Sign up ×





share|improve this question

5 Answers 5

up vote 8 down vote accepted








share|improve this answer



quarter note = 120 bpm
half note = 60 bpm


Time signatures are not used to convey tempo.
Tempo, is not used to convey time signatures.

Meter was described well by NReilingh.

Hope this helps!

share|improve this answer
> You won't (shouldn't) ever see just "120 bpm". > Too many assumptions can be made from this. I disagree with this entirely. You will often see just “120 bpm” and the only assumption that you need to make is that the quarter note gets the beat, like it does in 99% of all songs. – Simon White Sep 8 at 8:26

Wikipedia entries on Tempo and Meter are informative on this topic.




share|improve this answer
Is that the piano version of the Cage, or one of the many orchestrated versions…? – Bob Broadley Apr 11 '14 at 16:58
I am most familiar with the version for solo Triangle. I'm a trianguloutist. (This is my neighbor's favorite piece!) – Jason Boyd Apr 11 '14 at 17:03


Time Signature tells us how many beats there is in a bar and what each beat consists of.

Tempo is an indication on how fast or slowly the peace is to be played

The beat is the amount of strong pulses a bar has.

2/4 time has two beats of crotchets. 9/8 time has three beats of dotted crotchets. 5/4 time has five groups of crotchets.

share|improve this answer

I wish in all my years studying music in grade school and High School I had this kind of explanation.

I was always given the explanation that 3/4 time means, three quarter notes per bar also known as a measure. And it means that a a quarter note is one beat.

All through my amateur musical career I thought, UH..SO What ? As with most aspiring young musicians I felt stupid for not understanding how time signature effect the sound or rhythm of music.

In fact, strictly speaking technically it doesn't. It's tempo and beat that does. In itself time signature does not...not all by itself.

I've always suspected, but loath for any music instructor to ever tell me that. "Time signatures are primarily for notational purposes." Right on!

It technically just states that the numerator designates how many beats per bar aka measure.

The denominator designates the note value that represents one beat.

3/4 time is 3 quarter note beats per bar. Quarter of What ! ? A whole note. So what ?? How long is a bar/measure in real time? WTF?

What does that have to do with how the music sounds ? Notes are relative too, to be sure but certain frequencies of sound vibrations correspond to specific notes.

This stuff is part of tradition. Music and in particular written music IS based on traditional convention on how it is represented on paper. But IMHO it is full of subjective and imperfect distillation into written form, developed more than a century ago. Not ALL of the sound is contained in the written sheet music....but most of it!

IMHO time signature baffles me on the rhythm and tempo of a piece of music. Tempo of course is at the discretion of the performer(s) as it should be. But I'm confused at what the time signature has to do with the sound, rhythm or tempo of the piece.

So....that being said, why is Dave Brubeck's unsquared dance (which I love) so interesting and why is that because of it's unusual 7/4 time signature. The whole of Brubeck's album Time Out is about experimenting with time signatures. It's all great and different and I'm told it's because of the unusual time signatures but I just don't get how the time signatures translate to my ear.

share|improve this answer
It would be very interesting to hear the same piece of music played with two different time signatures. I wonder if that has ever been done? – Mike Rodgers Dec 7 '14 at 2:05

Your Answer


