This still doesn't *mean* anything to me. Must be part of why I was so terrible at piano. Feel bad that my parents wasted so much time and money trying to teach me.
Try to wrap your head around 4/4 and 3/4 first, then go from there. Understand the most common time signature (4/4) and how to count it, then you can listen to a lot of songs that have a triplet swing to get a feel for 3/4 (lots of slow dance/love songs from the 50s have it) If you listen to songs with a slower tempo it makes it much easier to understand, and of course to count.
Phafanapolis learning music is never a waste of time, it only deepens your appreciation for it. Teachers have a way of making things more complicated than they need to be sometimes. The language and the fancy words and concepts can feel like a brick wall.
This helped me a bit. Tbh I’ve never understood time signatures. I can play fluidly literally anything I hear but I’ve never understood what it meant in compositional terms. I’m hoping that brushing up on this kind of stuff will bring my rhythms to another level. I’ve been drumming since age 7 and have always done it by feel, now at 37 I’ve decided to finally add some theory to my natural affinity.
Do not worry,. You are not lone. It happens to me aswell. I have composed 300 songs and still do not understand that. Not even after loking at this video.
I couldn't agree more, I've never had any lessons, lots of advice from fellow drummers on technique and watched like a hawk all of my contemporaries, listened to recordings of bands I wanted to sound like, as time went on I gravitated towards a studio sound which as it happens is RCA's studio B in Nashville, Chet Atkins ran the studio and filled it with the cream of Americas finest country musicians, from 1958 they were the architects of rock and roll and then subsequently the architects of the Nashville sound in the 60's, this sound is my style of playing and after more research I found that it wasn't a studio sound but the playing of Buddy Harmon, his style is clean, urgent and deceptively simple and that is where I lay my groove, also you gotta make folks shake what their mama gave them, nuff said!!
For anyone who still doesn't really get how to contextualize the numbers into rhythm, it helps for me to think of them as words rather than numbers, like this: [Amount of beats in each bar/How you count each beat in the bars] So 4/4 would be Four Quarter Notes. Or 5/8 would be Five Eighth Notes. So then when I do a rhythm like 5/8, I start hitting some Eighths, count 5 of them, and then restart at 1, because there are 5 Eighths in one bar. And there's your base rhythm. From there it's down to either following your sheet or freestyling varying lengths in each beat while sticking to that base rhythm.
I kind of understand, but the bottom number being 4 or 8 doesn't really matter? Like, two songs can have different bpm but use the same time signature.. So what makes a 4/4 a 4/4 instead of a 4/8 when you compare it to an song that does 4/4 at half the bpms? I don't have an example, but thats how my brain doesn't understand.
ZSGerman yeah the explanation was great until he got there. Different category bc its odd and not common? I guess it means seven 8th notes in a measure/cycle or five 8th notes in a cycle. It actually makes sense. You just pat and count it out, the loop starts over when you get to the top number. Pretty cool! Thanks for the video!
I clicked on this to better understand time signatures too. As far as I can tell it's pretty simple, you can basically just count out 7 beats to one bar (or where the riff starts to loop). A good example is them bones by Alice in chains (7/8),it times out perfectly counting to 7. I know schism, but I'm not super familiar with it, I looked it up and it seems to change a bunch of times. Basically you count out the first number, so 5/4 at the start, then 4/4, then it switches to 5/8 and then 7/8. Again, count out 5 and then 7 beats, but the 8 suffix shows that you should be counting at twice the speed you were counting at. I'm not a musician, but that's my understanding of it. I hope that makes sense, try it out with some more consistent tracks and it shiuld make sense. Reclamation by lamb of god is 3/4 all the way through, so just count 3s (just follow the cymbal from the start and the beat remains constant from there). Them bones by AIC is 7/8 in the verses and 4/4 on the chorus, so count 7 beats, and then on the chorus count 4 beats at half the speed. Those are the tracks I used to make sense of it anyway, hopefully they can help you get your head around the concept too :)
60+ years ago I has my first lesson in time signatures. I've never understood them at all (and I simply play by ear). Watching your video here is the first time I've been able to get my head around time signatures - thank you!
