I recently listened to Tigran Hamasyan’s “Vardavar” and everyone is saying that it is 4/4. Something about counting rhythms. I have no knowledge of music or any of it’s terms. Please help me out on this one. Thank you so very much.
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A beat is a steady pulse (like your heart beat). A measure is a small section of song.
A time signature tells you how many beats are in one measure. The top number is the **number** of beats and the bottom number is the **length** of the beat. (The bottom fraction makes more sense when you take the top number away, using 1/4 instead of 4/4)
So 4/4 time tells you there are 4 beats in a measure and each beat is equal to 1/4 of the measure. So you have four, equally divided beats in one measure. You can audiate this by clapping 4 steady beats in a row with a bit of space between each clap: 1, 2, 3, 4.
To know what time signature a piece of music is in, you listen for what is called a **down beat**. Which is a more emphasized or accented beat at the beginning of each measure. It doesn’t change in length, only in emphasis. Like clapping harder on the first beat and softer on the next 3 (for 4/4 time). Typically, the start of new verses, bridge, and chorus all start on a downbeat.
Hope this helps! I teach middle school music, so I tried to make this as simple as when I explain it to my students at the start of each year.
The point of any time signature (4/4, 6/8, 13/16 etc etc) is to tell you how many notes are in each bar. _(Is is more true to say that it’s the simplest amount of equal length notes per bar but it’s not so important)._
The bottom number tells you how big each note (or ‘beat’) is, ie a quarter note, an eighth note or anything else divisible by 4 (also 1 and 2 are used).
The top number indicates how many of that type of note is in each bar. 4/4 implies four quarter notes in every bar. 13/16 implies thirteen sixteenth notes.
Although 2/2, 4/4 and 8/8 are very similar, they are slightly different in their ‘feel’, but there is lots to argue about this.
4/4 is the most common time signature in popular music. “Money” by Pink Floyd is worth listening to as it has 7 quarter notes in every bar (7/4) and this is quite uncommon.
This is an absolutely gigantic topic and I look forward to lots of wonderful replies and argument about it.
It’s called the time signature. This article explains it well
https://knilt.arcc.albany.edu/Time_Signatures_4/4
**TL;DR AT BOTTOM**
both of the replies already on this are really good and i’m pretty much just restating what they’re saying but here’s my take anyway
4/4 refers to the time signature of a piece and this can affect how a song sounds. 4/4 is the most common although there are many others
songs are split up into sections called “measures” (you can identify these by the vertical lines). the time signature tells you how many beats are in the measure
the top number of the time signature is the number of beats in the measure and the bottom number is how long each beat is, 4/4 would have four quarter notes per measure. To figure out how long the beat is from the time signature, think of the top number as a one (1/4) and that’s how long it is(1/4 is a quarter and if four is on the bottom, it’s a quarter note)
some other examples that aren’t the same number twice are 2/4 is two quarter notes per measure. 3/4 which is 3 quarter notes, and 6/4(which isn’t seen too too much) would be six quarter notes per measure.
but, not every time signature has four on the bottom. it can be 2, 4, 8, 16, 32(and so on although you’ll pretty much never seen anything past 16 and even 16 is kinda rare). you could also theoretically have a one on the bottom but i’ve never seen it. you could also have notes that don’t follow this pattern(like a 3) but that gets more advanced
as i previously stated, to figure out the length of the note, you can put a one on top so if the bottom hover is two, it would be 1/2(a half note), if it’s eight, it would be 1/8(an 8th note), sixteen would be 1/16(a sixteenth note) etc etc
the more music you play, the more you’ll get to learn how time signatures sound such as 3/8(three 8th notes per measure) and 3/16(three 16th notes) sounding very jaunty and 3/4(three quarter notes) which sounds like a waltz.
there are two types of time signatures, simple and compound, i won’t get into them but a simple time signature is east to just look at and play and those with **always** have a 2, 3, or 4 on the top. I will attach a link that explains more about simple and complex time signatures. (https://www.musicnotes.com/now/tips/a-complete-guide-to-time-signatures-in-music/)
**TL;DR**
music is broken up into measures(small sections of music) and the time signature tells you how many beats are on a measure. the top number is the number of beats, and the bottom number is the length of a beat(if the bottom is a 2, it’s half notes, if it’s a 4, it’s quarter notes, if it’s an 8, it’s eighth notes etc. etc.)
these will determine how a song may sound and how to play the music
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