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?
In: Other
Because humans are usually the ones playing the music. Musicians “feel” musical phrases and grooves in regular sets of beats and time signatures help them play the rhythms and phrases the way the composer intended.
Time signatures not only give beats per measure but also timing per beat. So a 6/8 is essentially 6 eighth notes per measure. A 4/4 is 4 quarter notes per measure. But also important is beat emphasis. (strong/medium/weak)
4/4 is commonly played as strong – weak – medium – weak. (ONE two Three four)
3/4 is commonly played as strong – weak – weak (waltz) (ONE two three)
6/8 is commonly played as strong – weak – medium – weak – medium – weak (sounds like 3 “pairs” in a measure)
Each time signature conveys a different intent from the songwriter/arranger to the performer. This might mean less to a soloist who can freely modify their approach but in groups, having all the players coordinate their emphasis is quite crucial or the outcome sounds disjointed.
Then, for more advanced styles, a musician can swing or syncopate certain counts in the time signature.
Although the time signature alone doesn’t tell you this, there is an unwritten rule that 3/8, 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8 all have 3 eight notes per beat. While 3/4 and 6/8 might have the same number of eight notes, 6/8 has two beats that are longer than the same measure written in 3/4.
Take a look at [Bernstein’s America](https://youtu.be/Z0SAgRSXdqQ?si=blqIY4WHwd1wj6ZJ) just after the 1 minute mark. It transitions from 6/8 to 3/4 every other measure. In fact, to simplify the notation the time signature is written 6/8(3/4) once at the beginning of the section.
In 3/4 time, there’s a major beat and two lesser beats, then the pattern repeats.
In 6/8 time, there’s one major group and one lesser one, and in part of the song each of them may be subdivided in thirds.
>why not just move the measure line?
Generally the first beat of a measure gets more emphasis. Moving the measure line would move that emphasis.
When it comes to just math, it’s true there’s no difference between 3/4 and 6/8.
In practice, the time signature is a hint about where the emphasis *generally* belongs in musical phrases.
I say “hint” and “generally” because it’s not a strict rule and there’s always room for the composer and musician to make different artistic choices.
—
In theory, you could play a 6/8 song “in 3/4” by subtly emphasizing beats 1, 3 and 5 rather than beats 1 and 4:
ONE two THREE four FIVE six
vs
ONE two three FOUR five six
But you’d probably feel like the music was fighting you. Having that feeling or intuition means you actually do understand time signatures, you just couldn’t explain them before.
Writing music is not dissimilar from writing spoken language. Faithfully representing the sounds is important, but it’s not the only aspect that matters. For example, you can
technically insert a line break anywhere you want without changing the meaning of a text, but it would be confusing to the reader to in-
-sert a line break in the middle of a sentence or even a word.
Similarly, the time signature in music helps keep the formatting and “punctuation” of the music sensible. Sometimes this is obvious – if a song has a 3/4 feeling but is written in 4/4, you will frequently have phrases extending over the measure line in a way that requires awkward notation.* Sometimes it’s more subtle. Both 6/8 and 3/4 can have a triplet feeling, but they put different emphasis on different beats.
*To get technical on this point, consider a repeated phrase of one quarter note followed by one half note. In 3/4 time, it is obvious how this phrase repeats. Each bar will have the same metrical pattern. In 4/4, you would instead get the following cycle of bars:
1. Quarter, half, quarter
2. Half, quarter, quarter-tied-to-
3. -quarter, quarter, half
When playing a piece of music that they’re not already familiar with (and if they are already familiar – sheet music doesn’t really matter!) it matters a lot for a musician to be able to peek ahead and register “OK, I have 8 bars of this pattern” rather than having to parse that 3 bar cycle and realize that it’s a repeated pattern too.
> 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.
When you see music written composed by people without a musical education, you see that it doesn’t really matter. The example I am thinking of in Pantera’s Walk (I think). The song is incredible and works really well, but if you transcribe it, it is a mess of literally dozens of time changes.
In short, it helps the musician read/write it easier. You could even write a 4/4 song in 3/4 or 7/9, but then it would be really complicated to read, even though it would be technically the same music.
In poetry, there are some very common formats.
“Roses are red, violets are blue…” is a format everyone knows. Super short and straightforward ABAB rhyme scheme. It’s a unique format, and very catchy.
You’ve surely heard a limerick before without knowing what it’s called. It’s got a unique format.
Shakespeare’s most common form of poetry is called a sonnet. It has its own unique format too.
Over time, there are some poetry formats that just click with a general audience. The rhythms are pleasing to the ear, the rhymes are neat, tidy and in a consistent format, etc.
It’s kinda the same with music. Some formats just feel very pleasant and agreeable to mass audiences. These formats persist and become the most popular.
4/4 and 6/8 have emerged as the most popular and well-received by audiences, 3/4 feels a bit more archaic but is still in use today. So that’s the main reason why they matter… they’re a format that gives your song a better chance of success, because it’s a very natural and familiar structure that humans can easily connect with.
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