How long is a bar?

Rocker · November 2020

I have a working knowledge of how chords are made up and notes in scales but have no idea of what 3/4 or 4/4 time actually means. I have no knowledge of how long a bar lasts in music. I have read up on this but somehow I fail to understand what has been written.

I can play waltz time, 3/4, without thinking but what does the 3 part mean and ditto the 4. I presume that 4/4 time means playing a max total of 4 notes or rests or a combination per bar. It all gets back to how long a bar lasts.

Trying to plug gaps in my lack of music theory. A major problem is not knowing exactly what I am looking for and what question(s) to ask.

Any help or or guidance will be very appreciated. Thanks.

John_A · November 2020

4/4 means 4 crotchets in a bar, so a typical song in 4/4 would be counted in as "1 2 3 4", and that is a bar in 4/4/ time
3/4 means 3 crotchets in a bar, so a typical song in 3/4 would be counted in as "1 2 3 ", and that is a bar in 3/4 time

"I presume that 4/4 time means playing a max total of 4 notes or rests or a combination per bar. It all gets back to how long a bar lasts."

Exactly

fretmeister · November 2020

First in a 3 book series

https://www.basslinepublishing.com/product/the-bass-guitarists-guide-to-reading-music-beginner-level/

They are well written and easy to follow.

Well worth £10 of your hard earned.

mrkb · November 2020

I don’t understand 6/8, why isn’t it 6/4 - it’s counted 1,2,3,4,5,6 not 1&2&3& . Can anyone help me understand that please?

Snags · November 2020

Because it's twice 3/4

6/8 is because it's groupings of quavers not crotchets. So the underlying defining bit of time is an 8th note not a quarter note.

fretmeister · November 2020

Snags said:

Because it's twice 3/4

6/8 is because it's groupings of quavers not crotchets. So the underlying defining bit of time is an 8th note not a quarter note.

Those triplets have to fit somehow!

viz · November 2020

mrkb said:

I don’t understand 6/8, why isn’t it 6/4 - it’s counted 1,2,3,4,5,6 not 1&2&3& . Can anyone help me understand that please?

Because 1&2&3& is 3 beats in a bar. Like a waltz. That's 3/4.

But 6/8 is 2 beats in a bar, each divided into 3 triplets. Like 123,223. It’s called compound time.

Jonathangus · November 2020

Is it partly to do with the tempo of the song? If you slow down a piece in 6/8 enough, does it just start to 'feel' like 3/4 instead?

ArchtopDave · November 2020

Jonathangus said:

Is it partly to do with the tempo of the song? If you slow down a piece in 6/8 enough, does it just start to 'feel' like 3/4 instead?

It should not do so. As @viz says, 6/8 is a compound time ( made up of two triplets). In 3/4, you have 3 beats of equal prominence, whereas in 6/8, the 1st and 4th beats are accented.

Coldfingers · November 2020

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/112738/#Comment_112738

Danny1969 · November 2020

I always thing of the pulse ... take the intro of Where the streets have no name. That to me is 6/8 rather than 3/4 but others hear it different

BahHumbug · November 2020

One thing to try and think of with these sorts of questions, is that different beats in a bar get different emphasis. For instance in 4/4 beat beat 1 is the strongest, beat 3 slightly weaker, beats 2 and 4 are weaker again. In the case of rock music Beats 1 and 3 are usually done by bass drum, beats 2 and 4 by snare. You might not necessarily agree that bass drum is stronger than snare, but hopefully you can see the principle of the difference in emphasis between 1, 3 and 2, 4.

If you try playing a riff or just strumming chords in 4/4 (without a drummer), what you should notice is that you naturally emphasise beat 1. Most people do this without even notice, because bars and this emphasis of beats is a natural part of musicality in western music.

Similarly in 3/4, beat 1 is emphasised.

For folks like the OP, who don’t think they understand bars and beats, it’s useful to practice counting along with a few recorded songs. Take a song you are familiar with, imagine the count-in, then put the recording on and try to count through a verse and a chorus.

BahHumbug · November 2020

I’ve always struggled with the difference between 3/4 and 6/8. I can usually recognise them, but it’s difficult to define/describe the difference.
Obviously 3/4 is typically described as waltz time, which implies an oom-pah-pah feel. A good example of a 6/8 tune which is noticeably not 3/4 is the Archers theme tune. This really has the feel of a shuffle. This common to lots of folky tunes.
The problem I find is there are plenty of examples in the middle ground where it’s difficult to distinguish 3/4 from 6/8.

