By the numbers
Time signature statistics: how common is 4/4?
Short answer
4/4 is the most common time signature but not the majority: 31.4% of 1,459 art songs and 38.0% of 2,050 Mutopia scores open in it. Next come 3/4 (20.2% and 19.1%), 2/4 (17.1% and 16.2%) and 6/8 (16.0% and 9.3%). 20.2% of the songs open in a compound signature (6/8, 9/8, 12/8 and the like) and 18.5% use two or more different signatures.
- 31.4%of 1,459 art songs open in 4/4
- 38.0%of 2,050 Mutopia scores open in 4/4
- 18.5%of the songs change time signature at least once (270 of 1,462)
Datasets: 1,459 OpenScore Lieder art songs and 2,050 Mutopia scores that have a time signature. The signature counted is the first one in the score; a song that changes is counted again under “changes signature”. Art songs and Mutopia scores are not pop, rock or dance music, so this does not show how common 4/4 is in recorded music.
Time signature chart with real frequencies
12 signatures, what each one means, how its beats group, and how often it opens a real art song or Mutopia score.
The top number counts the notes in a bar, the bottom number says which note (4 = quarter, 8 = eighth, 2 = half). The large dot is the downbeat; in compound signatures a ring marks the start of each beat, which is divided into three. Types follow the rule quoted from Wikipedia below (simple: 2, 3 or 4 on top; compound: a multiple of 3 such as 6, 9 or 12; other numbers are irregular).
| Time signature | Beats | Beat pattern | Type | Art songs: share (n) | Mutopia: share (n) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2/4 | 2 quarter-note beats per bar | simple duple | 17.1% (250) | 16.2% (332) | |
| 3/4 | 3 quarter-note beats per bar | simple triple | 20.2% (294) | 19.1% (392) | |
| 4/4 | 4 quarter-note beats per bar | simple quadruple | 31.4% (458) | 38.0% (779) | |
| 2/2 | 2 half-note beats per bar | simple duple | 4.3% (63) | 6.1% (125) | |
| 3/2 | 3 half-note beats per bar | simple triple | 0.8% (11) | 1.7% (34) | |
| 3/8 | 3 eighth-note beats per bar | simple triple | 3.4% (50) | 4.4% (90) | |
| 6/8 | 2 beats per bar, each a dotted quarter (three eighth notes) | compound duple | 16.0% (234) | 9.3% (190) | |
| 9/8 | 3 beats per bar, each a dotted quarter (three eighth notes) | compound triple | 2.5% (36) | 0.7% (14) | |
| 12/8 | 4 beats per bar, each a dotted quarter (three eighth notes) | compound quadruple | 1.4% (20) | 1.6% (32) | |
| 6/4 | 2 beats per bar, each a dotted half (three quarter notes) | compound duple | 1.3% (19) | 0.8% (17) | |
| 5/4 | 5 quarter-note beats per bar | irregular | 0.2% (3) | 0.1% (3) | |
| 7/8 | 7 eighth-note beats per bar | irregular | 0.1% (2) | fewer than 3 scores |
musictheoryprint.com/by-the-numbers/time-signature-statistics/ — Data: OpenScore Lieder (CC0), Mutopia Project, Wikipedia 'Time signature' (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How common is each one?
The eight signatures shown cover 96.3% of the art songs and 95.3% of the Mutopia scores; 54 songs and 96 scores use something rarer (such as 5/4, 7/8 or 6/16).
Simple or compound, and changes of signature
About one song in five opens in a compound signature (20.2%), and 18.5% of the songs (270 of 1,462) change signature somewhere. For Mutopia, 146 scores are recorded as changing signature.
By composer birth year
4/4 leads in most groups; for composers born before 1770 the leader is 6/8 (14 songs, against 13 in 4/4); for composers born 1770–1809 the leader is 6/8 (53 songs, against 52 in 4/4).
Counts of songs; the groups differ in size, so compare the order, not the counts.
| Composer born | Commonest signatures (songs) |
|---|---|
| Composers born before 1770 | 6/8 14 · 3/4 13 · 4/4 13 · 2/4 12 |
| Born 1770–1809 | 6/8 53 · 4/4 52 · 2/4 45 · 3/4 35 |
| Born 1810–1839 | 4/4 153 · 2/4 106 · 3/4 94 · 6/8 91 |
| Born 1840–1869 | 4/4 188 · 3/4 108 · 2/4 65 · 6/8 59 |
| Born 1870 or later | 4/4 48 · 3/4 44 · 2/4 21 · 6/8 15 |
By instrument
The instrument matters: 4/4 is the first choice in organ, voice, violin and string-ensemble scores, but guitar scores favour 2/4 and piano scores 3/4. See also guitar versus piano.
| Instrument (Mutopia) | Scores | Commonest signatures (share) |
|---|---|---|
| Piano | 502 | 3/4 29% · 4/4 28% · 2/4 19% · 6/8 11% |
| Guitar | 385 | 2/4 32% · 4/4 24% · 6/8 16% · 3/4 16% |
| Voice or choir | 258 | 4/4 56% · 3/4 16% · 2/2 7% · 6/8 7% |
| Organ | 173 | 4/4 62% · 3/4 8% · 4/2 8% · 3/2 7% |
| Violin | 50 | 4/4 30% · 3/4 24% · 2/2 10% · 2/4 10% |
| Strings (ensemble) | 37 | 4/4 30% · 2/2 27% · 3/4 11% · 6/8 11% |
| Harpsichord / clavichord | 35 | 3/4 40% · 2/2 17% · 4/4 14% · 3/8 11% |
What a time signature says
Excerpts from Wikipedia's article on time signatures.
