishpash 8y ago

Site's trying to imply that any slower 2/4 rhythm subdivided into triplets can be re-written as 6/8, whereas 3/4 does not have more rhythmic subdivisions in the three beats.

dylan604 8y ago
When I think of 6/8 time, I think of triplets as well. Not saying triplets don't play out in standard 4/4, but I remember thinking about how many triplets were going to be in the music whenever we were handed new music in 6/8 time. I just assumed it was me making that assumption rather than it being an actual thing.

matchagaucho 8y ago

A lot of work into visualization and media on that page. Impressive. But a minor nit... I wish the publisher had done a more apples-to-apples comparison between 6/8 and 6/4. 3/4 is universally accepted to be a Waltz by composers and performers. However, there's not much consensus in the 6 and 7 beat signatures whether the notes should be quarter or eighth notes.

jancsika 8y ago

Bug: rapid calls to 3/4 get parsed as 6/8 1. Take the 3/4 example and convince yourself you fully understand the difference between 3/4 time and 6/8 time. 2. Let your ostensible understanding lead you to listen to a waltz. 3. Get familiar enough with the waltz that you can sing along with the melody. 4. Now ask yourself: does the melody sound like it divide up into groups of measures, or is the melody just freely moving around in no discernible pattern? 5. Realize very quickly that the melody divides up into groups of measures. 6. Realize that the melody very likely divides up into groups of two measures to build larger phrases. 7. Realize that many waltzes move at a rapid tempo so that each measure of 3/4 moves by quite quickly. 8. Realize that regularly recurring fast 3/4 measures which divide up perceptually into two-measure groups sounds exactly like... 6/8. This bug affects all CPUs. The only currently known workarounds are genre literacy and knowledge of notational convention.

rhapsodic 8y ago
My understanding is rudimentary compared to yours, but I learned (perhaps incorrectly) long ago that for 3/4 time (waltz time) you can count: ONE two three TWO two three ONE two three TWO two three and that indeed sounds more similar to the article's 6/8 example than its 3/4 example.
- bdhess 8y ago
  That’s a common thing to hear when trying to follow the steps for a waltz (counting out RIGHT left right LEFT right left can only be correct for one partner at a time).
LanceH 8y ago
I just stick with 4/4 and do two lines of melody every three measures.
tgb 8y ago
I don't think genre literacy counts as a workaround: I think it's really the definition of what is or is not 6/8. The 6/8 time wheel gives a heavy bass drum on the four count. I don't notice such a thing in the waltz every other measure. I'm more familiar with 4/4 time due to the genres I know well, but it's a similar thing there. I used to think that the 1 and the 2 beats were indistinguishable - you can start off by one and it still repeats with period 4. But now I can reliably pick up the difference, generally by listening to where the bass drum lands versus the high hat. However I'm not as good at telling the 1 and 3 counts apart or the first measure in a phrase from the second. These are just more subtle conventions on longer scale. 6/8 and all time signatures are just notations, just ways to encode information about the song. There's a correct answer but yes, it depends upon conventions. You can call it 1/1 time if you want, but it's not going to help you play your part or dance along if the conductor tells you that.

fenomas 8y ago

Side note: If you're on Chrome and you check the JS console, you'll see that the audio for this page will stop working in October when Chrome reinstates the ill-considered audio policy they rolled out in May and then removed because it broke a bunch of sites. The audio policy in question: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-policy-changes#webaudio https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-p... HN discussion when the policy was instated/removed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079724

bitwize 8y ago

The way I understood it was that 3/4 is used to notate waltzes and other music where you are supposed to "feel" all three beats per bar, and 6/8 is used to notate music where you only "feel" the downbeats. Things like swung rhythms. Though (again as I understand it) actual swing music is often notated in common or cut time, but played as though the first eighth note of each beat is about twice as long as the second. Just to pick two of my favorite songs: per my understanding, the opening theme to Vision of Escaflowne would be notated in 3/4, while "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger might be notated in 6/8.

dylan604 8y ago

While being a marching band nerd, we always thought of 3/8 as 6/8 for the simple fact that one is always the left foot. Counting in 3/8 would alternate one to be on the right every other measure. It's hard enough to get new members to march to the right beat, but having 3/8 time was just never going to work even for experienced members

