Q: Why is 4/4 so common? A: Because 3/4 is too easy, and 5/4 is too hard.

I think our love for 4/4 stretches way further back than the blues. It’s dominant in classical music too. Mozart used it almost exclusively.

5/4 is so hard, if you'd ask me to play it, I'd say "Mission Impossible"

I think pulse is more important than time signature. As long as you can tap into a groove, it really doesn't matter what the top number is. Clever songs can be written in odd meters but can still groove.

6/8 time is by far my most favorite. But I'm a bass player. I like the swing sound of 6/8

3:00 “any music that’s written in 4/4 can fit into 2/4” Well yeah, any music in any time signature can fit in any other time signature, it’s just a matter of whether or not it becomes a grotesque mass of tuplets.

Well, they say that we favour decimal counting because we have ten fingers, maybe we like 4/4 because we have four legs.

4/4 was already the most common time signuture in europe before the blues was even dreamed of.

❗️CORRECTION: at 8:52 I accidentally listed the tango as “3/4” when it is in fact in 4/4, or 2/4! Thank you to the commenters who pointed this out. (I shouldn’t have really included tango in that list anyway as it’s not a European dance like the others!) Sorry for any confusion caused.

My theory is that 4/4 became dominant because of the effect of radio. When you're mixing songs together, or blending one song into the next, you have far more options when both songs are in 4/4 than you do if say, one is in 4/4, and one is in 6/8. This is why there seems to be more non-4/4 songs in the early days of popular music, and why genres of music that still use lots of non-4/4 beats such as the various 'prog' genres don't seem to get as much radio airtime as other genres

Syncopation can make 4/4 sound like some crazy odd time

The post-credits bit made me laugh loud enough to wake the cat up.

now i'm more interested in that 6%. tell us the songs!

WOW! I am a Bulgarian I really appreciate you mentioned my country and our traditions in your video! Thank you so much! PS. I think that people like 4/4 because not everyone are very musical or not everyone can dance and 4/4 is the easiest to grasp and just start jumping like crazy to the rhythm. 7/8 isn't as simple as just jump to the rhythm, you have to learn a dance and remember it well if you want to join the fun. 4/4 is just for everyone! And this what everyone aims to achieve with their music. Reach as many people as they can with their music. That is how they get so popular!

1:29 Ooh, we're gonna get some insight into his analytical and research proc-oh. Same thing I do.

David, I have a topic suggestion that you (and viewers) might find interesting: Songs which do NOT resolve to the tonic chord. It's so common to resolve to the tonic, but I sometimes hear pieces that resolve to the five (for example). I can dig some examples up if you want.

That ending clip is gas

If I ever hear a song for the first time, let's say when listening to a new album, and a song sticks out to me as one of my favorites, it is almost always in 6/8. I don't know why, but 6/8 speaks to me in ways I can't describe.

8:54 tango is written in 4/4 but it is added with some accents so it feels like a 3/8 +3/8 +2/8. Thats because it's more easy for musicians to read

I love how just about every argument always comes down to nature versus nurture! Good ol’ psychology :)

You have a fan for life after that ending had me laughing like hell. "And that's how you play a groove in 13" hhahahahaha

I think that the most likely candidate for the "next popular time signature" would be 6/4. It's quite similar to 4/4, and is already appearing in some pop songs, like Electric Feel by MGMT.

I loved that ending so much. Thank you for being so informative and for having such a wonderful sense of humour.

Great channel mate. Congrats. I watched all your videos, looking forward to future content.

When I have a kid I want to expose them to loads of different time signatures on a very regular basis (I have prog metal on in the background virtually all the time already) to see if they still prefer 4/4

Your videos are great, man! Keep on uploading educational content, many of us learn a lot from you.

I love your videos. You always teach me something that helps me understand aspects of music that I normally don't pay attention to.

I've had ocd my whole life , counting small things it increments of four , like blinking or tapping my hand, or steps.. It helped when I started playing music, i could count in 4/4 effortlessly

4:53 the lick

Both a classy and clever way to work in the sponsorship. Well done.

I love how you organize your research and arguments, like, you can be an academe journal writer.

Really like your videos. Thank you for sharing your insights.

Good video mate 👍 I love how you did your homework and presented it thanks.

Nice explanation David

a really interesting, compelling and accessible discussion, thank you.

Very thorough and reasoned investigation - thank you!

Songs in 3/4 always sound happier than 4/4. 4/4 is more of a march, whereas 3/4 is a dance

We have here in Finland Valssi 3/4 in our blood 😄 Great video with good information!

I love Blues!!! Oh, just saw the closing clip. That was excellent advice for playing a groove in 13. Thank you.

Extremely well researched, argued, animated and designed. Thanks.

Blues is often swung, therefore it's essentially 12/8.

