- Hi, this video comprises
a time signature quiz.
How good are you at looking at a rhythm,
and working out what the
time signature might be?
So sometimes it's just
simply a question of
adding up beats in a bar
and deciding if those beats
are crotchets or minims or quavers,
and sometimes it's just a
little bit more complicated,
because you might have to think,
"How are the notes beamed together,
"what might that be telling me?"
So here we are, a few
examples on the board here,
A to F, and one way you could tackle this
is to kind of pause for a moment,
and have a look through these rhythms,
and try and work out what you
think the answers might be.
So rejoin me, or stick
with it if you want to get
straight onto sorting out what
the answer might have been.
Well, let's have a look at rhythm A.
I wonder what you think the
time signature ought to be here.
Well it's always a good thing to start
by counting up beats, isn't it?
And you can decide what
you're going to count in,
lots of people like to count
in crotchets when they can
or quarter notes, because
that just is a unit
that we're perhaps most used to.
And here's a little clue
if you're doing this
as a theoretical exercise,
try to pick the easiest looking bar,
so if you've got a bar
full of all sorts of notes
and complicated looking rhythms,
but you've got another bar
that's got something much
more straightforward in it,
that might be an easier bar to look at.
Well you might look at the
two bars in A and think
"Well, they've both got
their complications."
But the second bar is
possibly slightly easier
to work out, if we're going to count
in crotchets or quarter notes.
Let's have a look at what we've got.
Well, there's one beat here, isn't there,
taken up by this note, remember
what a triplet's about,
it's saying "Play those three notes
"in the time that it normally takes
"to play two of the same notes."
So if I've got three quavers,
but I've got this three
saying it's a triplet,
it's saying "Play three quavers
"in the time that it normally takes
"to play two quavers."
Well, two quavers is
one crotchet, isn't it,
and so it's worth thinking "Okay, yeah,
"so that would be the quaver triplet,"
so that's the eighth note triplet,
in the time of two eighth notes,
that's one quarter note, so one crotchet,
there's the second crotchet,
and the minim takes up
another two crotchets,
or another two quarter notes.
So that's given us four beats, hasn't it,
one for this one, a second beat is here,
and this one's taking up three and four.
Just to double check, have a look
at the first bar, or the first measure,
and see if it's the same,
so there's the first beat,
well, two of these could
be the second beat,
this is one and a half, so
that's three and a half,
and this is worth half, that
takes me up to the four.
So, the right answer to that could be 4/4.
I might also point out that
it would be perfectly correct
to write 2/2, because the way those notes
are beamed together, grouped together,
means that it works perfectly well in 4/4,
and it also works perfectly well in 2/2.
So if you wanted to go for 2/2,
two minim beats in a bar, or
two half note beats in a bar,
that's perfectly acceptable.
While you're doing these
as a theoretical exercise,
it's a great idea to
put them into practise,
and think "Could I
actually play that rhythm
"or clap that rhythm?"
So it really develops the ability
to deal with rhythm accurately.
So, let's have a go at clapping rhythm A,
we'll treat it in 4/4 for now,
and I'll count the four beats,
so a bar of four beats,
and then we'll try clapping together.
So here's four for nothing.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four,
one, two, three, four.
So there's the rhythm for A.
You can always rewind this of course,
if you want to practise doing that.
It's a very useful thing.
I find most people read the pitch of notes
more accurately than they
read the rhythm of notes,
so if you want some practise in rhythm,
great way to do it.
Okay, now what do you make of
B, what's the time signature?
Well we've got loads of
notes in the second bar,
the second measure, maybe
it's a little bit easier
to look at it in the first bar.
Dotted crotchet or dotted quarter note,
quaver or eighth note,
and then a crotchet,
a quarter note, well, one and a half
plus a half plus one makes three,
and I'm counting crotchets
or quarter notes,
so that's looking like 3/4, isn't it?
And in the next bar, well I've got these,
this group of four, a quarter each
is giving me a total of one beat,
two halves gives me that,
and then one on its own
gives me the third beat,
so it's confirming 3/4.
Now in case you're thinking
"Well yeah, okay, 3/4,
"couldn't it be something else?"
