MI: LIBRARY: THEORY: BASICS: METERS

The meter signature, or time signature, is at the beginning of a piece of music.  It indicates the pattern of accented and unaccented beats.  The top number indicates the number of beats in the pattern, and the bottom number indicates the note value of the beat.  These patterns are grouped in bars, called measures, in between bar lines. 

Simple Meters

Try to find some on your own, most are real, but rare, such as .  This can however be found in Dave Brubecks jazz piece, "Take Five".

Other more common meters include: , , , etc.