If you know who you are trying to attract with your music, choose the time signature that will be most comfortable and familiar to that group. It can be heard in Asian and European Art music.Ħ/4: Rock, heavy metal, and other progressive genres use 6/4 time. Although, Soundgarden’s “Outshined” remains a solid 7/4 throughout. Pink Floyd’s “Money” is a good example of that. Beethoven even used this time signature.ĥ/4: Rock (especially progressive rock), Jazz, Classical, and other complex orchestral music use the 5/4 time signature.ħ/4: This odd time signature can be heard in rock and jazz songs and is often used to stir things up a bit in a song and then get resolved by 4/4 or another time signature. Here is a list of these time signatures, along with some of the genres they can be heard in:Ĥ/4: Also known as Common Time, this time signature is heard in pop, rock, funk, blues, country and other Western genres.ģ/4: This time signature is sometimes heard in pop, but is used more often in R&B, country, ballads, scherzi, minuets and waltzes.Ħ/8: This is sometimes used in rock music, but is mainly heard in polka songs, marches, Irish songs, jigs and more.ġ2/8: Can be used in shuffle, blues and doo-wop songs. I urge you to consider the genre of music you want to be in and the audience that you want to impress, and choose your time signature based off of that.ĭrums On Demand (DOD) offers drum loops in various time signatures, including: 4/4, 3/4, 6/8, 12/8, 5/4, 7/4 and 6/4. This group would urge you to try different time signatures and branch out. When considering how to choose a time signature for your next song, there are some who would argue that 4/4 is overused, boring and repetitive. Because much of popular music today is dance music, 4/4 is the go to time signature since it’s easy to find the beat and dance to, even for those with no musical training.

In Western cultures, songs in 4/4 are in no short supply.

6 8 drum beats