- Hi, and welcome to this
name the time signature quiz.
So, you can see what I have on the board
are three different rhythms,
and the idea is to see
whether you can name the time signature.
Now, it may be that there's
more than one possibility
in some cases.
In other cases, it may
be that there appears
to be more than one possibility,
but in fact, there isn't.
So, you might want to have a little pause
and see if you can work these out,
and then come back to me
and see if what you've come up with
agrees with what I think
the answer should be.
So, let's have a look at
the first one, up here.
Now, when you're working these things out,
it's not a bad idea,
is it, just to work out
what the basic unit of
calculation might be.
Now, you've got a couple of crotchets,
you've got four quavers,
so basically, you're either going to count
up the number of crotchets
or count up the number of quavers,
and work it out from there.
Now you might think,
well there's more quavers
than crotchets.
Well okay, fair enough,
let's start on that basis.
How many quavers are there, altogether?
One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight.
So, it means that you could take the view
that this is in 8/8.
Actually, 8/8 is not a time signature
we use terribly often,
but it doesn't matter as a starting point
for calculation.
Because if you've got 8/8,
well you could think, well
what would happen if I double
or half the numbers?
Well, if I double up 16/16,
mathematically it's possible, isn't it?
Because if there are
eight quavers in that bar,
there must be sixteen semiquavers,
but 16/16 sounds a bit unlikely.
What happens if I half it?
I get 4/4.
Now, does 4/4 seem a more
reasonable proposition,
because it certainly does to me.
The idea that we might have
four crotchet beats in a bar.
And that's where you might have started
your calculation, you might have started
by counting crotchets.
There's crotchet one,
these two quavers make crotchet two,
these two make crotchet three,
and obviously, there's a
crotchet for crotchet four.
So 4/4 is an obvious answer.
The other thing is, you might
be looking at these quavers
thinking, well, why not
beam those quavers together?
And beaming of notes is often an issue
that causes a lot of grief,
but when we're in four time,
we try to show the middle of the bar.
Okay?
Now, there are exceptions to that,
the most notable being
when you have a rhythm that does this,
a crotchet followed by a
minim followed by a crotchet,
where we can cross over
the middle of the bar.
But in other cases,
we're trying to show
the middle of the bar,
that's why I didn't beam those together.
So, that's another little bit of a clue.
So, if you've got 4/4,
well, you're absolutely correct.
It's also true, though,
that this could be 2/2.
So you see how I'm getting there,
just by arriving at a
mathematical possibility.
Having got the mathematical possibility,
you can double both the numbers,
you can half both the numbers.
You can do that as many
times as is reasonable,
then you can decide what
the most obvious thing is.
8/8?
When do you ever come across music in 8/8?
It's pretty rare, isn't it?
16/16, even less likely.
4/4, incredibly likely
because it's common time.
But it's also true that
it could be in 2/2,
because we can also see one minim beat,
one minim beat there.
So, either 4/4 or 2/2
would be correct answers
to that first one.
And as to whether, in reality,
it was 4/4 or 2/2,
might depend on things like the speed.
So, if it really wanted a presto speed
and it was really dancing two in a bar,
2/2 would probably be better.
If it was a march,
well 4/4 would probably
suit the character more,
wouldn't it?
So sometimes, speed affects that choice.
But either of those are
definitely possible.
Now, what about the second one?
What did you come up with for this?
Well, probably the
easiest thing to do here
is to count quavers, isn't it?
and see if you can work out
how many quavers there are.
When you see rhythms like this,
they often cause a bit of
confusion because you think,
oh I've dotted quaver and
a semiquaver, what's that?
One thing to bear in mind
is that when you have a dot,
followed by an extra line,
those two things sort of
cancel each other out.
So, if I got rid of the dot
and got rid of the line,
I would have two quavers here, wouldn't I?
So, in fact, all I've done
is put a dot on there,
which is compensated by that line.
So it's a different rhythm
than two quavers, obviously.
But mathematically, it's the
equivalent of two quavers.
Now, how do I test that out in maths?
Well, this is worth three quarters,
that's worth a quarter,
so that gives me one in total.
So if I cancel the dot, cancel that,
it'd give me two halves,
which also gives me one, doesn't it?
So do you see, it's the
equivalent of two quavers.
So counting in quavers,
one, two, three,
four,
and then two of these has
given me my fifth quaver,
and this is my sixth quaver.
So if it's six quavers,
well, 6/8 is probably
the answer, isn't it,
if I'm counting in quavers.
But before you let go of it,
also just think,
well, what happens if
I double those numbers?
12/16, well, mathematically,
absolutely possible.
If there are six quavers,
well, there could be twelve semiquavers.
But, abit unlikely.
Perfectly possible,
because 12/16 is itself a
compound quadruple time,
but it doesn't look like that, does it?
I don't see four groups of notes, do I?
I see two groups of notes,
which is going to make
it more likely to be 6/8.
But of course, you could half
those numbers, couldn't you?
And you say, well, if
there are six quavers,
there are also three crotchets.
So it could be 3/4, maybe.
Maybe some people got that as the answer.
But does it look like a bar of 3/4?
No, it doesn't look like 3/4
because I can't see three
crotchet beats there.
It doesn't look like 12/16
because I can't see four
groups of three semiquavers.
So, it's the beaming of
the notes that tells me
that that is 6/8.
The maths tells me that.
But, in order to eliminate 12/16 or 3/4,
I've got to look at how the
notes are beamed together.
