Understanding a time signature in film music
When it comes to music, a time signature is often referred to as meter and is used alongside the tempo, which represents the speed or pace of the music.
A time signature has two numbers – the upper number represents how many beats there are per bar and the bottom number indicates what value receives one beat. For example, in a 2/4 time signature, the upper number, 2, means that there are two beats in the measure, and the lower number, 4, means that a quarter note will receive one beat.
With every inserted time signature, there is an emphasis on the beginning of a downbeat, which makes a connection between where the visual event occurs, represented by the marker, and the time signature. The goal of the time signature is to reflect and support visual events throughout an entire film. Generally, in film scoring, using many or multiple types of time signatures is very common.
Before we begin working on and applying time signature...
