why time signatures matter in music

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I do not understand time signatures and can not find videos that explain why they matter.

How is 3/4 and 6/8 different and would a song sound different if a 6/8 song was played in 3/4?
Why not just write every song in common time and move the measure line?

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> How is 3/4 and 6/8 different and would a song sound different if a 6/8 song was played in 3/4? Why not just write every song in common time and move the measure line?

For the same reason that written sentences use punctuation even though spoken language doesn’t *really* have it; and, why you can’t just move punctuation around willy-nilly and have your sentence make a lot of sense. Like, sure, you *can* understand what’s written down, but it takes you a bit more brain power to do it. We’ve all seen posts that are just a huge paragraph, with long run-on sentences, very little punctuation, no line breaks, etc.

Music has phrases. Music is built on repetition, alteration, and combination of phrases – similar to words building sentences. Time signatures help define those phrases. For example, almost all popular music in the last several decades is built on phrases of 8 measures.

[“Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51zjlMhdSTE) is apparently the top of the charts at time of writing. If you start counting in 4/4 time with the beat as soon as the music starts, you’ll count:

* 4 measures as the music fades in

* 8 measures of the chorus (ending on her singing “that’s that me, espresso” the second time)

* 8 measures of verse (ending with “I know I got ’em”)

* 8 measures of verse/bridge (ending one measure after “One touch and I brand newed it for ya”)

Within those larger phrases, there’s repetition of smaller phrases. Just looking at the first verse, we’ll use the lyrics to note where in the music we are, and the lyrics follow the repetition of the music with the rhythm of the words and the rhymes; but, pay attention to the music under the lyrics.

She sings:

> I can’t relate to desperation

That’s one musical phrase of two measures, 8 beats. Then:

> My ‘give a fucks’ are on vacation

That’s *almost* the same phrase repeated. The difference is she ends “desperation” by going *down* on the last syllable. With “vacation” she ends by going *up* on the last syllable. Brains like patterns. You hear the phrase, it sticks in your brain. You start to hear that phrase again and your brain goes, *Oh I know this one! I recognized the pattern, I get a gold star!* But then the music changes the phrase slightly at the end and your brain goes, *Oh, this is new! I like new things almost as much as I like patterns! This is both a pattern I recognize and a new thing at the same time!*

The third phrase follows that change with a new 2 measure phrase, different from the first:

> And I got this one boy And he won’t stop calling

And then it goes back to the first phrase again:

> When they act this way

And then change it up again as the song moves into another verse/the bridge:

> I know I got ’em

You will hear this in most songs. The verse will be: phrase, phrase but different, different phrase, first phrase again mostly. This pushes the buttons in our brains because we see the pattern, recognize the pattern, get something new, recognize the pattern again. This is accompanied by changes in the chords that go from harmony and a familiar key into dissonant key, which builds tension, and then a return to the (familiar) home key. The chorus for this song is the exact same 2 bar phrase repeated four times, which is just “Listen, brains like interesting patterns…here’s an interesting pattern made of smaller interesting patterns.”

With most music, you’ll find that the time signature lines up with this kind of phrasing, where there are 8 measures for the larger musical phrase made of smaller 2 bar phrases. Organizing that way requires the time signature to match up. By writing music this way, it’s super easy for the musician to understand at a glance how the music is supposed to flow, which parts are supposed to be repeated, which are different…how the music is *constructed*. Those musical phrases are like the building blocks and the time signature is the dimensions of those blocks.

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