FraKtus 8y ago

I wish I could use that to better understand the beat of Pink Floyd hit "Money" that was composed in 7 / 8 ...

jlebar 8y ago
If that hurts your brain, try counting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKDXe0FP2wc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKDXe0FP2wc.

raverbashing 8y ago

Oh now I see. 6/8, in typical musical theory fashion, is an awful name for something like (3/4)/2 It is technically precise and in practice misses the point completely. (And don't get me started on mode names. Just don't)

kaoD 8y ago
More like 6/4 = 2×(3/8) but 3/8 is not a scalar because it also carries division and subdivision information, and × is a new operator that is barely similar to multiplication. ________ A time signature N/B is actually a tuple...: (division-of-N, subdivision-of-N, B) ...with units: (beats/measure, base_notes/beat, base_notes/whole_note) ...where division-of-N and subdivision-of-N are inferred from N (see explanation at [0] and table at [1]). E.g. 3/4 is actually a tuple: (3 beats/measure, 2 base_notes/beat, 4 base_notes/whole_note). ________ The × operator works like...: A × (N/B) = = A × (D, S, B) = = (A * 1 division, D * 1 subdivision/division, B / 2) ...where X is a unitless scalar. E.g. 2×(3/8) = = 2×([division-of-N-3, subdivision-of-N-3, 8 base_notes/whole_note]) = = 2×([3 beats/measure, 2 base_notes/beat, 8 base_notes/whole_note]) = = [2 beats/measure, 3 base_notes/beat, 8 base_notes/whole_note / 2] = = [2 beats/measure, 3 base_notes/beat, 4 base_notes/whole_note] = [division-of-N-6, subdivision-of-N-6, 4 base_notes/whole_note] = 6/4 ________ _UNINTENTIONALLY BURIED THE LEDE, IT'S HERE_ But honestly this just works only with traditional time signatures which follow this neat table-simple-compound-duple-triple-quadruple nonsense; for other compound N like 5/4, 7/4 etc. it won't work. E.g. 5/4 is either (2/4 + 3/4) or (3/4 + 2/4) depending on the song (can't think any of the former off the top of my head, but Mission:Impossible's theme and Take Five are representatives of the latter). It can even be (1/4 + 3/4 + 1/4). Or, like Gorillaz's 5/4 which sounds like (2.5/4 + 2.5/4) (which I'd argue is actually not 5/4 but 10/8 and the guitar definitely sounds like it). Also the lyrics+drums are actually in 4/4 so it's just a polyrhythm and both rhythms synchronize every LCM(5, 4) = 20 beats (4 guitar bars, 5 lyrics+drums bars) and in fact the macro song structure changes every 20 beats instead of 16 like in traditional 4/4 so maybe it is 5/4... or 10/8. Or 4/4 with 5 measures per hypermeasure? Or both? Or neither? It's all just implicit. It's on your ears. Listen for the subdivisions. This IMHO is the right way to look at time signatures. [0] https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/15 https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/15 [1] - N=2 simple duple - 2 beats/measure * 2 base_notes/beat = 4 base_notes/measure - N=3 simple triple - 3 beats/measure * 2 base_notes/beat = 6 base_notes/measure - N=4 simple quadruple - 4 beats/measure * 2 base_notes/beat = 8 base_notes/measure - N=6 compound duple - 2 beats/measure * 3 base_notes/beat = 6 base_notes/measure - N=9 compound triple - 3 beats/measure * 3 base_notes/beat = 9 base_notes/measure - N=12 compound quadruple - 4 beats/measure * 3 base_notes/beat = 12 base_notes/measure Notice how N=3 and N=6 share the same base_notes/measure hence the confusion.

wodenokoto 8y ago

It would have been nice with a negative example, e.g being able to play the 6/8th on top of the 3/4th piece, in a suitable tempo.

yellowapple 8y ago

I think a lot of the confusion/misunderstanding around here has to do with how folks are defining "beat"; seems like folks are defining the "beat" to be each eighth-note, when (in my experience) it's actually each quarter note, whether plain (for 3/4) or dotted (for 6/8). That is: 6/8 is approximated not by 3/4, but rather by a very-triplet-heavy 2/4. The article explains this somewhat ("one and two and three and" v. "one and ah two and ah"), but the comparisons/examples don't really do a good job of demonstrating it in practice.