Talk:Time signature

message: The text currently first uses "common time" (a phrase which is a re-direct to this site) in the following: "(such as  or 3
4) (read 'common time' and 'three four time', respectively)."  This can easily be incorrectly understood to mean that common time is three four time.  Please re-write this. Kdammers (talk) 11:30, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Ambiguous or misleading

message: I know music is sort of axiomatic, but couldn't there be some way of making the lede clearer?  The use of the word measure, while probably necessary, is, as currently used, opaque.  It is a linked word, but the text of the link pretty much goes back to the first part of the article's sentence.  What makes a measure a measure?Kdammers (talk) 11:41, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure I understand your complaint. The linked word goes to an explanation: "a segment of time defined by a given number of beats, each of which are assigned a particular note value". This only "goes back to the first part of the article's sentence" in the sense that it says a time signature "specif[ies] how many" beats there are and "which note value constitutes one beat". This seems to be the very pinnacle of simplicity and clarity. What part do you find difficult to follow? Does it need to say that "measure" and "bar" (the actual title of the article linked from the word "measure") are synonymous?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:41, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The text is written for musicians as far as I can tell.  My problem seems to be that it is like talking to me in Chinese when I don't know that language or telling me about colors if I'm blind.  Saying that a measure is a bar does not tell me what a measure is.Kdammers (talk) 03:34, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  measure 

message: Why do we need a reference when the value of the time signature of a piece of music is mentioned ? Wikipedia does rely on the competence of their contributors or not ? It is not difficult for a musician to know that Radiohead's 15 step is in 5/4. It belongs to the category of informations that are neither opinions neither private or "published" in any way by any entity, it is just a scientific reality. If we agree on this, I will contribute by adding a few other examples in popular music.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Laurent S. Vleminckx (talk • contribs) 21:51, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you might want to have a look at Talk:List of musical works in unusual time signatures (and especially the archives  of that page) before proceeding to do what you are proposing. Wikipedia emphatically does not (and cannot) rely on the competence of their contributors, especially because there are such things as vandalism and hoaxes.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:26, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: To put it another way, right or wrong you would be violating the principle of no original research. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:40, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

text: Welcome to the weird and wacky world of Wikipedia. I hope the frustration wears off quickly, and you find the environment congenial. The principle of "no original research" is one of the things that newcomers to Wikipedia have the greatest difficulty getting used to. It is made necessary by the "open" editing used, which requires no credentials at all of editors. Regarding some of the other questions you raise, you should have a look at the introductory paragraphs for the List of musical works in unusual time signatures and the articles Quintuple meter and Septuple meter for discussions of the "pertinence of time signatures" and their possible problematic relationship to the actual meter of any given piece of music. Keep in mind that the subject of the present article is the former rather than the latter, though their inter-relationship is of course part of the discussion.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:34, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  reference needed or not for time signatures ? 

message: Musical parameters in infobox
I'm not sure of the best place to ask this, but I've started a discussion over at Template_talk:Infobox_song, which essentially asks whether tempo and key should have their own parameters.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.175.220.114 (talk) 19:35, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Musical parameters in infobox 

message: There's an odd signature and timestamp in that section.--95.116.231.215 (talk) 18:42, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The result of vandalism, or an extremely clumsy edit. I have reverted it. Thanks for pointing this out.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:00, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stress and meter 

message: The second example in the table mentions '2/2' on the left and in the text, but
the rightmost column still shows a '4/4' example?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sejtam (talk • contribs) 23:25, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alla Breve, cut time 

message: In a request for clarification, User:70.88.200.134 states that "note values don't match with actual values" in this passage:
:* The lower numeral indicates the note value that represents one beat (the beat unit). 
:* The upper numeral indicates how many such beats there are in a bar.
:For instance,  means two quarter-note (crotchet) beats per bar— means three eighth-note (quaver) beats per bar.
This request needs some clarification, I think. In what way does the /4 not match a quarter note (crotchet), and /8 not match an eighth note (quaver)? Or am I missing something here? Is "actual value" some sort of specialized technical term I don't understand?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:33, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the reference is to compound meters. —Wahoofive (talk) 00:03, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what I thought at first, but if this is the case, the flag is placed in the wrong section: it is here, in the section on simple time signatures.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:02, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

