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Posted by Alice That's a really great question, showing how important it is for the people who write these books to be really clear in their explanations! When you see the 3/2 time signature, it does mean there will be three beats in each bar. The 2 means the minim is one beat...but three minims is not the only way to have three beats: You know that 2 crotchets equal 1 minim, right? And two quavers equal 1 crotchet? Therefore, you can make your three "minim" beats by combining any number of notes that are the equivalent of three minims. So you could have 6 crotchets, or 12 quavers, or some other combination, as you have seen; but you could not have 8 crotchets, for example, because that would be the same as 4 minims. In the first bar, the semibreve is the equivalent of two minims; in the third bar the crotchet + 2 quavers is the equivalent of one minim; and the 4 crotchets are equivalent to two minims. Does that make sense? If not, please ask again! By the way, for any North American readers, a semibreve is a whole note, minim is a half note, crotchet is a quarter, quaver is an eighth. Alice
on 8/13/2004, 4:50 pm, in reply to "time signatures"
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Hi Vincent,
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