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Piano Module - Time Signatures

Piano Module - Time Signatures

A mini lesson on how to read piano music time signatures. 3 min read (313 words)

The information provided in this blog post is for educational purposes only. Please review our Disclaimer.

Time Signatures

A time signature

  • groups notes together within a bar (or measure), which are separated by a bar line

It basically organizes the notes (and rests) in time. If you need a refresher on notes, visit Piano Module - Notes.

Here is an example of a piece of music with a time signature:

Mountain Rain music line by notesmachine circling the time signature.

Time signatures as you can see above, consists of numbers (and sometimes symbols), which tells us which note gets a beat within a bar:

Treble clef with 2/4 time signature and two quarter notes

“2” beats in each bar “4” note type, meaning what note value gets the beat (quarter note in this case)

so 2/4 means each bar gets 2 quarter notes or the value of 2 quarter notes!

Here you can see some notes that can be used with 2/4 time signature within each bar:

Few examples of time signature 2/4 and proper note values for each bar. First bar has two quarter notes, second bar has one half note, third bar has four eight notes.

So you can see that some notes aren’t quarter notes but they add up to 2 quarter notes in the bar.

A quick way to remember what note is on the bottom, create a fraction => so for 2/4 time signature replace the top number with a 1 and look at it as a fraction, 

1/4 = quarter note

Symbols instead of numbers

Sometimes symbols are used instead of numbers, here are a few:

2/2 also known as cut time

Cut time example with a 'c' and a vertical line through it, is the same as 2/2 time.

4/4 also known as common time

Common time example has a 'c' and is the same as 4/4 time.