text: Conversely, maybe it's a challenge to the concept of beat, which doesn't always line up with the time-signature value. There's plenty of music in 4/4 which is experienced as two beats to the bar, and plenty of 3/4 (or 3/8) music which is one beat to the bar, etc. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:19, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly, though neither "note values" nor "actual values" seem directly to signify the lower numeral in a time signature. I do wish User:70.88.200.134 would chime in here and explain what the problem is. Failing clarification, I think the flag ought to be simply removed.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:11, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

text: In other words, you want to flag the clarification flag for clarification :-) —Wahoofive (talk) 16:50, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL! Yes, I guess that is exactly what I want to do!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:40, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Note values don't match with actual values" 

message: At long last, I have finally replaced the contrived example of "America" from West Side Story, which showed both 6/8 and 3/4 signatures at the beginning, with an example from Tchaikovsky. In fact, "America" is written just in 6/8. I've been meaning to fix this for years. —Wahoofive (talk) 19:28, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  West Side Story 

message: Is this and WP:Engvar thing.  In the UK, the numbers at the start of a line of music are generally called the 'time signature'.  'Meter'  is used though. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:05, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meter/time signature 

message: Without reading this talk page first, I have removed the (clarification needed) tag from the section "Simple time signatures" because there is a perfect (in terms of function) explanation just two lines below. Jerome Kohl was on the right track by suggesting that the tag be removed. The editor who placed the tag in the first instance appears to be failing to understand the subject. We are advised to "Be Bold" and ... er .. I was. Any editor who wishes to revert my edit needs to come up with a very good rationale. In other words: Don't waste our time! CaesarsPalaceDude (talk) 02:58, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Bless you, my son.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:40, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I won't change it back, but the article, especially the lede, is still pretty much opaque to all but initiates.  Maybe you musicians should sit down with a nonmusical person and have them try to understand the article.  I think you'll find out how confusing it is.Kdammers (talk) 14:08, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

text: Finally, someone who actually does not find this sentence perfectly clear has chimed in! Thank you for stepping forward. Please explain to the rest of us what is opaque about the words "numeral", "note value", or "beat", so that we can rewrite this sentence in a way that you can understand it. There are already links to the articles Note value and Beat (music), where explanations of those terms are given. Surely "numeral" cannot be unfamiliar. Does "lower numeral" not clearly indicate the number at the bottom of the signature? If w cannot get past this sentence, then there is no chance at all of dealing with the lede, which I admit looks cluttered and confusing, but mainly because of the many badly formatted time-signature examples in its last paragraph. Here again there are many links to terms that beginners might find unfamiliar, but very little that I can identify as "opaque to all but initiates". Could you please be more specific?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:24, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't want to go on and on on this, but I'll try to make clear what isn't clear.  beat and bar/measure are unclear ( a beat is something measured by measures, which measure beats - except when they don't because 2/2 time is or is not the same as 4/4 time) and C  [probably  totally unknown to anyt  nonmusicians including those who took  two or three years of piano) and 3/4 are still left sounding like they may the the same thing.  We exchanged comments on this a couple of years ago, but you don't see that the links don't help, and I don't see how they help.  I think the best way to handle this is as I mentioned before:  have one of the editors who understand this sit get together in real time with a nonmusician  or two and see where they struggle. (Trying to do this long-distance is at least as frustrating as for non-computer people trying to get help from geeks over the Internet.) And, yes, the visual impact dramatically raises the affective filter of a non-insider. Kdammers (talk) 00:47, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

text: If this muddled account is what it says in the article "Beat (music)" (and I admit I have not checked to verify this), then that article is sorely in need of correction. A beat is not "measured by measures". A beat is simply a periodic pulse, like the ticking of a clock. I admit this is proving difficult for a musician to discuss with a non-musician, especially when I cannot tap on the table-top between us to demonstrate the difference between a regular (periodic) pulse and a series of taps  with different intervals of time between them. Does the "Beat (music)" article really make such a shambles of explaining this? I shall have to go and see but, if it does, the problem clearly must be there and not here. All that is at issue here is what symbol is assigned to this counting value (called a "beat"). It is not the purpose of this article to make an elaborate explanation of this basic element of musical rhythm.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:25, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

