Time signatures: music symbols explained

17 symbols and terms, each explained in a sentence or two — the same dictionary the free Artform score reader uses when you tap a marking on a real score.

4/4Four-four

Four crotchet beats in a bar. So common it is also written as a C, for common time.

3/4Three-four

Three crotchet beats in a bar: the waltz. Strong, weak, weak.

6/8Six-eight

Six quavers in a bar, felt as two groups of three. Compound time: it swings where three-four walks.

𝄵Cut commonalso called Alla breve

Two minim beats in a bar. The same notes as four-four, counted twice as fast and felt in two.

Pickup baralso called Anacrusis

An incomplete bar before the first full one, so a tune can start before the beat. Its missing beats are usually found in the last bar.

Two-four

Two crotchet beats in a bar. The march: strong, weak.

Two-two

Two minim beats in a bar. The same as cut common, and counted in two however busy the notes get.

Three-eight

Three quaver beats in a bar, usually felt as one gentle beat at speed.

Nine-eight

Nine quavers in a bar, felt as three beats of three. Compound triple time.

Twelve-eight

Twelve quavers in a bar, felt as four beats of three. The lilt under a great deal of blues and slow rock.

Five-four

Five beats in a bar, usually grouped three plus two or two plus three. Take Five, and Holst's Mars.

Seven-eight

Seven quavers in a bar, grouped in threes and twos. Balkan dance metre, and awkward until you count the groups instead of the quavers.

Irregular metre

Any bar that does not divide evenly into twos or threes. Count the groupings the beams show you, never the individual quavers.

Free time

No metre at all: the bar lines are punctuation, or absent. Written senza misura or with a wavy line.

Metre change

A new time signature mid-piece. The note value usually stays the same length unless an equation over the stave says otherwise.

Metric modulation

A change of tempo defined by a note value: a triplet quaver here becomes the quaver there. The pulse is handed over rather than reset.

Metronome mark

A note value equals a number, printed at the head. Sixty means one a second, and a metronome set to it will tell you the truth about your rubato.

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