Well explained. I taught myself to read seven instruments just for fun. I like to add few things here: - 2/2 is also written as C with a vertical bar. It is played twice as fast as 4/4 - You did not mention that they reason notes are grouped in 4/4 or 6/8 etc is the "emphasis". Without that they would sound the same. So when notes are grouped in triples in 6/8 you must put an emphasis on the first note of the group, which you did by singing it but did not mention it. - The meter also describes the length of the phrases needed to tell a story. for example 2/2 is used in marches or dances as you said where there is not story to tell but just rhythm. - 12/8 is used a lot in flamenco where the phrase lasts for 12 notes. - I was playing a simple piece by Handel which was all in tones and semitones but the speed was marked as Vivace which means fast and lively. However, if the speed was Andante and it was using crotchets and semi crotchets which is the most common notes it would been the same but simpler to read? No because as you said the feel of the music is very fast even though all the notes used are very slow, Let me explain it this way. Imagine you are in a panic state with a friend and want to do something quickly but do not want to disturb others, so you whisper slowly. In that case the situation is very tense and your mind is racing fast but you are talking very slowly. Or you could be very relaxed and tired but trying to tell a story very fast. That is the opposite. - There was an attempt for a composer to remove the time signature and just use the length of the note to eliminate all the confusion. He used that in all his works. Cant remember his name
@@WORLDDRUMCLUB Hi Kalani - I found the symbol for “cut time” on Microsoft Word. I opened a word document, and clicked onto ‘Insert’ and then clicked onto ‘Symbol’ and then onto ‘More symbols,’ and in the character code box type 20B5. The ‘cut time’ symbol will be highlighted in shaded blue. 😊 ♫
guitar player here who’s been wanting to understand basic principles of time signatures for a very long time. Great simple explanation that’s not too technical for a layman like me, THANK YOU!
Something I've been wanting to understand for years, but always got frustrated trying to figure it out. I thoroughly enjoyed this video. That was some wickedly good stuff.
I don't think about this when I play music at the piano anymore. But getting into LMMS, a free, open-source DSW (for anyone who wants to make up their own digital music) -I had to brush up. Well explained, thanks!
That was the most awesome video i found of time signature. I cant express how grateful i am for it, thank you so much, you helped me to learn something i am 7 years trying to understand.
I came here because the piano lesson channel I usually watch doesn't have a lesson on time signatures. This video was extremely helpful in figuring out rhythm for piano pieces.
This has helped me so much I always just understood the numerator but found the denominator rather confusing, I'm excited to start apply new time signatures to my pieces and see what new things I can come up eith
I think I can simplify: the top half is how many notes it takes to fill a beat and the bottom half is what note that's measured in (which also messes with the speed)
Omg.. when he described 12/8, one song came to my mind - but I wasn't sure if it was the correct signature, just the feeling of the song. I couldn't think of the title so I Iooked up a list of 12/8 songs on spotify and somehow FOUND IT! Turns out it was "Everybody wants to rule the world" by Tears for Fears! Worth a listen
I liked the video. I have not learned any theory in music so always wonder when someone says its 4/4 or its 3/4. with your video its pretty clear. Thanks again
DUDE I GOT IT AT 3 MINS been making beats since 12 self taught and opening up my logic today at 32 years old I see the option to change the time signatures, by the way I never knew the correct term, now that I youtube it you taught me a lot in the first three minutes. Thanks for that.
Amazing video!! I've been studying this for two months, and now I got to grips with it. It's about feel and groupings. You have a very clear explanation that summerized the 20 videos i have watched hahahaha
I studied music and for years have obsessed over odd time meters in particular but not to be weird or complex but to discover musical opportunity after assimilation of 4 4(although never fully assimilated of course, always a student). I clicked on this video out of curiosity to see how the meter measuring concept can be explained by instructors of music and percussion, I'm not an instructor but just a private performer of the theory as applied to music creation, and my reaction: great video! Great instructor! The concept explained clearly and confidently with all relevant Lexi used and explained, and introduced, logically and sequentially! This doesn't pander to beginners neither thus making it a great reference for other instructors hoping to explain the metric systems in music but also isn't overly complex in analysis of the function of such systems for writing and understanding music creation. For those who didn't grasp all explained in this video on first viewing I recommend pausing after a certain term is used and that you check up the meaning before continuing. For those with a basic grasp of music note values you will grasp it quicker. There are enormous advantages to understanding the contents of this video as once you can understand 4 4 as a measurement you can easily grasp 7 16 as another as he explains the numbering and it's relation to a pulse(tempo). Rewatch Marco minneman explaining how he wrote a 15 16 beat, armed with the knowledge from this video you'll find you aren't so lost in others complex iterations of this metric concept
Very nice tutorial, In Indian classical music or any Indian form, 4/4 is common yeah, but we have 3/4, 7/8, 5/8 used extensively too... We call time signatures as taal, 4/4 - teentaal (16 beats per cycle) 3/8- dadra taal (6 beats per cycle) 7/8 - roopak taal (7 beats per cycle) 5/8 - jhap taal ,( actually 10 beats per cycle, but 5/8 works good too) There many versions for the same time signatures but with a different group of notes, but above are the popular ones...