text: I have just checked the "Beat (music)" article, and indeed it is even worse than you suggested. It is one of the most badly written ledes I have seen on any subject. Although everything in it is perfectly true, it unnecessarily introduces at the outset a whole collection of abstruse terms that appear to serve no purpose other than to prevent readers from progressing any further. I think the most helpful thing we could do here is to remove the link to this infected and confusing article, until such time as it has been hospitalised and successfully treated. The concept of "beat" is one of the simplest and easiest-to-understand aspects in all of music theory. Only a gang of Wikipedia editors could succeed in making it incomprehensible.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:00, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: This article is about as clear as mud.  Try writing it more clearly. 76.126.195.34 (talk) 04:45, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your constructive criticism. Given that there are nine major section, could we start at the beginning? The first sentence reads: "The time signature (also known as meter signature,[1] metre signature,[2] or measure signature[3]) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are to be contained in each bar and which note value is to be given one beat." What do you find unclear about this (admittendly rather long) sentence?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:59, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of (clarification needed) tag 

message: The word hypermeter is used without explanation or link. 69.247.14.176 (talk) 22:53, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Right you are. I have added a link.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:04, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:   Yet another undefined term: hypermeter  

message: Probably 21/8 in Wakeman's Anne of Cleves is also worth mentioning. Fedorkov Dmitry (talk) 17:43, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: See List of musical works in unusual time signatures. But you'd need documentation. —Wahoofive (talk) 23:32, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:   Progressive rock  

message: In an edit note, Jerome Kohl says "(changed order of presentation for clarity (explain first what it is we are going to count before explaining the counting itself)--the editorial note already refers to this)"
Could someone please indicate where it explains how the counting will go? I'm not seeing it. What I see see is someone explaining the lower number before the upper number. This isn't how we read this, and it isn't how we say it. 7/8 time isn't called "eight under seven time", it's "seven eight".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by HacksawPC (talk • contribs) 07:56, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: If you were explaining to someone what a "grove of trees" was, would you insist on explaining the word "grove" first because it comes first in the phrase? If someone wasn't clear what a "tree" was, that would be difficult. —Wahoofive (talk) 18:17, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Order of explantion

message: Maybe this is article not the appropriate place to answer this question, but I would think it would be clear  to someone reading it (but it isn't to me).  What if any difference is there between  2/2 and 4/4 (or 3/4 and 6/8 etc.) is there? 64.53.191.77 (talk) 03:27, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Do not confuse time signatures with mathematics. If the differences between these pairs of meters is not made clear by the article, then the article needs improvement. Can you please re-read the relevant sections, and then point out what parts are unclear?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:45, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd agree that the difference between 6/8 and 3/4 is made explicit in the text, but not so for 2/2 and 4/4; in fact, the example shown in the table for 2/2 time is notated with a 4/4 time signature, a situation certain to confuse readers. Are they interchangeable or not? (Hint: sometimes). I'd say most musicians are pretty hazy on the distinction between 2/2 and 4/4 in practice, although they could cite the textbook difference. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:29, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll have to take a closer look, I guess, but I thought the text was fairly plain that the upper numeral indicates the number of beats in the bar, and 2 ≠ 4. In practice, I find that the main areas of ambiguity are not with these specific time signatures (at least, not in "classical" music), but rather with whether the symbols  and  should really be interpreted as 4/4 and 2/2, respectively. This is particularly ambiguous in the case of eighteenth-century music, of course. Is it appropriate, though, to go into such detail here, or is the "textbook definition" really sufficient?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:06, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Closer look taken, and I see what you mean about the 4/4 example illustrating the 2/2 block in the table. It is clearly a misplaced example, and should be moved to the 4/4 section. It looks like it may have been put there in confusion over the use of "duple" as a category encompassing all "even" meters, in opposition to "triple" for "odd" meters.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:11, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