Well if I halve the numbers
it's not going to work,
it's not going to be 1.5/2,
because we can't have
fractions in a time signature,
but you might've thought, "Well actually,
"why couldn't it be 6/8?"
Because 3/4, three crotchets
or three quarter notes,
isn't that the same as 6/8?
Okay, six eighth notes,
well mathematically,
it is the same, the only thing is,
that if you're in 6/8,
then you should be grouping or beaming
the notes together to give
us a compound duple time,
in other words, you would
have two dotted crotchet beats
in a bar because in compound
time it works like this,
6/8, six quavers or six eighth notes,
one two three, four five six.
Organise them into two groups of three,
so one two three is the first group,
four five six is the second group.
Say what's the total value
of each group of three?
Well that's a dotted crotchet
or a dotted quarter note,
so I've got two dotted crotchet beats,
or two dotted quarter note beats.
And that would be how 6/8 would work.
Now does it look as if
it's working like that?
Well the first bar could, couldn't it,
but the second bar definitely couldn't.
If you were writing that in 6/8,
you'd have to have these
beamed onto the first of these,
then you wouldn't have this line,
this would be sitting on its own,
and then that would be sitting on its own,
so you could see the first half of the bar
and the second half of the bar,
so it's not just about maths,
it's also about how the
notes are grouped together
or beamed together to use the proper term.
So that's definitely in 3/4.
Okay, rhythm C, oh,
let's just clap rhythm B
before we go on, so I'll
count three for nothing,
see if you can clap it with me.
One, two, three.
One, two, three,
one, two, three.
There we are, hope you managed
to keep up with those semiquavers.
And to deal with the
dots, because sometimes
the dots are the things
that cause trouble.
Again, rewind it, practise
it if you want to.
What do you think about C, then,
what do you think the
time signature is here?
Well, the second bar's
a bit easier to look at
than the first bar, just simply because
there are fewer notes in it,
but we've got an awful lot of quavers
or eighth notes, and
we've got some semiquavers
or sixteenth notes, so
I wonder if we're easier
counting this in crotchets, quarter notes,
or maybe this is a point
where we might think
it's easier to count it in
quavers or eighth notes.
Let's see what happens if we do.
If I count it in quavers or eighth notes,
one, two, three, four, five, six,
would give me a time
signature of 6/8, okay?
So six quavers in a bar, or
sixth eighth notes in a bar.
Does that play out in the first bar?
One, two and three, four, five, six.
Yes it does, so 6/8 could well
be the time signature there,
but we need to check this thing
we were talking about in the last one,
is it really 6/8 or what
happens if I double the numbers
or halve the numbers,
well if I double them,
6/8 becomes 12/16, could be that.
It does happen, 12/16 is a
time signature that's used,
but it's perhaps a little bit less likely.
If I halve it, I get 3/4,
well that's a very common time signature,
we just met it, didn't we, in example B.
But on the same theme as B,
does this group beam
together as if it's got
three crotchet beats in a bar,
or three quarter notes in a bar?
I look at this, I don't
see anything like it,
because if it was three
crotchet beats in a bar
or three quarter notes, those
two would belong together,
then this would be beamed to those two,
and then the last three
would be beamed together,
so it's not doing that at all.
This is grouped, beamed together,
as per 6/8, as we explained
in the last exercise.
So really, you're looking at
a dotted crotchet beat there,
or a dotted quarter note beat,
another one there, another one there,
another one there, so it's
behaving like a 6/8 time.
Now, theoretically, if
you're dealing with 6/8,
you should be thinking two beats per bar,
two dotted crotchet beats per bar,
or two dotted quarter note beats per bar.
When you actually want to clap the rhythm,
you might want to count all six,
just to be really sure about that.
So I'm going to count
six, and then let's see
if we can clap this.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
One, two, three, four, five, six,
one, two, three, four, five, six.
How did that go for you?
Also interesting to find out,
whether you're comfortable
clapping rhythms,
not comfortable clapping them,
whether you're happy clapping them
when they've got four at the bottom,
but less happy when they've
got eight at the bottom
of the time signature, so it's a good way
just to be sure about what you're doing.
So, so far then, we've
decided that this is in 4/4,
or possibly 2/2.
