Grade 1:2 - Bars & Time Signatures

Previous: Lesson 1 - Musical Notes

Welcome to lesson 2! Hopefully lesson 1 made sense to you and gave a good understanding of the basics of music, this lesson will build from there so if you are new to music, check out lesson 1 first and then come back to this one.

So, how do the notes we looked at in Lesson 1 create music?

Bars & Time Signatures

Bars

To neatly write music, the stave is split into groups of notes, in Grade 1, this will be either groups worth 2, 3 or 4 crotchets (quater notes). These groups are called bars (or measures), and separated by the bar line.

The bars reflect the rhythm of the music and make a huge difference to how the music is written and how it will sound. We will start to see this as we learn more. The first beat of each bar is felt stronger. This creates a kind of “pulse” which is how we feel the rhythm. The way in which the music is divided, or the number of beats per bar is defined by the time signature.

Time Signatures

Time Signatures show the rhythm of the music. There are different ways music can be written to create different rhythms. For Grade 1, there are 3 time signatures you need to know. These are called, 2/4, and 4/4 (said two-four, three-four and four-four).

The top number shows you how many beats there will be, 2, 3 or 4.

The bottom number shows you what kind of beat, in this case, they are all crotchets (quarter notes)

There can be different notes on the top and bottom, we will see those in later grades.

A 4/4 time signature means that each bar has the value of 4 quarter notes or crotchets. This doesn’t mean you have to use quarter notes, you can use any notes with equivalent values and we are going to look at this in the next section.

The Beat

The beat is like a background grid which the rhythm follows. You can often feel the beat when you listen to music. The music won’t necessarily play the beat but it is an invisible structure the music is following.

Here is how the beat would be displayed for each time signature.

Time Signatures

As you can see, the time signature of 4/4 has the value of four crotchet (quarter note) beats per bar, this is the beat. The music doesn’t have to use four quater notes per bar, you can use any notes with equivalent values. We will look at this next.

4/4 is the most common time signature, it is also called common time, and sometimes represented by this symbol (C) - this is an old symbol that is still in use today, it is not a letter C.

If you want to practice any of the techniques in these lessons, download the workbook below, it contains questions for each lesson as well as answers so you can check your progress. See you in the next one!

Next: Lesson 3 - Time Value of Notes

A Free Gift for you...

Download the Grade 1 Music Theory Workbook - An Introduction to Music Theory for free. The workbook teaches you the entire content of Grade 1 music theory from start to finish. It contains activities, with answers, to test your knowledge and give you chance to practice what you are learning.

There are 19 sections, covering every topic as well as reference sheets and materials which will come in handy as you study.

Click here to check it out.