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Homework – Simple Time Signatures
The regular pulses or beats in a piece of music are grouped together into bars. When
writing down music the end of each bar is shown using bar-lines – single vertical lines –
and the end of the piece is shown with a double bar-line.
The number of beats in each bar is written at the beginning using two numbers called a
time signature. The top number gives how many beats and the bottom number gives how
they are written – when the bottom number is 4 each beat is a crotchet.
The most common time signatures you will come across are
time signature
may be written as
,
and
. Occasionally the
.
When you are writing down music you need to make sure that each bar adds up to the
correct number of beats shown in the time signature.
Double
bar-line
Time signature
Bar-lines
In the piece of music printed above the time signature is which means 2 crotchet beats
in every bar.
Each bar has 2 crotchet beats worth of notes – in this piece, either 2 crotchets or 1 minim.
There are 4 bars of music and the end is shown with a double bar-line.
When writing music in bars down you do not use a bar-line at the beginning of the line.
You should also not split a bar over two different lines.
You should only write the time signature once at the beginning of the piece.
Exercise 1
Add the correct time signature in the box at the beginning of each line. The first one has
been done as an example.
3
4
Exercise 2
Add ONE note at each place marked with a * to complete the bar. The first one is done as
an example (with the note stems of the added notes going up.)