What is a time signature?
Time signatures are what give a song its beat. The term “Four on the Floor” refers to dance music that will always be in 4/4 – four beats per measure because that’s the best beat to dance to. But there are many other time signatures that are worth discovering because they can create the most interesting beat. In case you’re not sure what a time signature is, it’s found at the beginning of all pieces of printed music just after the clef and the key signature.
Bottom number | Note value: |
2 | Half beats |
4 | Quarter beats |
8 | 8th beats |
Common time signatures
The most common time signature is 4/4:





Irregular time signatures – 5/4, 7/4 & 7/8
5/4 is the most used “irregular” time signature. 5/4 can be very attention-grabbing because it doesn’t fit neatly into an easy to understand rhythm as if feels “off-kilter”. It’s usually counted in a group of three quarter notes followed by a group of two, but sometimes you’ll find it counted in the reverse: 2 then 3. Here are two measures in 5/4 time. In the first one, you can see there are five quarter beats, so the notes are evenly spaced. However, in the second measure the first two quarter beats are broken into four 8th notes and the 2nd and 3rd are tied.

Compound time signatures
All the time signatures we’ve looked at so far are called “simple” time signatures because each measure is a self-contained group of notes.But there is another type of time signature called “compound”. Compound time signatures have multiple groups of notes within them. They consist of 8th notes grouped in threes – (so the bottom number in the time signature will be an 8). The most common compound time is 6/8 and it’s made up of two groups of three 8th notes. Here is the opening of the “Game of Thrones” theme tune:


