Examples in music: 1:45 4/4 : Paul Mccartney - Yesterday 2:33 3/4 : Billy Joel - Piano Man 3:38 2/4 : Johann Pachelbel - Pachelbel's Canon 5:25 5/4 : Dave Brubeck - Take 5 7:18 6/8 : The ANimals - House of the Rising Sun 9:15 7/8 + 9/8 : Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells Intro
jim gordon he does explain how a downbeat functions within a time signature though by example, which is all you need in this context of understanding the basics to time signatures.
The best kind there is imo. And yeah it might be a little tedious to have to go over stuff you (think) you already know, but I find most of the time even though I think I know it, there are still bits and bobs that I either didn't learn, or forgot over time. So it never hurts to brush up on the fundamentals.
I'm an ear musician only, so hearing examples really harmonized the notation with the concept (pun sort of intended). I write my own music, and I've started playing it with people who are all theory-trained, so I need to know how to be able to efficiently describe the next piece of music. They're all very smart, and they know what I'm trying to say, and once I start playing, they start to intuitively pick it up really quickly, so it's not like they NEED me to be less illiterate, but for their sanity, I'd like to at least be able to give them a technical expectation of what they're about to start playing.
The best video I’ve seen on explaining time signatures so far. The clarification of the downbeat, the repetition of bars, and how larger time signtures tend to be broken into smaller ones was super enlightening.
Thanks so much for making this. Lots of videos explaining different time signatures. I wanted to HEAR them, and you've allowed me to do that. I was looking for the 7/8 in Malachite's theme from Steven Universe. Hard to pin down but it sounds like it's broken up into 3, 2, 2, like you said. Thanks again!
I've watched SEVERAL videos on this topic and this is the only video that makes sense of it. Playing the rhythm AND showing example songs? What a guy! Thank you!
Right! I learned a lot from this video, but I don't understand the difference between 7/8 time and 7/4 time (if 7/4 is a real signature). Are they the same thing? why does it go from 4 go 8?
Such a difficult thing to try to explain quickly! - It's the note length that determines whether its 4 or 8, so a quicker sounding piece with more short notes would be in x/8 time. (7/4 time is not a real time signature).
I feel as though I've already learnt in 5 minuetes more than I've all the other videos combined, straight to the point, clearly explained, I would have to say probably the best one I've seen 10/10
This video was like a key to the deadbolt of my head. It put all the tumblers in proper place, one by one, until I went from being a total dummy to fully understanding the basics. Thank you. Well done.
It’s so bl**dy hard to find explanation like this that are simple for beginners like me without a lot of knowledge of technique and certain musical jargon. Thank you fir this video, it was very helpful.
Thank you for making this video! I am forever grateful, the other videos I saw were rather mind boggling and throwing words at me I'm not yet familiar with. Being able to actually see and hear it played made it easy for me to play my own music along with your counts, allowing me to feel the beats better. Great stuff!
Thank you for this, I studied keyboard and did examinations and the likes from aged 5 to 15, but completely dropped off for almost a decade and this was *exactly* what i needed to start jolting my fuzzy memory I thought i had forgotten everything but I am so happy to now learn that it's somewhere in my brain I just have to get back into it. Liked, favourited and subscribed!
Thank you for this video. I've watched a few other ones to try and understand time signatures but none of them provided examples I could hear. I understand it all a little better now.
Amazing! I am truly grateful for you taking the time to make this. It helped me understand better why i find it so hard to see the difference between a beat and a note in a measure. Mentioning the downbeat also helped a lot in that. Thanks a lot!
0:52 4/4 2:02 3/4 3:00 2/4 3:56 5/4 5:40 6/8 7:36 7/8 -But I recommend that you don't skip any of them... maybe 5/4. This video kind of helped me, or at least it helped more than any other videos on the platform...
I've just started learning music theory and don't really understand the concept of time signature. This video gave me a better understanding of time signature. Thank you
I found that it just needs a little practice, and for you to think a little differently - keep tapping out a 3/4 rhythm and try experimenting with it...
Thank You! Much better then staring at someone talking over musical notation on a score sheet and charts and graphs. While those have their place to introduce terminology and methods, a lot of teachers forget that you also should show what you're teaching through practical examples. A lot of times I go to these youtube music theory videos with charts and graphs and at the end of the video you're just left wondering what exactly this stuff really is for.
When the top number can be divided evenly by three, it's a waltz beat. It all comes down to 3/4 when you slow it. There are just two basic beats, waltz and common. The differences are syncopations. And don't forget the fluid, rubato rhythm where there isn't any toe-tapping. Consider Debussy's Claire de Line. It's notated in 9/8 (a waltz), but it's so free of beat tyranny that you find yourself floating along with it.
@@ivanvincent7534 Depends on the accent. A 6/8 can sound like a fast common (ONE two THREE four FIVE six ONE two etc) or a fast waltz (ONE two three FOUR five six ONE two three etc)
Too good an explanation worth treasuring by every music learner and the learned too. I am saving it for myself to practice regularly so as to get the rhythm sense into me.