Can't walk down the local street these days without everyone asking about time signatures...7/8 this...3/4that...13/8. The other.everone is talking about it...lol... great video as usual😁😁
It is the best explanation of a difficult subject to understand that I found so far. When you demonstrated vocally the different kinds helped me the most. I am so curious why you changed your name from Michael Bruno to Kalani Das and what that means....
Pisces by Jinjer is a really cool example of 2 cool time signatures used in one song. It starts in 7/8 pattern but the chorus is in 6/8. Give it a listen and you'll be pleasantly surprised
To anybody who is struggling, think of it this way. It’s similar to fractions. Top number is how many pieces of cake, bottom number is how big those slices are. 4/4 has 4 notes in a bar and all of them fall on the beep of the metronome, because the bottom number says the value of the note which is quarter notes, and there are 4 of them. If we go into 5/4, the notes still fall on the beeps of the metronome but now you are counting 5 notes instead, which sounds weird at first like the music is stumbling. Change the bottom number and it changes the type of note. If a time signature has 8 on the bottom that means eighth notes. That means that after 5 8th notes, a new bar happens. In 5/4, after 5 quarter notes, a new bar happens. Like this comment if you understood the explanation so more can sre
Nice! Ive been playing by "ear" since '67 and I used to just snort when people were whining about numbers ( I play well, can play most basic Latin rhythms,conga ,Bongo (martillo) ) I have also played djimbe with congalese dance classes,dun dun bell parts ,SAMBA, surdo and bell. Studied with Olatunji and Malonga Casquelourd . but now I am in a BAND where folks are playing live off charts .! YIKES !!! I am needing suddenly to talk metrics like crazy,and make sense explain the differences between 5 claves,and who it matters . PHEW !!It's FUN and damn hard! . THANKS AGAIN look up midnight sun reggae soka ska calypso soul funk and groove !
I still do not understand, but thanks for the effort, I guess? When you said 'Well it's just 4 4" I realised I wasn't going to come away with a better understanding.
Great explanation .... more of the scat to help us hear it. Maybe a whole video on beats ... My toughest thing when I was taking dance lessons was in being able to discern the beat to determine the correct dance step. Great stuff.
So i have some memory issues, and i don't remember a single bit of theory, been playing in the brass band for almost a decade now, i literally cannot play the easiest sheet if u put it infront of me, but once the song starts...my body just does things😂 n idk how that works but it does
This really helped lol THX. I've been playing the flute for 4 years and tbh I just play the notes (hopefully) correctly and pretty much guess the rhythms- Yea- I wanna stop doing that so I'm tryna learn wtf everything means otherwise I'll probably end up failing music class😃
The way how I think of 5/4 is like it switches between 3/4 and 2/4 every measure. Like I count 5/4 as 1 2 3, 1 2, 1 2 3, 1 2. And the same thing with 7/4, it switches between 4/4 and 3/4 every measure. I count 7/4 as 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3.
None of these videos explains this enough for me, what do the numbers, both numbers, in any signature mean, can I see an overlay or have it just verbally identified where the count of each number is in that beat. Yes, I hear them demo different rhythms, but I have not made a correlation of the naming rule based on the 2 numbers
For me, I learned 6/8 by learning 4/4 time. It will be very difficult to teach someone ⁶/⁸ without understanding ⁴/⁴. Now, to put ⁶/⁸ simply to understand is the number 6 tells me how many beats is in one Measure. Now, the 8 is taking whatever note that is in the measure and double the size. For example, an ¹/⁸ note is a quarter note, quarter note is a half note and so on.
yeah this made it simpler to understand time signatures ... with the additional beat boxing ..to explain it musically ... this guy is good .. loved it ! ... hope theres another one with songs as well .. but this gave a reall good foundation of undrstanding time signatures ...
