Time signatures
Western meter is a fraction at the start of the staff. It tells you how the bar is grouped — how many beats, and which note value is one beat. Use the metronome’s Beats menu; this page teaches what those labels mean.
Listen & read: · Sight reading · Time signatures · Note values
The fraction
The top number is how many beats sit in one bar. The bottom number is the note value that gets one beat: 2 = half note, 4 = quarter, 8 = eighth. So 4/4 means four quarter-note beats; 6/8 means six eighth-note beats.
Beat 1 is the downbeat — the same job as sam in a taal. Western music rarely names the cycle (no Teental, no Keherwa). A few nicknames exist; the rest is the fraction plus, for odd meters, the grouping.
Named cycles live on Tabla and Madal. Guitar strums the same meters on Strumming · time signatures.
Simple meters
Each beat divides in two (1 & 2 & …). The walking pulse is a quarter note when the bottom number is 4.
| Count | Nickname / feel | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 44 | 1 2 3 4 | Common time (the C symbol). Pop, hymns, most film songs. | |
| 34 | 1 2 3 | Waltz. Strong–weak–weak. | |
| 24 | 1 2 | March. Two-step, polka. | |
| 22 | 1 2 | Cut time / alla breve. Looks like 4/4; feel two half-note beats, not four quarters. |
Compound meters
Each dotted-quarter pulse divides in three. Count the eighths in groups: 6/8 is 1 & a 2 & a — two pulses, not six slow beats. That is compound duple. 9/8 is three pulses; 12/8 is four (a blues shuffle often lives here).
| Eighths | Feel as | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 68 | 3+3 | Two pulses. Jig, ballad, many slow-rock grooves. | |
| 98 | 3+3+3 | Three pulses. Compound triple. | |
| 128 | 3+3+3+3 | Four pulses. Shuffle / 12/8 ballad. |
The metronome’s tempo box is the quarter note. An /8 meter therefore ticks twice as fast as the same top number in /4 — 6/8 at 60 BPM clicks eighths at 120. That matches the Beats menu on every page.
Odd and irregular meters
When the bar does not split evenly into 2 or 3, write the grouping. 5/4 is often 3+2 or 2+3; 7/8 is often 2+2+3. The Beats menu already groups those (downbeat strongest, group starts medium, the rest soft).
| Meter | A common grouping | |
|---|---|---|
| 5/4 | 2+3 or 3+2 | |
| 7/8 | 2+2+3 | |
| 7/4 | 3+2+2 |
This is still Western meter — not a named taal. For 7-beat and 10-beat cycles with bols, go to Tabla (Rupak, Jhaptaal).
Listen
Feel it on a row sets the metronome and plays a C major triad on the strong beats, a single C on the weak ones. The same button becomes Stop. Count with the dots here and in the practice bar.