EricTheWeary · November 2020

One of the many arguments with Dave The Ska Nazi ( keyboardist in an old band) was that he had a very poor idea of what a bar was. He was self taught and applied musical terms as he saw fit and as he was hard as nails there was no point arguing. So when he said ‘ this needs four bars of...’ we had to guess what he was actually referring to.

Although a bar is quite a difficult concept to explain simply, especially to an angry skinhead.

BahHumbug said:

One thing to try and think of with these sorts of questions, is that different beats in a bar get different emphasis. For instance in 4/4 beat beat 1 is the strongest, beat 3 slightly weaker, beats 2 and 4 are weaker again. In the case of rock music Beats 1 and 3 are usually done by bass drum, beats 2 and 4 by snare. You might not necessarily agree that bass drum is stronger than snare, but hopefully you can see the principle of the difference in emphasis between 1, 3 and 2, 4.

If you try playing a riff or just strumming chords in 4/4 (without a drummer), what you should notice is that you naturally emphasise beat 1. Most people do this without even notice, because bars and this emphasis of beats is a natural part of musicality in western music.

Similarly in 3/4, beat 1 is emphasised.

For folks like the OP, who don’t think they understand bars and beats, it’s useful to practice counting along with a few recorded songs. Take a song you are familiar with, imagine the count-in, then put the recording on and try to count through a verse and a chorus.

I think that’s really helpful. Puts me in mind of artists like James Brown where the count is POW 2 3 4 POW 2 3 4...on something like Sex Machine, you can hear the bass in particular always hitting it on the 1.

https://youtu.be/1UzZUfFUnxY

Rocker · November 2020

OK guys but how long is a bar in music? Is it one second, two or more? I understand the concept of counting but simply want to how long does a bar last? And why is a waltz said to be 3/4 time? Is it simply that three beats are played in the same time that four beats are played in a 4/4 song or tune?

Thanks for your suggestion @Fretmeister but I have 'enough' music theory books to last a lifetime, it is this small element that I can't get my head around. I can read music very very slowly but unless I hear it played properly, I have no idea how it should sound.

Can anyone point me to a website that give examples of 4/4 and 3/4 time?

Thanks.

fretmeister · November 2020

Lots of examples on youtube - this should bring up a few.

loads on there.

The notes can be identical. Same order, same length, same pitch. But it's the pulse of the music that makes it sound different. In other words - where is the "1"?

Imagine it almost as the difference between a shout and just talking

ONE two three four ONE two three four

ONE two three ONE two three

In the Simple time signatures it's all about the "1" - land on it properly and it will give you right pulse.

There are examples on youtube with the same song played in different time signatures too - worth a listen so you can feel the different pulse.

roberty · November 2020

EricTheWeary said:

One of the many arguments with Dave The Ska Nazi ( keyboardist in an old band) was that he had a very poor idea of what a bar was. He was self taught and applied musical terms as he saw fit and as he was hard as nails there was no point arguing. So when he said ‘ this needs four bars of...’ we had to guess what he was actually referring to.
Although a bar is quite a difficult concept to explain simply, especially to an angry skinhead.

I am cackling at this story

EricTheWeary · November 2020

Rocker said:

OK guys but how long is a bar in music? Is it one second, two or more? I understand the concept of counting but simply want to how long does a bar last? And why is a waltz said to be 3/4 time? Is it simply that three beats are played in the same time that four beats are played in a 4/4 song or tune?

Thanks for your suggestion @Fretmeister but I have 'enough' music theory books to last a lifetime, it is this small element that I can't get my head around. I can read music very very slowly but unless I hear it played properly, I have no idea how it should sound.

Can anyone point me to a website that give examples of 4/4 and 3/4 time?

Thanks.

How long it lasts depends on how quickly you play it. Play any song you know on guitar, then play it faster or slower. Still the same number of beats and bars.

digitalkettle · November 2020

Rocker said:

OK guys but how long is a bar in music? Is it one second, two or more? I understand the concept of counting but simply want to how long does a bar last? And why is a waltz said to be 3/4 time? Is it simply that three beats are played in the same time that four beats are played in a 4/4 song or tune?

If the tempo is given in quarter notes (as it most often is) at 120bpm:

one bar of 3/4 (three quarter notes) has a duration of 1.5 seconds
one bar of 4/4 (four quarter notes) has a duration of 2 seconds

Jalapeno · November 2020

EricTheWeary said:

Rocker said:

OK guys but how long is a bar in music? Is it one second, two or more? I understand the concept of counting but simply want to how long does a bar last? And why is a waltz said to be 3/4 time? Is it simply that three beats are played in the same time that four beats are played in a 4/4 song or tune?

