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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**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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