We've decided that this is in 3/4,
and we've decided that
this, mathematically,
has the same number of
beats in the bar as this,
but it must be in 6/8
because of the beaming,
the grouping of notes, so
you can see the difference
between a 3/4 and a 6/8 example.
Let's move on to D.
What do we think is going on in D?
Slightly longer looking
bar in many ways, isn't it?
And maybe we're better
to go back to counting
crotchets or quarter notes.
Let's have a look, both the
bars look equally complicated,
so let's take the first bar.
One, two, and three, four and five.
Five beats, five crotchet
beats, five quarter note beats,
let's check the second bar.
One and two and three, that's
going to be three and a half,
isn't it, going up to four, and five.
So it's definitely five beats, isn't it?
5/4, so 5/4 is what we call
an irregular time signature,
that five makes it irregular.
And when you have five
time, you've got maybe
two plus three, or three plus two
in the way that the
notes are beamed together
depending on how a
composer wants it played.
So, that can vary, but there we are, 5/4.
We can't make it anything else,
it can't be 2.5/2, that's hopeless.
It could be 10/8, but that would seem
a bit fussy, wouldn't it?
So it's 5/4, can we clap two bars of 5/4?
I'll count five for nothing.
One, two, three, four, five.
One, two, three, four, five,
one, two, three, four, five.
So there we have it.
Now what about rhythm E?
I'm just looking at this one thinking
there's only one crotchet
or quarter note in it,
but there are a lot of
quavers or eighth notes,
so maybe I should start
by counting those quavers
or eighth notes.
Which bar do you want to pick?
Not much to choose, let's
go for the first bar.
We're going to count these
quavers or eighth notes.
One, two, three, four, five and a half,
with this taking us up to six, seven.
Seven quavers, seven eighth notes.
Is it the same in the
next bar, it should be.
One, two, three, four
and five, six, seven.
So indeed, this is another
irregular time signature,
it's 7/8.
So seven quavers in a bar,
or seven of those eighth notes in a bar.
And it might be grouped
together as three plus four,
or four plus three, do you notice here
it's four plus three,
then it's three plus four,
so it's kind of switching
between the bars.
And again, if you want to clap the rhythm,
it might be easier to count
those quavers or eighth notes
than trying to count anything else.
Could it be something else,
well it's not going to be
3.5/4, is it going to be 14/16,
I don't think so.
So 7/8 seems to be the
comfortable result there.
Let's see if we can clap it,
here's seven for nothing.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
One, two, three, four,
five, six, and seven,
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
So there we have 7/8.
Okay, we're onto the last one,
my goodness, these bars
are looking even longer,
there's all sorts of notes
in here, aren't there?
You might just have a look at
the way the notes are beamed,
you see they're beamed together,
that's beamed together,
maybe they belong together.
Maybe these belong together,
they certainly do because
they're beamed together,
maybe they're together,
you can begin to see
the sort of three possible beats in a bar,
so that's a little bit of a clue.
But let's do some counting.
And maybe the second
bar's marginally easier
to look at than the first,
but there's not much of it.
And again, I'm looking
at all these semiquavers,
these 16th notes, and these quavers,
the eighth notes, and I'm thinking
maybe I'm going to count quavers,
the eighth notes, let's have a look.
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine.
So that'll be nine quavers, wouldn't it,
nine eighth notes, so 9/8.
Should we check the first bar?
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine.
So it's looking like 9/8, isn't it?
Could it be anything else, well,
it's not going to be 4.5/4,
could it be 18/16, that's
sounding a bit ridiculous.
So 9/8, and of course, because it's 9/8,
we should be looking at
three dotted crotchet beats,
or three dotted quarter note beats,
and can you see how
that actually plays out
in the beaming of the notes?
You can see where those
beats actually come.
Okay, now again, in a real piece of music,
you really should be thinking these beats,
but from the point of
view of making contact
with the rhythm, let's count
it in quavers or eighth notes
to be sure we know where we're going.
I'll count a bar of nine,
join me for a quick clap.
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine.
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine,
one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine.
So, there we have it, a group of rhythms,
just to be thinking about time signatures,
counting the bars, how do
the time signatures work,
can we clap the rhythms,
all kind of rhythms
that we would meet in
everyday contact with music.
So I hope that's been useful.
