What is the point of time signatures?

Question

I don't understand why we have time signatures. I'm a beginner/intermediate guitar player and I usually use tabs except for when I try playing classical music. Today, I was looking at the music sheets for Fur Elise and Morning Mood, which were in time signatures of 3/8 and 6/8, respectively.However, it doesn't change how I play the song. Why is this concept built into music?

Answer 1

If you don't think time signatures are important, I don't think I would like to listen to you playing solo. Do you play all music the same, with no sense of rhythm or pulse? How awful that would be - just a string of meaningless, nonrhythmic notes!



You don't play like that? Then you already know the point of time signatures - it gives a rhythmic logic to the music.

Answer 2

It doesn't change how YOU play the song because you don't understand the "point" of having time signatures, so you are relying probably more on your own familiarity with the tune, and you aren't really paying attention to the time signatures. Besides within the beats per measure as indicated by a time signature...individual musicians may decide to take a piece faster or slower than the composer may have indicated. Sometimes you'll see a number written above the staff of music to indicate how fast or slow you are supposed to take it--like a metronome setting?



Also many songs and pieces, there may be other markings in the music such as crescendo, decrescendo markings as well as fermatas that might "break up" a very strict beat or count.



Without time signatures, you would just have notes on the staff without any indication whatsoever how to long to hold them out. Which is why people on this site refuse to write out notes "in letters" for people who can't or won't read regular sheet music.

Answer 3

Time signatures tell you on which beat of a bar the emphasis should be on- always the first beat. In 3/8, the emphasis is on the first beat. in 6/8 it is on the first beat, with a smaller emphasis on the second beat (6/8 is split into two groups of three quavers, with the first group being beat 1, and the second being beat 2). If a 6/8 piece was instead written in 3/8, the emphasis would be equal on the 1st and 4th quaver of the piece, but in 6/8, it tells you to put a smaller emphasis on the 4th quaver. This comes in really handy when playing more difficult pieces with odd key signatures like 5/4, or 12/9.

Answer 4

It establishes the beat of the piece, when you're playing solo this can be quite important to make sure you keep in time and therefore get the rhythms correct. It's even more important when you're playing in a group or orchestra, if we didn't have time signatures players wouldn't know when to play after rests and the conductor couldn't keep everyone together

Answer 5

The time signature establishes the meter of the music. it matters regardless of whether you're playing solo or with a group, as the time signature tells you what the strong and weak beats are in the measures, ex: 4/4 time: strong-weak-medium-weak or ONE two Three four, in 3/4 time the pattern is strong-weak-weak, or ONE-two-three. without a time signature (known as "senza misura") you have no regular pattern of strong and weak beats...it's sort of like a run-on sentence then, accenting when and where the composer indicates without typically following any set pattern. so yes time signature does matter, regardless of whether or not you were reading it before you were likely still observing it, unless you were doing something silly like accenting the off beats: one-TWO-three-four-FIVE-six...which you probably weren't doing.

Answer 6

The top number indicates the number of beats per measure. The bottom number indicates what length of note lasts one beat (it's usually a 4, meaning a quarter note; or an 8, meaning an eighth note) So, 4/4 means 4 quarter notes fill one measure. 3/4 means 3 quarter notes fill one measure. 6/8 means 6 eighth notes fill one measure.

Answer 7

Time signatures are actually pretty important. I'd take a look at what they say about the subject at www.musictheory.net. Perhaps that will get the appropriate level of importance for you.

Answer 8

If you are playing solo it does not really so matter since it is an interpretation of your own. HOWEVER, a big pointer for time signatures are so conductors and players in the orchestra have something to follow. Listen to Bolero by Ravel, time signatures are very important in that piece because if the player are not following the conductors time it could fall to pieces easily.