Music Theory

Time Signature Charts

Written by Dan Farrant

Last updated

On this page, I’ve put together some time signature charts of different simple and compound time signatures and how we arrange them into duple, triple, and quadruple time.

All the time meters in these charts are regular time signatures. We cover irregular time signatures in this post if you want to read up more on them.

If you’re not so familiar with regular time meters, I recommend reading our Beginner’s Guide To Time Signatures, which should help.

Simple Beat And Meter Type Chart

Each column shows the type of meter:

  • Duple time
  • Triple time
  • Quadruple time

And in each row, it shows the type of beat.

For the simple time signatures (time signatures with a 2, 3, or a 4 as their top number), we use a crotchet beat, minim beat, or a quaver beat.

I’ve then given examples of how we’d group a bar in that time signature.

I’ve made a PDF chart that you can download and print out here:

Simple Time Signature Chart PDF

Compound Time Signature Chart

Next, we have one for the compound time signatures.

Again, we can subcategorize them into three types of time signatures:

  • Duple time
  • Triple time
  • Quadruple time

And we also have the type of beat shown in the rows

But for the compound time signatures (time signatures with a 6, 9, or a 12 as their top number), we use dotted crotchets, dotted minims, and dotted quavers.

I’ve made a PDF chart that you can download and print out here:

Compound Time Signature Chart PDF

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Dan Farrant, the founder of Hello Music Theory, has been teaching music for over 15 years, helping hundreds of thousands of students unlock the joy of music. He graduated from The Royal Academy of Music in 2012 and then launched Hello Music Theory in 2014. He plays the guitar, piano, bass guitar and double bass and loves teaching music theory.