Thanks for your suggestion @Fretmeister but I have 'enough' music theory books to last a lifetime, it is this small element that I can't get my head around. I can read music very very slowly but unless I hear it played properly, I have no idea how it should sound.

Can anyone point me to a website that give examples of 4/4 and 3/4 time?

Thanks.

How long it lasts depends on how quickly you play it. Play any song you know on guitar, then play it faster or slower. Still the same number of beats and bars.

Depends on tempo or alternatively bpm - beats per minute

Rocker · November 2020

Thanks @Fretmeister, your response explains everything.

Philtre · November 2020

This should simplify things:

digitalkettle · November 2020

Philtre said:

This should simplify things:

Easy...duration = 2’53

merlin · November 2020

digitalkettle said:

Philtre said:

This should simplify things:

Easy...duration = 2’53

Or if you turn the volume all the way down, duration = 4'33".

UnclePsychosis · November 2020

Most explanations I've seen of this always really overcomplicate it.

In a time signature, the "bottom" number tells you which note value represents the unit of beats (which is easier to remember if you speak American (eighth, fourth, etc) rather than everyone else (quaver, crotchet,etc). The "top" number tells you how many of those note values make up a bar.

So 4/4 time is a time signature which has four fourth notes (crotchets) per bar.
Similarly, 3/4 time has three fourth notes (crotchets) per bar.
3/8 time would have three eighth notes (quavers) per bar.
6/8 has six eighth notes (quavers) per bar
12/8 has twelve eighth notes (quavers) per bar.

Time signatures which have a 2, 3, or 4 on the top are called "simple" time. Simple in this context means each beat can be split into two notes.

Time signatures which have a 6, 12, or sometimes a 9 on the top are called "compound" time. (these are almost always accompanied by an 8 on the bottom). In compound time, beats are split into three which gives a triplet feel.

The difference between 3/4 and 6/8 can be felt in the counting.

In 3/4 you would count two bars as One and Two and Three and One and Two and Three and (imagine emphasis on the bold beats). 3/4 has three beats in a bar, with each beat splits into two parts.

In 6/8 you would count two bars as One and a Two and a One and a Two and a. Each beat is a triplet, so it feels different to 3/4---6/8 has two beats in a bar, with each beat split into three parts.

4/4 and 12/8 have the same relationship as 3/4 and 6/8.

In answer to the specific question of "how long is a bar"---well its answered by the time signature. In 3/4 time a bar consists of three crotchets. In 6/8 it consists of six quavers. In 4/4 it consists of four crotchets. That's all there is to it.

WiresDreamDisasters · November 2020

Length of a bar in seconds is related to the tempo.

At 120bpm, an eighth note is 250milliseconds long. a quarter note is 500milliseconds long.

So one bar of 4/4 would be 500x4 = 2000milliseconds long; or 2 seconds.

One bar of 4/8 would be 250x4 = 1000milliseconds, or 1 second long.

Teetonetal · November 2020

You could try thinking of it like this.

Tempo is 60 beats per min

Now 1 beat lasts 1 second

count the seconds in groups of 3 = 3/4 time (1,2,3 2,2,3 3,2,3 etc)
count the seconds in groups of 4 = 4/4 time (1,2,3,4 ,2,2,3,4 3,2,3,4 etc)

At the end of min, you have played 60 beats in both cases. But they will feel different. In either case, the group or 3 or 4 will be 1 complete bar.

if you speed up or slow down the tempo, you are simply altering the length of time one beat last for. could be .5 of a second, could be 1.5 seconds, but that will determine the pace of the song.

Simple explanation, but clear (I think)

Funkfingers · November 2020

Anyone for The Black Page?

Nitefly · December 2020

I recently had an interesting chat with a drummer (no really), in which we were trying to work out the time signature of the song "America", from West Side Story.

If you recall, it goes "I like to be in America". The first part (6 syllables, "I Like to be in A") is fairly obviously 6/8, played as two triplets as mentioned above.

But then the last three syllables "me-ri-ca" feel very different, as it's 3 lots of 2 beats.

We thought it must still be 6/8, but with a different feel.

Could it in fact be 12/8? Bloody clever, either way.

viz · December 2020

It's in 6/8 throughout, but Me Ri Ca are 3 crotchets, so it's basically sort-of as though it's in 3/4 for that bar.

viz · December 2020

In fact, like this

https://i.imgur.com/4m24SCb.jpg

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