I’ve been playing guitar for 8 years now, specifically as a rhythm player since I like the feel of rhythm more, and I’m trying to better my understanding of time signatures. What can benefit me most when learning these new time signatures? I like a lot of groove and bounce
Question for youtube: The famous airwolf-theme seems to be basically 4/4, but with each 'hit' replaced by 3 hits. Does this kind of rhytm has a special name, maybe in terms timesignature?
I was thrown out of band class in 7th grade because I didn’t understand this and couldn’t get a drum roll correct. The instructor looked like Wally Cox complete with bow tie. He was screaming at me and pointing at the door yelling get out! His face was red and the veins were popping on his temple as he screamed. I never went back to that class again.
I still don't get it! But I appreciate the video
ua-cam.com/video/KcAJUi89m6Q/v-deo.html
This guy explains it pretty good. Hopefully this helps.
So UFO's are real?
This still doesn't *mean* anything to me. Must be part of why I was so terrible at piano. Feel bad that my parents wasted so much time and money trying to teach me.
Try to wrap your head around 4/4 and 3/4 first, then go from there. Understand the most common time signature (4/4) and how to count it, then you can listen to a lot of songs that have a triplet swing to get a feel for 3/4 (lots of slow dance/love songs from the 50s have it) If you listen to songs with a slower tempo it makes it much easier to understand, and of course to count.
Phafanapolis learning music is never a waste of time, it only deepens your appreciation for it. Teachers have a way of making things more complicated than they need to be sometimes. The language and the fancy words and concepts can feel like a brick wall.
This helped me a bit. Tbh I’ve never understood time signatures. I can play fluidly literally anything I hear but I’ve never understood what it meant in compositional terms. I’m hoping that brushing up on this kind of stuff will bring my rhythms to another level. I’ve been drumming since age 7 and have always done it by feel, now at 37 I’ve decided to finally add some theory to my natural affinity.
Do not worry,. You are not lone. It happens to me aswell. I have composed 300 songs and still do not understand that. Not even after loking at this video.
Really ? You can play pneuma by tool ??
I couldn't agree more, I've never had any lessons, lots of advice from fellow drummers on technique and watched like a hawk all of my contemporaries, listened to recordings of bands I wanted to sound like, as time went on I gravitated towards a studio sound which as it happens is RCA's studio B in Nashville, Chet Atkins ran the studio and filled it with the cream of Americas finest country musicians, from 1958 they were the architects of rock and roll and then subsequently the architects of the Nashville sound in the 60's, this sound is my style of playing and after more research I found that it wasn't a studio sound but the playing of Buddy Harmon, his style is clean, urgent and deceptively simple and that is where I lay my groove, also you gotta make folks shake what their mama gave them, nuff said!!
@@Amatteus Thank god I'm not alone.
@@xname662 It's not hard for someone who's used to Middle Eastern rhythms.
I've played piano for 8 years, and well, here I am.
Lmao
Violin for 20. My teachers failed me 🤣.
Same, i have played piano for 5 years and its still is bloody hard
😂😂😂
felt that😅 playing violin for 6 years and only on my third week of cello and here i am
For anyone who still doesn't really get how to contextualize the numbers into rhythm, it helps for me to think of them as words rather than numbers, like this:
[Amount of beats in each bar/How you count each beat in the bars]
So 4/4 would be Four Quarter Notes.
Or 5/8 would be Five Eighth Notes.
So then when I do a rhythm like 5/8, I start hitting some Eighths, count 5 of them, and then restart at 1, because there are 5 Eighths in one bar. And there's your base rhythm.
From there it's down to either following your sheet or freestyling varying lengths in each beat while sticking to that base rhythm.
I think this helped me a lot. Thanks so much. Just shows how differently people think about everything
Thank God for this post! because I was even more confused after watching the video.
Ah, this both makes sense and comes directly from the notation. Well done!
I kind of understand, but the bottom number being 4 or 8 doesn't really matter?
Like, two songs can have different bpm but use the same time signature..
So what makes a 4/4 a 4/4 instead of a 4/8 when you compare it to an song that does 4/4 at half the bpms?
I don't have an example, but thats how my brain doesn't understand.
