6 Steps to Adding Bar Lines

The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) specifies how many beats (pulses) are to be contained in each bar and which note value is to be given one beat.

4 beats

1. Look at the top number of the time signature.
2. Look at the lower number of the time signature.
3. Count the note values of the melody and group them according to the time signature.
4. As you know, some notes are exactly one beat long but many others are longer or shorter.

A bar line (or barline) is a single vertical line used to divide a musical staff into measures. In piano music – or any music in which a grand staff is used – bar lines connect both staves throughout the composition; these are called “systemic barlines.”…

The top number determines how many beats are in a measure, while the bottom number determines what type of note gets the beat. Looking at the example above, we can see that the top number is “4,” telling us that there are four beats in one measure….

While pulse can be defined as regularly occurring beats of equal weight, like the ticking of a clock, meter groups pulses into recurring patterns of strong and weak beats. Each repeating unit of this pattern is called a bar or measure, and these are marked off from one another in musical notation by bar lines.

Every time signature has “strong” and “weak” beats. In 4/4 time, beat one is the strongest beat in the measure. In 4/4 time, beats two and three should always be separated. However, beats one and two can be grouped together, as well as beats three and four.

four beats

Half Note