text: Yes, this is the right article to address ambiguities in C and C-slash, although it could be relegated to a lower-down section. Even Brahms used C-slash to mean 4/2 sometimes, so it's not exclusively an early-music thing. As for the difference between 2/2 and 4/4, I guess the textbook difference will have to suffice, but it begs the question of why one would choose one rather than the other: what's the practical difference between them? The upper number doesn't necessarily indicate the number of beats in a bar, e.g. 6/8 frequently only has two beats, and it's not that hard to find pieces notated in 4/4 which are really two beats to the bar, but the determination of what is a beat is a slippery slope. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:53, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: A salutary example, thanks for that. It reminds me that on occasion Brahms could be an historist composer (like Bruckner). The notation obviously refers back to the 16th century sources of aspects of that particular Brahms work. Should we also bring in Brahms's liking for dotting notes across barlines?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:20, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: " and it's not that hard to find pieces notated in 4/4 which are really two beats to the bar," -- I have no idea what all this means.  I thought that a beat is a stressed note, so 2/2 would be Stress, unstress {by the way, can it be unstress, Stress??} versus 4/4, which would be Stress, unstress, unstress, unstress; but the text I just quoted seems to contradict that idea.  {Does stress simply mean louder?} 76.126.195.34 (talk) 04:49, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: A beat is regarded as stressed in comparison to parts of the bar that are not on a beat. On the other hand, some beats may be stressed more than others. Stress does not necessarily mean louder, but that can be am important component. In 4/4 time, beat one is the primary stress, but beat three has secondary stress. Beats two and four are regarded as unstressed. Under some circumstances (a faster tempo, for example) the unstressed second and fourth beats can diminish in importance until they feel less like beats and more like fractions of beats, leaving just the first and third quarter notes of the bar seeming like "beats". There will still be the relative sense of strength: a stronger first beat, and a weaker, but still stressed, second beat. Clear now?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:11, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  math 

message: Since there was no example previously, I have added a theoretical one. It may not be ideal in its notation. Double sharp (talk) 15:04, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Irrational meters 

message: Does Western music always have a time signature?  I can't hear a repeating stress pattern in a lot of music.  Is that because there is no set time signature, or is that a problem in my hearing? 76.126.195.34 (talk) 04:53, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The short answer is "No." There are pieces of music and even whole genres that are notated without a time signature, and are not meant to have a regular metrical structure ()see "free rhythm" Metre_(music)#Metric_structure here. That said, this is not very common in Western music, so it is also possible that you are somehow not observing a recurring pattern that is actually present.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:21, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, technically speaking, a time signature is a notational device, so it is sometimes omitted even when there is a regular meter, for example in church hymnals or lead sheets for pop music. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:05, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  No TS? 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Commontime (album) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 21:33, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move discussion in progress 

message: This article is listed as being at mid-important.  Clicking on the links, I couldn't find a definition of high/mid etc., but intuitively, I don't understand why this article, if I understand what it is about (the basic way the rhythm of music is shown in Western notation?), is not listed as being of high importance. Kdammers (talk) 09:05, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance 

message: I edited the page to say it was in 10/8, rather than 5/4, as this is how it is felt, grouping 3+3+2+2. It may be written in 5/4 with syncopation (I have seen the score), however this is misleading and the way beats are grouped in 5/4 is different from 10/8, which makes it very frustrating to play when written as such. The beats of 5/4 just don't line up with the way you feel the song, which is more important than how it is written; you can write 9/8, but it can felt in 3+3+3, or less commonly some permutation of 2+2+2+3, which has a very different feel (3 triplets vs. a slightly stilted, lengthened 4/4). Edit: wow I messed up, I was not given feedback that my section had been posted, rather given a conflicting edit error, and didn't tell me anything was posted, so I tried again. Nice. Torzod (talk) 02:27, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: On Wikipedia, what matters most are reliable sources. If you have one to cover this situation, it would make a welcome addition to the article.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:37, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mission: Impossible Theme 

message: What does "and" mean in " one and two and three and"? 2600:6C67:1C00:300:7830:E76D:2A41:8E86 (talk) 04:09, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just a way to pulse on the half-beats. The word has no denotative meaning. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:47, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  and 

message: The 12/8 example given, 'The Irish Washerwoman' is a jig, and jigs are normally notated 6/8. Slides (type of Irish dance tune) are notated in 12/8, so I suggest using 'Star above the Garter' [ref: https://www.irishtune.info/tune/1829/] which is a 'slide'. squike (talk) 14:24, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  12/8 time 