"If you have a 7/8 and 5/8 then, well, you're in a different category"
I came here looking to get a better understanding of Schism by Tool...
ZSGerman yeah the explanation was great until he got there. Different category bc its odd and not common? I guess it means seven 8th notes in a measure/cycle or five 8th notes in a cycle. It actually makes sense. You just pat and count it out, the loop starts over when you get to the top number. Pretty cool! Thanks for the video!
Oh my god same
I clicked on this to better understand time signatures too. As far as I can tell it's pretty simple, you can basically just count out 7 beats to one bar (or where the riff starts to loop). A good example is them bones by Alice in chains (7/8),it times out perfectly counting to 7. I know schism, but I'm not super familiar with it, I looked it up and it seems to change a bunch of times. Basically you count out the first number, so 5/4 at the start, then 4/4, then it switches to 5/8 and then 7/8. Again, count out 5 and then 7 beats, but the 8 suffix shows that you should be counting at twice the speed you were counting at.
I'm not a musician, but that's my understanding of it. I hope that makes sense, try it out with some more consistent tracks and it shiuld make sense. Reclamation by lamb of god is 3/4 all the way through, so just count 3s (just follow the cymbal from the start and the beat remains constant from there). Them bones by AIC is 7/8 in the verses and 4/4 on the chorus, so count 7 beats, and then on the chorus count 4 beats at half the speed. Those are the tracks I used to make sense of it anyway, hopefully they can help you get your head around the concept too :)
or Dance of Eternity by Dream Theater
I'm literally here because of Tool LMAOOOO
Your beat boxing explains the time signature a lot more than hundred of videos out together.
60+ years ago I has my first lesson in time signatures. I've never understood them at all (and I simply play by ear). Watching your video here is the first time I've been able to get my head around time signatures - thank you!
Damn your old
@@Ballsacksibnme You got me buddy! ..but I was in primary / elementary school at the time! 🙂
60 years ago?
Well explained. I taught myself to read seven instruments just for fun. I like to add few things here:
- 2/2 is also written as C with a vertical bar. It is played twice as fast as 4/4
- You did not mention that they reason notes are grouped in 4/4 or 6/8 etc is the "emphasis". Without that they would sound the same. So when notes are grouped in triples in 6/8 you must put an emphasis on the first note of the group, which you did by singing it but did not mention it.
- The meter also describes the length of the phrases needed to tell a story. for example 2/2 is used in marches or dances as you said where there is not story to tell but just rhythm.
- 12/8 is used a lot in flamenco where the phrase lasts for 12 notes.
- I was playing a simple piece by Handel which was all in tones and semitones but the speed was marked as Vivace which means fast and lively. However, if the speed was Andante and it was using crotchets and semi crotchets which is the most common notes it would been the same but simpler to read? No because as you said the feel of the music is very fast even though all the notes used are very slow, Let me explain it this way. Imagine you are in a panic state with a friend and want to do something quickly but do not want to disturb others, so you whisper slowly. In that case the situation is very tense and your mind is racing fast but you are talking very slowly. Or you could be very relaxed and tired but trying to tell a story very fast. That is the opposite.
- There was an attempt for a composer to remove the time signature and just use the length of the note to eliminate all the confusion. He used that in all his works. Cant remember his name
Thanks a lot man! Now I understand time signature a little bit more. I'll work on from here.
I am here against my will.
Me to
3:14 “Cut time” is also denoted as the following: ₵ and is positioned where the time signature is located on the sheet music. 😉 ♫
YES - I couldn't find that symbol in the font, so left it out. Too lazy!
@@WORLDDRUMCLUB Hi Kalani - I found the symbol for “cut time” on Microsoft Word. I opened a word document, and clicked onto ‘Insert’ and then clicked onto ‘Symbol’ and then onto ‘More symbols,’ and in the character code box type 20B5. The ‘cut time’ symbol will be highlighted in shaded blue. 😊 ♫
Nice
Is this what everyone complains about 😂
guitar player here who’s been wanting to understand basic principles of time signatures for a very long time. Great simple explanation that’s not too technical for a layman like me, THANK YOU!
Great explained! I am a 64 year old beginner. Piano. Write from Germany. Many thanks for this video. Helped me a lot to understand time signature.
Love the auditory examples. This would be outstanding with some visual aids. I play West African drums.
