Skylar's Music Lessons

The time signature (also known as meter signature or just meter) is a notational convention used to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value gets the beat ( indicates the feel of the song). In a written music, the time signature appears at the beginning of the piece, as a fraction. There are many different types of time signatures and the way they are counted can be quite confusing, but I will try to focus on the ‘simple’ ones.
Look at the time signature on the right, it reads 4/4. The four on top means that for one measure there are four beats. The four on the bottom means that you will be counting the measure using quarter notes.
2/4 is similar to 4/4 in the since that you are still counting in quarter notes, however now there are only two beats in a measure.
3/4 is three beats in a measure counting in quarter notes.

Now that you know about the standard notes you can be introduced to dotted notes. When you put a dot to the left of a note, you add half of the notes original value to the note. So for example, a whole note would now be worth 6 beats (4beats+2beats), a half note would be worth 3 beats (2beats+1 beat) and so on.

In music, the beat is the basic unit of time, and the pulse of the song. if you tap your foot to a song you a self-consciously finding the beat. In melodies to songs, notes and rests are categorized by how many beats they have. There are five main values that you will see when reading music. A whole note, is held for 4 beats, and a whole rest is held for 4 beats of silence. A half note is held for 2 beats, and the rest for 2 beats of silence. Quarter note/ rest is held for 1 beat. Eighth note/rest is held for half of a beat, and finally a sixteenth note/ is held for a quarter of a beat.  This is what they look like.