Noisemaking 101 - Time Signature
Time signatures can give musicians an indication of style of music they are playing, but its main purpose is to divide a piece of music into chunks, called bars.
Time signatures look like the picture below and can be found at the beginning of the music.
The top number tells us how many beats are in a bar. The lower number tells us how big the beats are. For example, if we look at the picture above we see 4/4. This would tell the musician that there are 4 quarter notes in every bar. The picture below will help you determine what the bottom number represents.
As you get more advanced you will run into a few time signatures that only use a symbol. One is called common time and it equals 4/4 time and the other is called cut time which tells the musician to play 2/2 time. Check out the diagrams below.
If you have any questions your music teacher will glad to answer it, just ask.
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