Something I've been wanting to understand for years, but always got frustrated trying to figure it out. I thoroughly enjoyed this video. That was some wickedly good stuff.
Thanks
Thank you, this made more sense than anything else I’ve ever read or watched or had explained to me
That is the best I have ever heard that explained. Thank you.
Thank you!
Thanks
I’m an experienced musician but came here to better clarify my understanding of time signatures. It did a great job, thanks so much!
Time signature is like the Limit Theory in Calculus, you need to put yourself in the students shoes to really make people understand it.
And still 90% of students won't get it.
The best explanation of time signatures I've seen with a rhythm hands-on approach. Most dont explain the feel! Thanks
This is stuff I'd forgotten, so thanks for reminding me about what I really should know!
I don't think about this when I play music at the piano anymore. But getting into LMMS, a free, open-source DSW (for anyone who wants to make up their own digital music) -I had to brush up. Well explained, thanks!
That was the most awesome video i found of time signature. I cant express how grateful i am for it, thank you so much, you helped me to learn something i am 7 years trying to understand.
Thank you!
I came here because the piano lesson channel I usually watch doesn't have a lesson on time signatures. This video was extremely helpful in figuring out rhythm for piano pieces.
This has helped me so much I always just understood the numerator but found the denominator rather confusing, I'm excited to start apply new time signatures to my pieces and see what new things I can come up eith
I play bass, and even though this is for drummers, it really gave me a better understanding. Thank you!
Leo Pold I’m watching this but I only play guitar and piano lol
Matthew Reese same, because my rhythm sucks
@@matthewreese7710 same
I think I can simplify: the top half is how many notes it takes to fill a beat and the bottom half is what note that's measured in (which also messes with the speed)
Thanks for this lesson I had to search this quickly so I can study for my tommorow Music Test :)!
J Dilla's "Don't Cry" is a great 6/8 to 4/4 example
I'm a musician but i was asked about time sig the other day and I just fell apart. Thank you!!!! So helpful
Been playing over 3 years but I realized I was never really told to much about how it works
This is the first explanation of this that got me to understand it, thank you
Thank you from the Philippines! This was really helpfu and easy to understand.l sorta forgot my music lessons as a kid! Soo cool
Finally understand how time signature works after 5 videos god bless you
"Butterfly Kiss" from the Persona 5 Soundtrack has an (imo) nicely distinguishable 4/4 to 6/8 time signature.
retrosic thanks SO much for the recommendation! The transition is amazing!
@@IAimForGreatness_ glad you liked it
Perfect example thanks!
you just made my day bother, thank you for that refreshing lesson Mr.D
I'm actually a guitarist trying to understand tempo, time signatures and rhythm lol.
Did you find anything useful?
Same. Guitarist diving into composition.
Same bro
same here
Raj Chopra ua-cam.com/video/PuQO5_Z_sM8/v-deo.html try this
Omg.. when he described 12/8, one song came to my mind - but I wasn't sure if it was the correct signature, just the feeling of the song. I couldn't think of the title so I Iooked up a list of 12/8 songs on spotify and somehow FOUND IT! Turns out it was "Everybody wants to rule the world" by Tears for Fears! Worth a listen
I liked the video. I have not learned any theory in music so always wonder when someone says its 4/4 or its 3/4. with your video its pretty clear. Thanks again
Ah man I spilled my noodles trying to “yah tah tah tah yah tah tah yah tah tah” in a 6/8 time signature
DUDE I GOT IT AT 3 MINS been making beats since 12 self taught and opening up my logic today at 32 years old I see the option to change the time signatures, by the way I never knew the correct term, now that I youtube it you taught me a lot in the first three minutes. Thanks for that.
Amazing video!! I've been studying this for two months, and now I got to grips with it. It's about feel and groupings. You have a very clear explanation that summerized the 20 videos i have watched hahahaha
I think I finally understand, explaining the bottom number as a fraction helps
Wow okay this explained it better than I've heard it explained before. It actually made sense. Thank you so much!
