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These days I pretty much play everything by ear, but was originally trained in strathspey and reel violin so realise I should know the answer to this, but I can't remember what, if any, the practical differences were.

Is there any difference between a score marked 4/4 and one marked 8/8? Or is that sort of thing only useful to indicate a time signature change within a piece of music?

Goodbye Stack Exchange
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Doktor Mayhem
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6 Answers6

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A time signature is simply the composer's way of telling you how s/he is subdividing the measure. So in 4/4 time, the composer imagines the measure divided into four beats, while in 8/8 time, the composer imagines the measure divided into eight beats. The difference is less in the strict timing and more in the feel or pulse of the music.

Try counting these out loud:

4/4 time: "1-2-3-4-/1-2-3-4-"
8/8 time: "12345678/12345678"
2/2 time: "1---2---/1---2---"

All three of these take up exactly the same amount of time, but to me, the 4/4 time feels steady, while the 8/8 time feels brisk and the 2/2 time feels stately. In all three time signatures, a quarter note will have the same value—one quarter of the measure—but in 4/4 time, it represents the pulse of the music, while in 8/8, it's two pulses and in 2/2 time, it's half a pulse.

A difference in feel between 3/4 and 6/8 time can be even more obvious. In 3/4 time, the measure is broken up into three distinct beats, as in a waltz. In 6/8 time, by contrast, the measure is often broken up into two beats, each with a triplet feel. Like this:

3/4 time: "ONE and TWO and TRE and/ONE and TWO and TRE and "
6/8 time: "ONE two tre FOR fiv six/ONE two tre FOR fiv six "

If the composer writes three quarter notes in 3/4 time, it will feel like three notes on the beat. But if the composer writes three quarter notes in 6/8 time, the second note may feel syncopated relative to the overall pulse of the music.

Update: Listen to the first twenty seconds or so of La Pistola y El Corazon by Los Lobos. Is it in 3/4 or 6/8 time? Depending on how you hear it, the music has a much different feel, with the lead guitars putting emphasis on different parts of the melody. Listen a few times and try to hear it both ways!

Alex Basson
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    That final paragraph I think has helped my feel what you mean. I just wasn't getting it with 4/4 and 8/8. – Doktor Mayhem May 06 '11 at 11:26
  • I've seen a couple pieces that were written 8/8 4/4, but notated 8/8 for simplicity. – Michael May 06 '11 at 15:07
  • Yes, the last paragraph is clearly the most important point here. – Uticensis May 06 '11 at 15:36
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    This is the kind of question that would benefit from having a notation feature on the site. – Goodbye Stack Exchange May 06 '11 at 18:35
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    The song America from West Side Story uses a 6/8 (3/4) time signature to achieve just that syncopation effect. OneTwoThreeOneTwoThreeOne-Two-Three – Adam Musch May 06 '11 at 19:34
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    You can use <pre> </pre> tags if you want a monospace font but without syntax highlighting (which was not a problem for this answer, but may be in the future) – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft May 06 '11 at 20:45
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    Another hint that's often overlooked : common-time or cut-common-time time signature (respectively a C or a strike-through C in place of the time signature meaning 4/4 or 2/2. Didn't think twice about it until I took a few drumming lessons. – Pif Jun 16 '11 at 08:51
  • In the 1940's, piano Boogie-Woogie was also called "8 To The Bar", because the pulse was eight very rapid beats, not 4 or 2. All of the beats but the first were equal in force. – Mark Lutton Nov 26 '11 at 21:28
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    Is everyone overlooking the common usage of 8/8 to indicate uneven compound time? In slow 8/8 you may well be getting 8 to the bar, but in compound time you will see 8/8 used for meter subdivisions of q.+q+q. or q.+q.+q. I've most often seen 8/8 used in this context alongside 7/8 and 5/8. – NReilingh Nov 28 '11 at 01:52
  • Does this affect swing at all? – naught101 Mar 01 '12 at 06:31
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    @naught101 I'm not sure I know what you mean: does what affect swing at all? Time signature? I suppose it could, but to be honest, I'm not really sure what an 8/8 time signature would even mean in the context of swinging eighths. The very act of swinging eighth notes produces a marked pulse on the quarters. What would it mean for a composer to want both an eighth-note pulse and also swinging eighths? – Alex Basson Mar 01 '12 at 13:27
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    Apart from @NReilingh's comment, it should also be added to the answer that (at least theoretically) the time signature makes a difference for the conductor's stroke pattern. – groovingandi Aug 08 '13 at 17:21
  • Thanks for the great explanation. The link you posted by Los Lobos has too much distortion for my ears! Here is a better one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGn89hK1U9E – Frank Mar 13 '19 at 13:21
  • @Frank Thanks for the better link! I updated the post with it so others can benefit too. – Alex Basson Mar 14 '19 at 10:46
  • @NReilingh though I think that rhythm is often left notated in 4/4, and similarly I think 5/4 is used for the mission impossible 
    q. + q. + q + q
    . While I personally think it should be notated 8/8 and 10/8 respectively, I think using n/4 time signature is common already     – awe lotta Dec 18 '19 at 21:59
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Adding to Alex's answer, There seem to be at least 2 factors in choosing a time signature

First way is disregarding duplet/triplet feel

one is how many beats there are in the bar, so often in the case of 7/16 it's all about just the number of 16ths in that bar. in many prog rock passages and places where the time signature is constantly changing it's because the player wants to extend a repeated phrase by an odd amount so they'll just stick the notes in the phrase and change the time signature bar to bar.

As a practical example, suppose you have a phrase of nine quavers, grouped 3 3 3. One way often used by prog rockers is to alter one group to be different lengths in a passage(let's use the last group here), so perhaps it would go 333,336,333,332. In time signature terms what you would have there is 9/8,12/8,9/8,8/8, It doesn't make sense to define the 8/8 bar as 4/4 because it breaks the pattern.

