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Time signature and rhythmA piece of music is divided into measures. Measures are small pieces of equal course of time, so equal number of counts. The number and sort of counts areindicated in the left side of the system. This is called the time signature.

Time signature is divided in bipartite and tripartite, and singular and compound. Bipartite and tripartite tell something about the upper number, whether its divisibleby two or by three. Music with a tripartite time signature is usually quite easy to recognize, because it has such a ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three rhythm, like thewaltz (which is of course tripartite, but not every partite song is a waltz). Singular and compound tell something about the accents; a singular time signature hasone main accent, a compound time signature has one main accent and one or more secondary accents.The most common time signatures are:

Bipartite

singular compound

2/2* 4/2

2/4 4/4*

2/8 4/8

Tripartite

singular compound

3/4 9/4

3/8 6/8

9/8

* The 2/2 is transcribed as as well, and the 4/4 as the as well.* The 6/8 is nothing but a junction of two 3/8. This means it has a main accent on the first count, and a secondary accent on the fourth. Notice it is completelydifferent from the 3/4, because the 3/4 has a main accent on the first count, and secondary accents on the second and the third count.

Ill illustrate this with some examples. The main accents are indicated with a +, the secondary accents with a -. Bipartite, singular

Bipartite, compound

Tripartite, singular

Tripartite, compound

An irregular time signature is the junction of two unequal time signatures, for example 5/8.5/8 = 2/8+3/8 or 3/8+2/8, so in notes it is:

Transcriptus! http://home.iae.nl/users/marel_c/Index/English/mtrhythm.html

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