How are they beam together?
Well, here's one group of notes,
here's a second group of notes.
Put those rhythms together,
I get a dotted crotchet beat there,
I get a dotted crotchet beat there,
and that's how 6/8 works,
as a compound duple time.
And it's why it couldn't possibly be 3/4,
even though that's
mathematically possible,
and it couldn't possibly be 12/16,
also mathematically possible,
but it doesn't beam together that way.
So 6/8 is the only response
you could've made to that.
Okay, let's look at the next one.
What do we think is going on here?
Well, maybe the easiest thing to do here,
is count the crotchets.
I've got three crotchets'
worth in this dotted minim,
and then a pair of quavers
and another pair of quavers,
that's looking like five crotchets.
Five crotchets, what's this?
So that would express itself as 5/4.
Okay, let's double up.
10/8.
Slightly unusual one, isn't it, 10/8.
So I don't think it's going to be that.
If I half it, I'm going to get 2.5/2.
Well that's not going to work,
because we don't get into
fractions of numbers.
So 5/4, could that be 5/4?
It certainly could.
5/4 is something we call an
irregular time signature.
And in a 5/4, you either
have three plus two,
or you have two plus three.
5/8 would just be the same.
So, I've got three plus two.
So that's really confirming
that this one is 5/4.
An irregular time signature.
What about the next one?
Oh, my goodness me, lots of quavers here,
so the thing that we're tempted to do
is to count quavers.
Perfectly reasonable.
So let's do that.
One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight,
nine, ten, eleven, twelve, brilliant!
So, I bet a lot of people
have come up with 12/8,
because they see 12
quavers, and they think,
well, that must be it, then.
12 quavers, 12/8.
Mathematically, absolutely
perfectly possible.
Actually, the beaming says impossible.
Why?
12/8 is a compound, quadruple time.
So in 12/8, this would look like this.
You'd have groups of three,
one, two, three,
four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine,
ten, eleven, twelve.
And that would throw up these beats.
Because remember, in compound time,
you organise things into groups of three.
So 12/8 would have to look like that.
You'd have to have four
dotted crotchet beats,
which means the quavers
would have to be into
four groups of three.
So, 12/8, mathematically possible,
beaming says impossible.
Okay, double the numbers.
24/16.
Well, that sounds like a lot, doesn't it?
I'm not sure that's
going to be a good one.
What happens if we half the numbers?
So that would give us 6/4.
Ah, now maybe we're a bit
nearer if we're in 6/4,
because, yeah, I suppose
if there are 12 quavers,
there are six crotchets,
so some people might've thought,
yeah, great, 6/4 will do me very nicely.
6/4 is a compound duple time,
so we'd be looking for
two beats worth of stuff,
wouldn't we?
So, if that's what 12/8 would look like,
what would 6/4 want to look like?
Well 6/4 would want to look like this.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
Because, in 6/4, I need two groups.
So I need two groups of three,
so if there are six crotchets in the bar,
I need three crotchets in one group,
three crotchets in the other group,
so that it gives me beats
that look like this.
I end up with two dotted minim beats.
So it's still twelve quavers,
there are twelve quavers here,
but it looks different.
The beaming for 6/4 is not
the beaming we've got there.
So we're a bit stuck, aren't we?
12/8 doesn't work,
24/16 doesn't work,
6/4 doesn't work,
what do I do?
Half again.
What happens if we half again?
Well, we get 3/2.
So what does 3/2 mean?
A simple triple time.
So I've got to have three minim beats.
Ooh, let's look at how this goes.
Four, gives me one minim beat.
Four, gives me a second minim beat.
Four, gives me a third minim beat.
So this is the correct answer.
Lots of possibilities,
there are four possibilities
for time signatures that we've considered.
24/16 we eliminated pretty quickly,
12/8 tempted us, but it
doesn't look like 12/8.
6/4 tempted us, but it
doesn't look like 6/4.
And when we go to 3/2,
we suddenly discover
that the beaming of these notes dictates
that that is the only option.
So isn't it interesting
with time signatures.
Sometimes, there is only one option.
Sometimes, you've got
more than one option,
but only one is authentic.
Sometimes, you've got two options,
both of which are authentic.
Sometimes, you've got four options,
but only one of them is authentic
because of the way the
notes have beamed together.
Then we have things like this,
where people lose the will to live,
because they think, oh dear,
I've got lots of extra lines,
what on earth's all this about?
Actually, this isn't
too complicated, really.
Because if you think of it
in terms of semiquavers,
there's one semiquaver here,
these two demisemiquavers
are worth one semiquaver,
and that's one semiquaver at the end.
So really, this is going to be 3/16.
You can't half the three,
because it gives you one and a half,
if you double it, you get six, and then
what's double, 16/32?
That's sounding a bit
ridiculous, isn't it?
So really, there's another example where
3/16 is your only option.
So, how did you get on
with our name the time signature quiz?
And if that all goes smoothly for you,
well, that's great,
that should give you a bit of confidence.
If you're feeling a bit
puzzled by all this stuff and,
why is it this and,
how does the beaming all
affect things like this,
very important thing to know
about if you're a musician.
Have a look at our theory packages.
Because all of this stuff
is covered in detail,
starting from the basics at grade one
and building through the grades,
as we gradually explain all the detail of
ever more complex time signatures,
how the notes beam.
And it helps you if you're
writing music, composing.
It helps if you're playing it,
to understand what's going on.
So, an important area of
musical knowledge, really.
