Lesson 14: Time Signatures- Measure Completion

At this point, you should be familiar enough with time signatures as to be able to identify them easily; you should be able to place the beats above an excerpt, and to properly indicate the subdivision underneath. If you feel you need a refresher on this, please re-read Lesson 13.

Take a look at the following example:

The task here is to fill in the blank space in the middle of the bar with the appropriate rests. How do we do that?

STEP 1: Determine if the time signature is SIMPLE or COMPOUND.
Is the top number evenly divisible by three? No. So this is a simple time signature. Therefore this time signature is telling us that there are two beats per bar, and the quarter note is the beat unit. So we can go ahead and put the beats in:

Notice that the first beat lines up with the first note in the bar. The last given note is an eighth note, which is only half of one beat long. Therefore we place the second quarter beat before that note.

STEP 2: Write the beat subdivision (breakdown).
Now that we know where the beats are, we can go ahead and write in the subdivision. As this is simple time, each beat will break down into two components (eighth notes):

As you can see, it is easy to line up the eighth notes with the quarter-note beats.

STEP 3: Fill in the rests. IMPORTANT: COMPLETE THE BEATS THAT HAVE BEEN STARTED FIRST.
In this case, the excerpt is only two beats long, and each beat has been started. The first note is a sixteenth note. The basic rule is to complete the subdivision component first. So what would it take to complete the first eighth note subdivision? Answer: one sixteenth rest:

Now, what will complete the rest of the beat? Answer: One eighth rest:

The first beat has now been completed. Now look at the last beat. The one eighth note that you see is the last thing in the bar. What will it take to complete that bar? Just put an eighth rest in front of the note. Here is the correct answer:

Can you combine the two eighth rests in the middle of the bar and put a quarter rest instead? No. You have to leave the two eighth rests, because they each belong to different beats.

Can you combine the sixteenth rest and the eighth rest in the first beat? Technically, no, although more and more we see publishers doing this sort of thing. The rule is this:

If the rests are at the END of a beat, they should not be combined (like the above example).

If the rests are at the START of a beat, they can be combined, like this example:

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Now consider this example:

Is it simple or compound time? The answer is compound, because the top number is divisible by three. Therefore, the time signature is telling us the number of breakdown notes in each bar. Write them in:

(Because it's compound, I know that the eighth note breakdown will be beamed in groups of three.) Now that the breakdown is written, I can go ahead and place the beats. Each beat is three eighth-notes long, as you can see. What one note is three eighth notes long? Answer: A dotted quarter-note:

Notice that the last dotted-quarter beat of the bar is placed just before the group of four sixteenths in the excerpt. That's because the four sixteenths do not make up an entire beat. The four sixteenths make up one quarter note, and in this time signature the beat is a dotted quarter-note long. Therefore, the third beat actually begins somewhere before the sixteenths happen.

Just like with the previous example, you begin by completing the beats that are partially given. The first beat so far has one sixteenth note in it. So we complete the first breakdown note by adding a sixteenth rest:

We then continue by placing a rest for each breakdown note in the first beat:

Now the first beat is complete. We don't combine these rests, because they finish the beat. Now we move to the final beat in the bar. The sixteenth notes take up two of the three eighth notes in the beat. So all we need to do is place an eighth rest in front of them, and we will have completed that beat:

So we have now completed the first and the third beat in the bar. The only thing left is to place a rest for the second beat . The beat is a dotted quarter note, so we will place a dotted quarter rest:

Reread this lesson carefully before trying the quiz.