# Time signatures (`time-signatures.html`)

From the Rhythm room: The beat and the bar, Groups of 3 and 2 (/sangeet-yatra/rhythm/).

Hear each meter on the piano. The fraction, and which meters are simple, compound, or grouped, live on [Western theory · Time signatures](/sangeet-yatra/theory/western/#time-signatures). Use the metronome’s **Beats** menu while you press **Feel it**.

Interactive page: [`time-signatures.html`](time-signatures.html). Twin of this document. Part of **After C**, after [Note values](note-values.md) and before [Sight reading](reading.md). [Highway Game](highway.md) follows sight reading. Ear training stays in [Tools](/sangeet-yatra/tools/ear-training.html).

## The fraction

The top number is how many beats sit in a bar. The bottom number is which note gets one beat. The full list lives on [Western theory · Time signatures](/sangeet-yatra/theory/western/#time-signatures). Named cycles live on [Tabla](/sangeet-yatra/tabla/) and [Madal](/sangeet-yatra/madal/). Guitar strums the same meters on [Strumming · time signatures](/sangeet-yatra/guitar/strumming.html#meter).

## Simple meters

Press **Feel it**. Each beat divides in two.

| Meter | Count | Nickname / feel |
|------|-------|-----------------|
| **4/4** | 1 2 3 4 | Common time (the **C** symbol). Pop, hymns, most film songs. |
| **3/4** | 1 2 3 | Waltz. Strong–weak–weak. |
| **2/4** | 1 2 | March. Two-step, polka. |
| **2/2** | 1 2 | Cut time / alla breve. Looks like 4/4; feel two half-note beats. |

## Compound meters

Each dotted-quarter pulse divides in **three**. 6/8 is **1** & a **2** & a — two pulses, not six slow beats (compound duple). 9/8 is three even pulses; 12/8 is four (a blues shuffle often lives here). That even 9/8 is a different bar from the limping 9/8 under Odd and irregular meters. Same fraction.

The metronome’s tempo box is the **quarter note**. An /8 meter therefore ticks twice as fast as the same top number in /4.

## 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.

9/8 aksak (the "limping" nine) is nine eighths with one group of three and three groups of two. The three can sit last, first, second or third: 2+2+2+3, 3+2+2+2, 2+3+2+2, 2+2+3+2. Feel it plays a chord on each group start and a single note on the rest.

This is still Western meter — not a named taal. For 7-beat and 10-beat cycles with bols, go to Tabla (Rupak, Jhaptaal).

## Listen

On the HTML page, **Feel it** sits on each simple, compound, and odd-meter row. It 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 under Listen and in the practice bar.

Next: [Sight reading](reading.md) — name one note at a time, starting in the five-finger shape.