I studied music and for years have obsessed over odd time meters in particular but not to be weird or complex but to discover musical opportunity after assimilation of 4 4(although never fully assimilated of course, always a student). I clicked on this video out of curiosity to see how the meter measuring concept can be explained by instructors of music and percussion, I'm not an instructor but just a private performer of the theory as applied to music creation, and my reaction: great video! Great instructor! The concept explained clearly and confidently with all relevant Lexi used and explained, and introduced, logically and sequentially! This doesn't pander to beginners neither thus making it a great reference for other instructors hoping to explain the metric systems in music but also isn't overly complex in analysis of the function of such systems for writing and understanding music creation. For those who didn't grasp all explained in this video on first viewing I recommend pausing after a certain term is used and that you check up the meaning before continuing. For those with a basic grasp of music note values you will grasp it quicker. There are enormous advantages to understanding the contents of this video as once you can understand 4 4 as a measurement you can easily grasp 7 16 as another as he explains the numbering and it's relation to a pulse(tempo). Rewatch Marco minneman explaining how he wrote a 15 16 beat, armed with the knowledge from this video you'll find you aren't so lost in others complex iterations of this metric concept
when he said are you confused yet I felt that
I have this for homework 💀
How did it go
Thank you this really helped me understand time signatures
Very nice tutorial, In Indian classical music or any Indian form, 4/4 is common yeah, but we have 3/4, 7/8, 5/8 used extensively too...
We call time signatures as taal,
4/4 - teentaal (16 beats per cycle)
3/8- dadra taal (6 beats per cycle)
7/8 - roopak taal (7 beats per cycle)
5/8 - jhap taal ,( actually 10 beats per cycle, but 5/8 works good too)
There many versions for the same time signatures but with a different group of notes, but above are the popular ones...
Indian music is amazing and can be complex, yet at the core, very organic.
jesus christ i've been a piper for ten years and have never understood what time sigs meant. you are a godsend
Can't walk down the local street these days without everyone asking about time signatures...7/8 this...3/4that...13/8. The other.everone is talking about it...lol... great video as usual😁😁
U genius.....not even music schools will break this in few minutes
You have no idea how much value this video has. Thanks a lot for your work !!!
Seriously?
When I mess my arrangements ,having 1/8 beat notes in 4/4 signiture haha.. thanks for this video.
Fantastically helpful video - the mists are beginning to clear. Thank you.
It is the best explanation of a difficult subject to understand that I found so far. When you demonstrated vocally the different kinds helped me the most.
I am so curious why you changed your name from Michael Bruno to Kalani Das and what that means....
Pisces by Jinjer is a really cool example of 2 cool time signatures used in one song. It starts in 7/8 pattern but the chorus is in 6/8. Give it a listen and you'll be pleasantly surprised
Love Jinjer
To anybody who is struggling, think of it this way. It’s similar to fractions. Top number is how many pieces of cake, bottom number is how big those slices are.
4/4 has 4 notes in a bar and all of them fall on the beep of the metronome, because the bottom number says the value of the note which is quarter notes, and there are 4 of them. If we go into 5/4, the notes still fall on the beeps of the metronome but now you are counting 5 notes instead, which sounds weird at first like the music is stumbling.
Change the bottom number and it changes the type of note. If a time signature has 8 on the bottom that means eighth notes. That means that after 5 8th notes, a new bar happens. In 5/4, after 5 quarter notes, a new bar happens.
Like this comment if you understood the explanation so more can sre
Watched a lot of videos on this site explaining this topic, yours is by far the best. Many thanks!
Fantastically explained! With great demonstration!
hello sir. your class are very nice and very useful thank you and god bless you
I watch this video time to time so that my time signature knowledge is up to time 😁
Thank you for that very good explanation.
Nice! Ive been playing by "ear" since '67 and I used to just snort when people were whining about numbers ( I play well, can play most basic Latin rhythms,conga ,Bongo (martillo) ) I have also played djimbe with congalese dance classes,dun dun bell parts ,SAMBA, surdo and bell. Studied with Olatunji and Malonga Casquelourd . but now I am in a BAND where folks are playing live off charts .! YIKES !!! I am needing suddenly to talk metrics like crazy,and make sense explain the differences between 5 claves,and who it matters . PHEW !!It's FUN and damn hard! . THANKS AGAIN look up midnight sun reggae soka ska calypso soul funk and groove !
I have a general Idea how time Signature worked, this really help tie everything together.
Don't play drums but it made a lot of sense.Thanks man
I still do not understand, but thanks for the effort, I guess? When you said 'Well it's just 4 4" I realised I wasn't going to come away with a better understanding.