From Wikipedia
Time signature
Overview
A time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, and measure signature) is an indication in music notation that specifies how many note values of a particular type fit into each measure (bar). The time signature indicates the meter of a musical movement at the bar level.
In a music score the time signature appears as two stacked numerals, such as 4/4 (spoken as four–four time), or a time symbol, such as (spoken as common time or cut time). It immediately follows the key signature (or if there is no key signature, the clef symbol). A mid-score time signature, usually immediately following a barline, indicates a change of meter.
Simple versus compound
Simple meters are those whose upper number is 2, 3, or 4, sometimes described as duple meter, triple meter, and quadruple meter respectively.
In compound meter, the note values specified by the bottom number are grouped into threes, and the upper number is a multiple of 3, such as 6, 9, or 12. The lower number is most commonly an 8 (an eighth-note or quaver): as in 9/8 or 12/8.
Other upper numbers correspond to irregular meters.
Beat and subdivision
Musical passages commonly feature a recurring pulse, or beat, usually in the range of 60–140 beats per minute. Depending on the tempo of the music, this beat may correspond to the note value specified by the time signature, or to a grouping of such note values. Most commonly, in simple time signatures, the beat is the same as the note value of the signature, but in compound signatures, the beat is usually a dotted note value corresponding to three of the signature's note values. Either way, the next lower note value shorter than the beat is called the subdivision.
On occasion a bar may seem like one singular beat. For example, a fast waltz, notated in 3/4 time, may be described as being one in a bar. Conversely, at slow tempos, the beat might even be a smaller note value than the one enumerated by the time signature.
Mathematically the time signatures of, e.g., 3/4 and 3/8 are interchangeable. In a sense all simple triple time signatures, such as 3/8, 3/4, 3/2, etc.—and all compound duple times, such as 6/8, 6/16 and so on, are equivalent. A piece in 3/4 can be easily rewritten in 3/8, simply by halving the length of the notes.
Other time signature rewritings are possible: most commonly a simple time-signature with triplets translates into a compound meter.
Source: Wikipedia, “Time signature” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-05-14.
How this was counted
- Art songs. The time signature is the first time element of the melody part in the MusicXML file (1,459 of the 1,462 songs have one). A song is flagged as changing signature when it contains two or more different signatures (270 songs).
- Mutopia. The first time-signature event of the MIDI file, or the first
\timein the LilyPond source; 2,050 scores have one. Where both exist they agree for 96.5% of scores. - Types. Simple, compound and irregular follow the rule quoted from Wikipedia on this page. The “compound” percentage in the short answer uses the dataset file's narrower definition (eighth- or sixteenth-note unit), which leaves out 6/4.
- Check. Both distributions add up to the number of scores with a signature; simple + compound = all songs; the two compound rules differ only by 6/4.
Data used
- OpenScore Lieder Corpus — 1,462 art songs (mostly 19th-century European) transcribed to MusicXML by volunteers; key signatures, time signatures, tempo words, metronome marks, vocal lines and melodies are read directly from the files. CC0 1.0
- The Mutopia Project — 2,129 free-to-use scores (LilyPond sources and the MIDI files made from them) for piano, guitar, voice, organ, violin and more; keys, time signatures and tempo marks are read from the MIDI or the source header. per piece: public domain, CC BY or CC BY-SA (only counts are shown here)
What these numbers cannot tell you
- Both datasets are classical and art music. The share of 4/4 in pop, rock, dance or film music is not measured here, and these figures should not be quoted as such.
- Only the first signature is counted. A song that opens in one signature and spends most of its length in another is counted under the first.
- The corpora are volunteer collections: the art songs are mostly 19th-century and mostly in German (776), English (332) and French (319); Mutopia's solo scores are mostly piano, guitar, voice and organ.
Checks run each time this page is rebuilt (11)
- art songs: time-signature counts add up to 1,459
- Mutopia: the 14 listed signatures cover 2,040 of 2,050 scores; the other 10 are spread over still rarer signatures
- 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 6/8 lead both datasets in the same order
- compound signatures with an eighth- or sixteenth-note unit: 294 songs, as in the dataset file
- simple + compound = 1,459 songs
- every signature in the chart occurs in at least one of the datasets
- only 7/8 is missing from Mutopia's listed signatures
- the only difference between the two compound rules is 6/4 (19 songs)
- 6/8 narrowly leads in exactly two birth-year groups
- 2/4 leads guitar, 3/4 leads piano, 4/4 leads organ, voice, violin and string ensembles
- the Wikipedia excerpt contains the simple / compound / irregular rule the chart follows
Data: OpenScore Lieder Corpus (CC0 1.0); The Mutopia Project (per piece: public domain, CC BY or CC BY-SA (only counts are shown here)); Wikipedia (excerpts) (CC BY-SA 4.0). Computed for this site on 2026-10-03; the numbers are counts or shares from the datasets named above, not estimates for music in general. Licences and credits for everything used on this site are on the credits page.