If anyone's interested in hearing a song that has frequent changes in time signatures, try Karaste Broder, a Swedish song. It's very interesting to listen to, even more fun for singing. Edit: a version on YT that follows signature changes is of a choir in what looks like a church, from channel Erik L.
Just reduce the fraction :p that'd make it 8/17. Strictly speaking, 7.52 16th notes in a bar. I'm sure you could make some really interesting music using that.
This is my 3er video about this topic and I think I finally got it. And I think it should be called “Count signature” instead of “Time signatures”. Because I just got that what really matters is the count, not the time. The time can be different. 😮
For anyone still confused. Time signatures are confusing because note names are confusing, and in 4/4 time a quarter note is a quarter of the bar but it doesn't make sense to have a whole bar to be made of 3 quarters like in 3/4. The thing that every one of these videos explaining time signatures fails to acknowledge is that a quarter note doesn't mean a quarter of the bar. A quarter note is 1 beat, a half note is 2 beats, a whole note is 4 beats, an 8th note is half a beat, etc. The notes are measuring beats not a fraction of time in a bar. So a whole note is the whole bar in 4/4 but in 3/4 it's 1 bar and 1 note. People should stop thinking about notes as being whole or half, and just think 4 beats, 2 beats, 1, 0.5, etc. So really time signature is irrelevant. If you have a bar of quarter notes in any time signature and then a bpm of 100, you play 100 notes per minute no matter what time signature you're in, because again the different notes are measurements of beats and a quarter note is 1 beat and you're playing a certain beats per minute. A whole note is 1-2-3-4 in 4/4 time and in 3/4 time it's 1-2-3-1. Time signature is there purely to make the sheet music look better and in some cases it indicates which notes are emphasised but that isn't always true as there's plenty of songs that don't follow that convention. Plus in the modern age you can go listen to one of these songs at any point to hear how it's supposed to be played make it irrelevant anyway. This used to be super confusing to me as well, nobody explained why time signatures made no sense and it took me like 2 hours of research just to discover that they mean nothing and that notes are actually beats.
@@oBCHANo Thank you so much. You should be making these videos. You're the only person I've ever seen explain a pretty simple though not completely easy concept logically without all the bullshit, answering with an answer of causation rather than rephrasing the question with equation. For example, I didn't understand why all objects fall at the same rate when under the same gravitational field and with no atmosphere or medium, when Newton's laws clearly say that more massive objects attract each other with more force (shouldn't more massive objects fall faster EVEN in a vacuum?). When I asked *my Physics teacher,* she said "because they're in the same gravitational field, so they accelerate at the same rate," which is literally just rephrasing the question. The actual answer is that more massive objects ARE attracted to the planet (or whatever object) with more force, the thing is that the more massive an object, the more force it requires to be moved at a certain speed. Since lighter objects generate less energy BUT REQUIRE less energy to be moved at the same speed, it cancels out and all objects fall at the same rate. Obviously, when there is a medium like an atmosphere, heavier objects move the air molecules out of the way more easily because they apply more force to them than a lighter, less massive objects would. This keeps happening to me, where people just can't explain properly. I don't get why we don't just say the number of beats in a bar and call it a day. Like 1/2 would be 2, 2/2 would be 4, 4/2 would be 8, and so on; 1/4 would be 1, 2/4 would be 2, 3/4 would be 3, 4/4 would be 4, so on; 1/8 would be 0.5, 2/8 wb 1, 3/8 wb 1.5, so on; etc. Edit: before anyone tries to correct me, obviously I know you can't do 1/8 or things like that, I'm just exemplifying.
@@oBCHANo Thank you. I've watched a few vids & gone over my drum lesson notes & read your excellent comment to try to figure out 'odd' time signatures & I think I'm coming closer to understanding it. The challenge now is to be able to count/recognize it by solely listening :)
@@oBCHANo Thanks for your input. However, you shouldn't outright say that time signatures mean nothing as that is not true. 4/4 and 2/2 can be viewed as the same, however they're not in terms of tempo and feel.
This is helpful. I play a number of instruments and I sing. The problem is I taught myself piano by ear when I was a little kid and I'm equally self-taught on all of the subsequent instruments I became interested in, so I didn't really bother to learn to read much music. When you played the pink floyd/exorcisty thing, it actually wasn't difficult at all from an AUDITORY perspective. It clicked right away, maybe because I've always preferred complex time signatures as they add dimension and subtlety to music. But because my understanding of notation and written music in general is so illiterate, I wanted to at LEAST understand how to speak in terms of rhythm, since I've started playing my own music with other people. "We're playing in 7/8" rather than "You know, like that song from the exorcist? Do that kind of thing, but here's the melody" and then i start humming like a little jackass.
Best explanation ive come across so far. However i still csnt fathom out why in a bar of music, say in 4/4, you can gave either a whole note, or four quarter notes, yet they both are counted out the same? So now ive come to understand what the numbers relate to in a time signature, i now need a video that will explain why we have so many different notes that all seem to add up to the same number of beats?????