Great explanation .... more of the scat to help us hear it. Maybe a whole video on beats ... My toughest thing when I was taking dance lessons was in being able to discern the beat to determine the correct dance step.
Great stuff.
This gave me more of an idea than other videos I’ve watched. Thank you 🙏😊
Was confused for a long time, you explained it perfectly.Thank U!
So i have some memory issues, and i don't remember a single bit of theory, been playing in the brass band for almost a decade now, i literally cannot play the easiest sheet if u put it infront of me, but once the song starts...my body just does things😂 n idk how that works but it does
U should give us some example of songs that use this diff type of time signature. I think its will help us to more understand about time signature
Thank you this helped me so much. I have music homework where i have to conduct a song
A noticible 6/8 and 4/4 change is present in Rush's "Trees"
This really helped lol THX. I've been playing the flute for 4 years and tbh I just play the notes (hopefully) correctly and pretty much guess the rhythms- Yea- I wanna stop doing that so I'm tryna learn wtf everything means otherwise I'll probably end up failing music class😃
The way how I think of 5/4 is like it switches between 3/4 and 2/4 every measure. Like I count 5/4 as 1 2 3, 1 2, 1 2 3, 1 2. And the same thing with 7/4, it switches between 4/4 and 3/4 every measure. I count 7/4 as 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3.
Once upon a dream, from sleeping beauty is in 3/4. I figured that out by watching this video, thanks!
im here since i have no idea wtf too do in my orchestra class and forgot everything since last year
Thanks for keeping it simple and not supper long
I recognize the 6/8 from some tool songs. I dont completely have the timing thing down but some time signatures I can distinguish from others.
This got me further than I was but an example for each on an instrument prob drums would be helpful.
None of these videos explains this enough for me, what do the numbers, both numbers, in any signature mean, can I see an overlay or have it just verbally identified where the count of each number is in that beat. Yes, I hear them demo different rhythms, but I have not made a correlation of the naming rule based on the 2 numbers
For me, I learned 6/8 by learning 4/4 time. It will be very difficult to teach someone ⁶/⁸ without understanding ⁴/⁴. Now, to put ⁶/⁸ simply to understand is the number 6 tells me how many beats is in one Measure. Now, the 8 is taking whatever note that is in the measure and double the size. For example, an ¹/⁸ note is a quarter note, quarter note is a half note and so on.
Great video man! Holy red shirt though- it's burned into my retinas- I see a blue after image when I close my eyes and I'm not even kidding 😂
J Dilla is a great example of going from 6/8 to 4/4. Thanks for the video.
Awesome! I " almost " get it!! I need to do some homework🔑🔑🔑🎇🎇
yeah this made it simpler to understand time signatures ... with the additional beat boxing ..to explain it musically ... this guy is good .. loved it ! ... hope theres another one with songs as well .. but this gave a reall good foundation of undrstanding time signatures ...
Thank you, Howie.
I think now I more confused than before.
Excellent explanation.
Excellent clarification! Thankyou for helping this make sense!
Mt pleasure
I’ve been playing guitar for 8 years now, specifically as a rhythm player since I like the feel of rhythm more, and I’m trying to better my understanding of time signatures. What can benefit me most when learning these new time signatures? I like a lot of groove and bounce
43% burnt - dillingers escape plan is a perfect example imo for change in time signatures
Question for youtube: The famous airwolf-theme seems to be basically 4/4, but with each 'hit' replaced by 3 hits. Does this kind of rhytm has a special name, maybe in terms timesignature?
Sounds like you are describing 12/8 (four sets of three)
7/8 is called Mishra Chaippu(ta ki ta tha ka dhi mi....) beat in In Indiam music
and 5/8 is called Khanda Chaippu (ta ka takita.....)
My favourites❤❤❤
Can’t stop watching him laugh while trying to explain 4/4 @ 1:17-1:27
Thanks great content' Its crystal clear.
This I where I get confused 2:06 'type of note'.... all music contains _different_ types of notes!
I was thrown out of band class in 7th grade because I didn’t understand this and couldn’t get a drum roll correct.
The instructor looked like Wally Cox complete with bow tie. He was screaming at me and pointing at the door yelling get out! His face was red and the veins were popping on his temple as he screamed.
I never went back to that class again.
Great explanation! finally one that meets practical and theory!!!!