3/8 & 6/8 Time Signatures

Hello and welcome back! I'm Joseph Hoffman.

Today is very exciting because we are learning about a whole new kind of time signature.

So far we've seen lots of different numbers on top of our time signature like: 4/4, 2/4, 3/4,

but on bottom it's always been that same old number 4.

Today we're going to learn more about what that number actually means,

and how to count rhythms when that bottom number changes.

Oh boy! We're finally learning about that bottom number!

My music theory excitement meter is off the charts!

I'm glad you too are excited. So let's come to my whiteboard to explain.

Let's assume we wanted to dictate the rhythm to one phrase from a familiar song we learned a long time ago,

'let us chase the squirrel.' How would we write that rhythm?

We could write it like this: TI-TI TI-TI TA TA

Now, if we wanted to figure out the time signature for this, we'd have to figure out where our strong beats were.

Let us chase the squirrel.

And for this song it fits nicely in groups of 2 beats,

which means we could, say our time signature is 2/4, which put another way you can think of this bottom number as meaning

quarter notes. If you see a 4 on the bottom, we're really saying they're going to be two quarter note beats in every measure.

Here's one quarter note size beat.

Another quarter note size beat,

and then we start a new measure of two quarter note sized beats because remember, two eighth notes

equals one quarter note.

Let's dictate the rhythm of this song now.

♫Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go♫

What rhythm did you hear up here on ♫over the river and♫?

Those were eighth notes. TI-TI-TI TI-TI-TI

But what's special about these eighth notes this time is they're in groups of three instead of our usual groups of two.

And the reason for that is where the strong syllables of the words are. We have 'over the river and.'

So we can hear a strong syllable there on 'o-ver the' and then 'ri-ver and.' They're kind of in groups of three. 'Over the river and.'

Technically this is the exact same rhythm we had.

But with them in groups of two, it would sound like this: 'Over the river and.'

Sounds kind of crazy. So it's important how you group the eighth notes to match the flow of the music or the words.

Now let's dictate a little more. We have 'through the woods to.'

You'll notice there's kind of a longer sound on 'through,' and then a slightly faster sound on 'the.' 'through the woods to.' So for that we need a quarter note followed by an eighth note.

So remember that when an eighth note is all by itself it gets a flag.

These are also eighth notes so they go just as quick as this eighth note but it's all by itself now.

'through the woods to.'

Now let's figure out a little bit more. What would 'grandmothers' be?

'grand-mo-ther's'

That would be TI-TI-TI. A group of three eighth notes.

Once again, we've got a strong syllable and then two weaker ones. 'grand-mo-ther's'

'house we go!'

'house we.' Let's just figure out this one. 'house we.'

Once again we have a TA TI, or quarter note, eighth note, and then 'go' actually is a dotted quarter note because it lasts even a little extra long. 'go!'

Now, try to say the whole thing in rhythm words with me. We'll say TI-TI for any eighth notes, TA

or TA-A just a little extra ah for that dot.

Ready, go. TI-TI-TI TI-TI-TI TA TI TA TI TI-TI-TI TA TI TA-A

Now, are you curious what the time signature of this rhythm is?

It's actually 6/8.

Now, for the first time we have a number other than four on the bottom.

When you have 6/8 what that is really saying is that you have 6 eighth note beats in every measure.

We've always had quarter note beats so far, but sometimes because the music is getting a little bit fancier.

We can have eighth note beats. So here's beat 1 2 3 4 5 6, and then we need a bar line.

6 eighth note beats in the measure. 6/8 is your time signature. So we'd count it 1 2 3 4 5 6, and you'll notice 4

is kind of a secondary strong beat. We have our strong beat on 1 as always,

and beat 4 is a strong beat too, which you can see by how the eighth notes are grouped 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2, oh my goodness,

now if an eighth note is 1 beat,

how many beats would a quarter note be?

You're so used to thinking of this as 1 beat, but in 6/8 it actually is 2 beats because a quarter note equals two eighth notes.

If ...