Wait I wasn't expecting you to put a Bulgarian song in your video! I'm pleasantly surprised bc I'm Bulgarian! 😁

Thanks for using the Bulgarian examples, David. That music is heavenly

Thanks for the informational video! I didn't realize the nature vs nurture argument also pertained to music in general. Although, every question about the evolution of something connected to human beings invokes the question, now that I'm thinking about it. ;)

As a sociologist and a musician, I can say that the innate argument and the cultural learnt argument both supports and feeds each other. And I personally think that because of this symmetrical thing, 4/4 is more basic to humans and the odd time signatures can often be overwhelming to us. We can say that pop music popularized the 4/4 signature, and pop music built on basicness and simplicity so that's why pop music often used 4/4 signature. And when it got pop-ular, 4/4 signature got popular as well.

Reddit can be such a cool place sometimes

I alwYs wondered about this! Thank you!!

Love your videos ! ❤️

I've notice 12/8 being in more pop songs. it's similar to 4/4 as each measure is divided into 4 beats but each individual beat is divided into 3 instead of 2. almost as if every beat has a triplet on it. songs like 'Say Something' use this time signature. i don't know if it will become more popular them 4/4, but it might

Have you ever considered doing something on Laurie Anderson's Mr Heartbreak? Three songs there in particular (Kokoku, Blue Lagoon and Gravity's Angel) are mind-boggling in terms of time signatures.

5:05 - that is a very important pic! I like the way you teach!

Excellently done

I think it simply comes down to how humans handle groups of (specifically) prime numbers. In order to feel a regular pulse, we have to group beats into as short groupings as possible in order to not loose track of it. This means using groups of around 2, 3, 4. I read somewhere that humans aren’t very good at (quickly) visually grouping objects into more than 5 things at once, and I think it’s similar for music. Thinking more broadly than just modern popular music, the other most common time signatures are in fact groups of exclusively 3 or 2 - 3/4, 3/8, 6/8, 12/8, 6/4 - because it’s easy for us to group that way. The reason I specifically said prime numbers, is because non primes are just multiples of smaller primes which we can group into chunks. 4/4 is just two lots of 2/4, 6/8 is two of 3/8 so like in the video can be regarded as identical. Now even if we take 5/4, or 7/4, which are occasionally used in popular music, (Take Five, & Pink Floyds Money), higher prime-numbered time signatures are almost always split into groups of 2 & 3 (and 4 but again it’s basically 2x2). Songs in 5/4 that don’t use the typical 5/4 clave rhythm are even rarer, check Adam Neely's sungazer video on 5/4 without the typical clave - it’s more of a 5-to-the-floor type groove. So it is possible to use a 5/4 Time sig without grouping into smaller chunks, but as I said before, I think that this is probably the limit as 6 is far too regular (has factors of 2 & 3) and 7 is (almost) too large and is usually grouped into 2 &3s or treated as a group of 8 that skips the last beat. Even the examples given in the video of other cultures which use odd signatures still group it into smaller conventional chunks, as described in a Dave Bruce video. So to finally pin down on why specifically 4/4 - well it’s the simplest we can possibly get, it’s just 2 lots of 2, the smallest prime number in existence. 3 next largest hence why it is still common not so much as 2 (which is basically identical to four). 5 the next prime is now large enough to split into two other primes but that’s combining different numbers together so is far too complicated, then there’s 6 which despite being bigger than 5, it is regular and can be split symmetrically, like 8 and 9 and 12 which are also occasionally used, unlike 7, 10, 11, 13 etc which are much rarer. 8 corresponds to 4 and 2, 9 is 3x3 and 12 is basically 4/4 with quiver triplets on each beat, so we can still tap in what feels like 4/4. So to reiterate 4/4 is just f*ing simple and the easiest time signature for our monkey brains to comprehend, its the smallest prime number, 2, done 2 times to turn it into a regular pattern.

I'm going with the walking theory. When busking on a guitar I used to keep time by watching people walk.

Brilliantly well explained - you have no right to be so smart :) LOL. Seriously, watching all your videos now, and really enjoying. Thanks.

Wonderful exposition! How true. In western dance music like the measure does not divide the 4/4 measure into 4 equal parts. In dance music, it is common to extend one beat (often the fourth beat) slight creating a lilting effect. We are quite used to hearing this and don't even realize it; however, this is much more common in 3/4 time amplifying your argument about innateness.

I believe it´s totally cultural because, like you said, american music came from Blues. For example, here in Brazil almost all the rhythms are in 2/4. That´s one the reasons why our swing it´s so unique. And it´s weird listenin' to an american or a british playin' Bossa Nova or Samba. You play with the feeling of 4/4. :D

Excellent ending!

thanks David!

Dope ass video. So many things tied together I’ve been needing to be connected in my head

The blues thought is dang interesting! Hot take: Popular music is generally built with long and short ›steps‹ (don't need to be actual steps). One way is to use just two steps, long:short = 2:1, which paired with a certain poetic tradition (??) gives us bars of 12/8. 2:1 is so short that the perception of the beat can shift from the two steps to the whole thing. (Which means that now there's pairs of even beats, which can be re-applied to the steps.) There is a line from _Sumer is icumen in_ to modern pop music.

