Can You Explain Time Signatures In Plain English? Options

[better]

Everytime I try to learn about it (or most music theory) the person or thing I'm reading gets off on an 8 hour tangent and doesn't explain it in plain, simple English. (Why it so hard to explain it as- 1-2-3-4? Without getting off subject?)

[marceldolive]

Everytime I try to learn about it (or most music theory) the person or thing I'm reading gets off on an 8 hour tangent and doesn't explain it in plain, simple English. (Why it so hard to explain it as- 1-2-3-4? Without getting off subject?)

Hello,

I like metaphors, because sometimes our brain works better by images.


1) Imagine that each sheet music is a winery.

There are different sizes of wine containers.

Each container is half of another, then the producer put numbers to differentiate them.
The lower the container, the greater number:

Big gallons = 1 (the unit)

Barrels = 2 (the unit, gallon, divided by 2)

Big bottles = 4 (the unit, gallon, divided by 4)

Small bottles = 8 (the unit, gallon, divided by 8)

Samples (very small bottles) = 16 (the unit, gallon, divided by 16)


To deliver wine, the winery has different sizes of vehicles: trucks, cars, motocycles.

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2) Each container (big gallons, barrels, bottles) is as a rhythmic figure. So, each one can have a different duration.
We can say: is really faster to drink the content of a sample than all the wine inside a gallon.
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3) Imagine the musical measure is a delivery vehicle, and various sizes of vehicles are available.

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4) Then the wine producer, to know the size of each vehicle and the size (the "duration") of each container, make a "formula" like this:

Above: a number indicates how many containers fit in the vehicle
Below: another number indicates the kind of container is being used (gallon, barrel, big bottle, small bottle, sample)

E.g.:

3/4 = 3 big bottles (represented by number 4) fit in the vehicle (maybe a car?)

4/4 = 4 big bottles (represented by number 4) fit in the vehicle

12/8 = 12 small bottles (represented by number 8) fit in the vehicle

3/16 = 3 samples (represented by number 16) fit in the vehicle (maybe a motorcycle?)


That "formula" shows both: the size of the vehicle (musical measure) and the size of each container (rhythmic figures).
It's more complex than this, because the "wine producer" can mix the bottles of different sizes in the same vehicle.

But I hope this gives you a visual idea of "Time Signature".

This post has been edited by marceldolive: Wed 15 Aug 2012, 04:54