message: What's confusing to me is that the examples for 2/2 and 4/4 are exactly the same thing but at different tempos. Is it that simple? If I change the tempo of a song, am I changing the time signature? If these concepts are really not decoupled, then I am disappointed by the opaqueness with which the topics are presented. The rhythm of a song has a certain character that does not change with tempo, just like the characteristic harmony of a major chord does not change by shifting the note frequencies. One would hope that time signature reflects this invariance.
Several people here assured that 2/2 and 4/4 are not the same thing when pretty much any layperson would hear them as closely related if not the same thing. Why not just say "2/2 is 4/4 at half the tempo", or "2/2 is 4/4 played for half as long"? It's no wonder people are confused by this article. 2603:6080:6001:E5BF:71C2:DAC0:C0DD:1CB1 (talk) 05:22, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The real time signature is often different from the notated one by a factor of two. This is accepted in a number of scholastic works, but I'd have to search my computer to find them. Tony (talk) 00:54, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  2/2 vs 4/4 

message: "There are various types of time signatures, depending on whether the music follows regular (or symmetrical) beat patterns"—what does symmetrical mean here? Tony (talk) 03:59, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Query 

message: The first two videos stop after about half a second on Safari for Mac. Tony (talk) 04:50, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Videos 

message: (Still struggling to understand this article.)   "the note values specified by the bottom number are grouped into threes,"-- How are the numbers 4 and 8 grouped into threes? Kdammers (talk) 04:52, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not the numbers being grouped, it's the corresponding note values. Quarter notes and eighth notes (represented by the numbers 4 and 8) can easily be grouped in threes. I welcome editing the sentence to make this clearer. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:11, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Okeh, note values.  But I am still at a loss.  The article says "are" grouped, whereas you write "can easily be."  What is this talking about?  I have no idea whatsoever.  So what if the note values are or can be grouped into threes.  What has that to do with a given time signature?  For example, 4/4 time, as I understand it, has four beats within a given time, marked by the bars.  where does three come in? Kdammers (talk) 21:11, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed 4/4 cannot group quarter-note beats into threes (at least, not unless there's some kind of cross-rhythm going on), but it is not compound. The article says that only for compound time signatures, like 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8. Notice that in these cases the upper number is divisible by 3. Double sharp (talk) 06:26, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

text: Okay, I've addressed some of these comments. More edits to come. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:58, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  lower numbers in groups of threes -? 

message: Early in the description of complex signatures is this reference to the Delphic hymns to Apollo, argued about above. But this article is about the notational device of the time signature, not Metre (music). Was there any kind of time signature in the notation back then? If not, it really needs to be omitted here. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:37, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Sensible. Tony (talk) 05:26, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time signature notation in ancient Greece 

message: Is 16 a usually-used under number of a time signature? Χιονάκι (talk) 15:44, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Occasionally you see it. The composer might be asked whether they could have made do with the simpler "8". Tony (talk) 03:41, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: To be fair, x/16 meters sometimes have an advantage when it comes to beaming. If we compare 6/8 with 6/16 in the case where they're both duple, then you can't beam the rhythm      according to the beat, but you could beam its equivalent      that way. Double sharp (talk) 12:40, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

text: They were more common in Baroque times. For example, in WTC II the F major fugue is in 6/16 and the C-sharp minor fugue is in 12/16. In List of musical works in unusual time signatures, 6/16, 9/16, and 12/16 are considered "usual" (I suppose because they are the natural compound-time counterparts of 2/8, 3/8, and 4/8). Double sharp (talk) 08:53, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Then why not also mention the 16, since it is common in known pieces of Baroque music? Χιονάκι (talk) 12:20, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I personally would not object to it, for the reason of consistency with the "unusual time signatures" list. Though I have misgivings about its definition (surely 12/4 can't be more common than 5/4), it is at least sourced and one I recall. Double sharp (talk) 16:35, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: In List of musical works in unusual time signatures he does not consider the time signatures 6/16, 9/16 and 12/16 unusual. Χιονάκι (talk) 22:04, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that's what I said. Double sharp (talk) 06:48, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Under number of 16