Time Signatures and Rhythmic Coordination

With groups of notes and rests comes some type of order. This order gives us the rules of the particular piece of music we will be playing. You can consider time signatures to be that rule of authority and it’s these set of numbers placed at the beginning of music which give us direction in the field of timing.

Have you seen sheet music beginning with a clef sign (in guitar music that would be a treble clef)? What comes next? The time signature. The top number of the time signature represents the number of beats in a measure and the bottom number indicates which value represents one beat.

So, in other words, in 4/4 time, the top number “4” represents 4 beats in every measure. That is the rule the player cannot break. The bottom number “4” indicates that the quarter note (the black one with a stem) receives one beat. This time signature would also make the half note (the hollow one with a stem) worth two beats and the whole note (the hollow one with no stem) worth four beats. Try clapping your hands to four beats per measure, accenting the first beat of every series of 4 beats.

In 3/4 time, there are three beats per measure with the quarter note again receiving one beat. In 2/4 time there are two beats per measure and the quarter note receives that one beat.

Since 4/4 time is very popular in western music it’s sometimes abbreviated “C,” which stands for common time. When you see a common time signature, count the music exactly the same as 4/4 time.

Downbeats

Within each beat can be heard the beginning and the middle. That may sound confusing but I have heard it said that Barbara Streisand likes to begin her phrasing on the downbeat – not right on the head of each beat of sound. Notice that next time you hear her on the radio.

So, the beginning of our beats are downbeats and the name for the exact middle of the beat is considered an upbeat. When we count eighth notes, the first eighth note occurs on the downbeat and the second on the upbeat. We use the word “and” to represent the upbeat.

Picking Directions

Most guitarists will use alternate picking for everything they play or improvise; but picking directions are different when reading music. We want the down strokes and upstrokes of the pick to coincide with the downbeats and upbeats of our music.

Developing Rhythmic Coordination

To develop your individual feel for rhythm, look at some sheet music and count the quarter-note pulse out loud while tapping the same pulse with your foot. Make sure the music is written in common time or 4/4 to start with. After this coordination feels comfortable, repeat and clap the rhythm with your hands. Clapping gives us awareness of the attack of a note. We could also sing rhythms while tapping the quarter-note pulse with your foot. Singing provides awareness of the duration of the notes (how long we hold or sustain their sound).

Eye Movement

When we start to read music we tend to stare at it while we are playing. Later on we can begin to look at notes in groups of two beats, reading one measure of music at a time and reading ahead of what we’re playing. But first we should develop the eye’s ability to move across the music page. To do this, we start by making the eye jump around and move in different directions in an effort to force it to move.