(STRONG-weak-weak-MEDIUM-weak-weak.) That's different from 3/4, which implies stress on the first, third, and fifth eighth notes. For historical reasons, 6/8 implies stress on the first and fourth eighth notes of each bar. Depending on which level we hear or choose to emphasize, we may sense more or less important 'beats' in a notated 4/4 bar. We often are taught to feel meter as a hierarchical pattern of levels of stresses, some stronger, some moderate, some weak. What I'm describing here is metric hierarchy. We might sense 8 pulses (STRONG-and-WEAK-and-MEDIUM-and-WEAK-and.) ticking away at the eighth-note level. We could even emphasize lesser levels of stress, particularly at a slow tempo. Or, in another sense, we could choose to feel only the strongest stresses, feeling that 'downbeat' like the conductor's hand coming down only once per bar. But if we choose to focus on the more 'stressed' beats, we might focus only on beats 1 and 3 (and in fast tempos, sometimes we might tap our feet or clap with only every other 'beat' like that), i.e., two 'beats' per bar. From one perspective, there are 4 primary components here. Overall, a bar of 4/4 has a pattern of Strong-Weak-Medium-Weak stresses. In particular, there are stress accents implied: the strongest on the first beat, a secondary/medium stress on the third beat, and weaker beats on 2 and 4. But the metric organization of a 4/4 bar is more complicated than that. How about 4/4? How many 'beats' are in a 4/4 bar? Most people will say 'obviously' four. But first, let's discuss why the answer to this question is ambiguous in the first place. It all has to do with the definition of a 'beat.' Which I'll come back to momentarily. But, there are times (maybe <5% of the time) when '6 beats' makes sense as a description. And it doesn't get at the two-fold division implied by the 6/8 meter, which emphasizes the first and fourth eighth notes of the bar (even at slower tempos). I have to admit, as someone who leans toward the latter view, that I sometimes cringe when I see 6/8 introduced in textbooks with the '6 beats' definition, as it's generally an unhelpful way to view the meter 95% of the time. I've seen lots of practical method textbooks written for instruments that introduce 6/8 as '6 beats per measure, where the eighth note gets the beat,' whereas the majority of music theory textbooks introduce 6/8 as 'compound duple time,' implying a two-fold division with the word 'duple.' The first group generally starts yelling about how the 6 is obviously in the time signature, while the latter group shout back about the history of time signatures with 6, 9, and 12, and how they obviously indicate 'compound' meters. Different teachers often have different opinions. '6 beats' seems to cause a lot of arguments and consternation among beginning music students.Īnd for good reason. Specifically, this question of '2 beats' vs. To those of you who teach music: I don't really care how many 'beats' you say are in 6/8, but please teach students the groupings of the eighth notes, not just '6 beats per bar.' Otherwise, students won't feel the meter correctly, and it will lead to lots of confusion later.Ī lot of questions appear on the nature of 6/8 in this forum. How many 'beats' you feel or how you count it can vary. TL DR: 6/8 implies a measure of 6 eighth notes, by default grouped into two groups of three.

6 8 music notes