The second way is considering the feel

This is where 3/4 and 6/8 commonly differ. As you may know 3/4 is counted in duplets or 1+2+3+(3 groups of 2), whereas 6/8 is counted in triplets or 1+a2+a(2 groups of 3)

The same can be applied to 4/4 and 8/8, where the difference is that 4/4 is counted 1+2+3+4+(or 4 groups of 2)

but 8/8 can be grouped as (3 3 2),(3 2 3) or (2 3 3) in the example of 332 this would be counted 1+a 2+a 3+ You could arguably use 4/4, but in this case 8/8 suggests the feel better.

Also for extra fun, here is my favourite example on 8/8 time signatures

Alexander Troup
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There is one commonly-used time signature that is just wrong. 6/8 literally means that there are six beats in the measure, and an eighth note gets one beat. Almost always there are two beats in the measure and a dotted quarter note gets one beat. But there is no readable way to write that. 2/(8/3)? 2/2.666?

Mark Lutton
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  • Interesting observation. How about 2/4·? :) – Tom Pažourek May 31 '11 at 15:36
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    yes, there is indeed a readable way to write that: see http://www.greschak.com/notation/finale/iwbni/fs179.htm – user1217 Sep 17 '11 at 11:36
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    @tomp See also Orff Time Signatures. – NReilingh Nov 28 '11 at 01:48
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    See also, 9/8, 12/8 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter_(music)#Compound_meter – Iain Hallam Feb 13 '13 at 20:31
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    A dotted quarter with a '2' above it would be a perfect way to write that – Claudiu Apr 08 '16 at 02:54
  • 2/3 would be the way to write 2 dotted quarter beats per measure because 3 dotted quarters = a whole note. – Caters Sep 04 '18 at 03:08
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    @Caters, 3 x 1.5 = 4.5, but a whole note = 4. Personally, if I saw a 2/3 signature I would assume it meant 2 triplet half notes, and I would be thoroughly confused as to how that's supposed to sound. – ScottM Mar 14 '19 at 13:56
  • @ScottM you could notate it as 6/6 and which would be six triplet half notes. This actually might be useful if you want or transition between 2/4 and 6/8 but don't feel like writing L'istesso Tempo, maybe really rapidly. That's called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature#irrational_meters – awe lotta Dec 18 '19 at 22:14
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In 4/4 time, the concept of pulse is assigned to the quarter note beat. However, in 8/8 time, which would seem to be similar, the sense of pulse is completely open-ended. Often time signatures in 8 have a dotted quarter note pulse, such as 6/8, 9/8, 12/8, but in a time signature like 8/8, which is not historically used, the composer is free to subdivide as they choose. This could technically be any variation of 3+3+2.

Basically, the difference is in the subdivision.

cotroxell
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    What may be perceived as (3+3+2)/8 almost always is 4/4 properly. 3+3+2 would imply a basic rhythm of three groups of 3, with the last group shortened by one beat. So the rhythmic stress would be on the first beat as that comes too early without compensation (a "limp"). But in the typical 3+3+2 subdivision, it is actually the second group which comes in early, implying a syncopation of 4+2+2 rather than 3+3+2. The same kind of "catching up at the end" syncopation can be done even with 3+3+3+3+2+2 for a total of 16, usually carried across more than one measure. – User8773 Apr 27 '14 at 08:26
  • The question of whether a beat comes "early" or "late" is an interesting one. I find it interesting that "America" [Bernstein: West Side Story] is marked as "6/8 3/4", but some other pieces which with similar stress patterns are simply written as 3/4. Something like "Lion Tamer" [Schwartz: The Magic Show] is written as 7/4 (with a notation to subdivide it as 3/4+4/4), but the text would sound very awkward if an accent were placed on the second quarter-note beat, rather than an eighth-note later. Still, it might be reasonable to view the stressed note as being an "early" third beat. – supercat Nov 14 '14 at 20:55
  • According to http://www.musictheory.net/lessons/16, is it wrong to subdivide a 8/8 measure into 4 quarter notes? Simple dividing by 2+2+2+2?Why it should be divided as 3+3+2 as it is indicated ?why 8/8 belongs to odd time signature since it can be written with simple 4 quarter beats? – curious Nov 28 '15 at 11:07
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    @curious My guess is that's it's comparable to an unsimplified fraction in math. If the groupings are all two's or four's it's simpler to notate in 4/4 I suppose. If there is a beat that lands outside of that (like 3+3+2) then it would make sense to have that "extra precision" with 8/8 – awe lotta Dec 18 '19 at 22:24
  • Coldplay's Clocks is a good example of subdividing 8/8 into 3 + 3 + 2 – Mark Davich Apr 18 '23 at 03:12
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As an arranger, I have once used 8/8 as a time signature. I wanted the performance to emphasise the nature of the quaver as the pulse, while recognising that the melody was easier to recognise as 4/4 than 4/8, thus preserving its legato style. 8/8 also led to a saner tempo marking...

Iain Hallam
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    You don't have to indicate the tempo using the bottom note. For example if you had 6/8, you could write [ q. = 100 ]. I suppose I'm just confused on how the notation would affect the tempo. – awe lotta Dec 18 '19 at 22:26
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In 8/8 rythm, each quaver note recieves one beat, with the accent on first beat and fifth beat in a bar.

Jebin francis
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    Not necessarily. 8/8 is commonly used to group quavers irregularly, for example, 3+3+2. Three beats per measure, but the irregular grouping requires a smaller subdivision in the time signature. – NReilingh Nov 26 '11 at 20:28