To me it's easier to think about the problem if you think about the same question in regards to scales. There's likewise something "natural" about the major scale (overtones, etc.) and most formalized systems of music around the world use it as the starting point for talking about a scale (eg. Indian classical music talks about natural, flat, or sharp notes in relation to the same major scale degrees as western music; Chinese classical music uses Major pentatonic and its modes as its starting point, etc), BUT where you go from there is very much culturally specific. The minor second (and even arguably the augmented 4th in certain contexts) as a scale degree isn't very common in Western popular music, so we usually think of it as sounding "unusual or exotic"; it might be tricky to sing scales with them if you're not used to the sound of them; etc. Same goes for heptatonic scales with augmented second jumps in them. It seems pretty logical and natural for most western popular music to stick with the modes of major, but other traditions take the same thing and go completely different places with it, like how ragas are based moreso on tinkering with the scale degrees directly and incorporating specific orders that they should be played with. Even if I've phrased that badly, what I'm trying to get at is that there's probably a strong argument for certain basics of music being somehow innate or quasi-innate, but as a given tradition develops over centuries or millenia, where you go from there with those basics, and what then seems like a logical or satisfying direction to go in, is always going to be culturally and generationally specific to some extent. And I think it's from there that music becomes, more than just a primal response to a biological human quirk, but a form of expression.

Never really thought about the nature argument before, very interesting

Hey David - cool video! My fav - 3/4!

Fascinating topic, well-presented. The only things I'd add are that. 1. many if not most of the Western "3" rhythms are indeed left-right. Waltz is LRL RLR 2. the map doesn't take into account Cuba, Brazil, Puerto Rico et al, which have mostly 4 and 12/8 rhythms that again are left right at the end of the day (although modern Cuban jazz musicians like Gonzalo Rubalcaba seem to have a strong affinity for 5, 7 etc.) That said, the clips of people dancing to all those additive rhythm are a revelation, and you could do another video on India. I'd really be fascinated to understand how that whole region spread across Eastern Europe wound up with those dances.

4:53 Nice "The Lick" reference, by the way. Fascinating video as always. Please keep it up. I wonder why most popular music _is_ also grouped in measures of a multiple of 4. Whenever I try to write a verse with an odd number of bars, it just doesn't sound right. In the tiny chance that you see this comment, please could you consider making a video on why that is? Thanks.

LOL...that bit at the end was great!

Great Video !!!.. THANK YOU - I am of western origin.. and amongst other things give guitar lessons to Brazilians... I normally try to teach songs students like.. and they bring me many Brazilian popular/traditional songs.. I would say around 50% are in odd time signatures... my teaching just got that much harder!!!! It is way easier to teach western music.. the rhythm part is so easy... so you can focus on harmony, melody and technique.. but with different time signatures things get more complex... it makes you realize how really mundane our western music really is. The richness of the rhythms in the Brazilian culture really open up new horizons.. we saw how that happened with Bossa Nova.. in the 60s where Jazz Harmony was adapted to a Samba like beat.. I am hoping our western music will soon start to embrace more complex rhythms

I think 4/4 is probably common because music is about patterns; it’s easier to make patterns in even number beats than odd numbers. 2 beats would be too few to be a useful unit in songwriting, and 8 would be too many. 4/4 is essentially the most useful time that you can count “1212” in your head to.

Partly innate, partly cultural, but above all: 4/4 has just enough innate qualities that it can bridge cultures and genres. That is the main attraction and the reason why it's so common. I think 4/4 definitely has some innate qualities and the predictable pulse can function as a non-distracting groundwork to let the listener focus on melody or lyrics. It's not so much prevalent in western music, but in western song culture. Even EDM, which often has no lyrics or lyrics that are less central to the music, is rooted in that same song culture. But, arguably, other time signatures could do the same, when they were part of your cultural upbringing. So, what I think is the main attraction, is that 4/4 (because of the innate qualities of predictable pulse and symmetry), it is the ideal beat to bridge cultures and genres. Modern pop and rock music didn't just rise up from blues and gospel, it also drew from country and folk. The latter didn't always have a 4/4 beat, but that very 4/4 beat was perfect for bridging the different American musical traditions. And it was perfect for that music to become truely popular music with an international appeal. While other cultures may have preferred other time signatures, 4/4 seems to have enough innate qualities that it can build bridges and appeal to a lot of different people.

That ending is gold.

I am still unbelievably new to understanding music theory, but I want to say a massive thank you for helping me understand so many mystifying elements of music.

Imagine running with a 3/4 timed song.

I'm from Brazil. Even though my country is marked as one of those with different time signatures, it's really hard to find a Brazilian song that is not in the 4/4 rhythm. Samba, which is typical from Brazil, is in 4/4. There's also another typical style here called "sertanejo", which is basically our folk music. Old sertanejo songs use 3/4 rhythm very often, but modern sertanejo songs are very influenced by pop music, so they use 4/4 rhythm as well.

lol thanks for the easter egg at the end. Very funny.

Your comments from 6.44 are also supported by the great drummer Simon Philips. He made the observation about the changing time signatures as you travel from west to east and how for generations the more ‘unusual ‘ timings has become the norm. Fascinating content keep up the good work.

Thanks for all the great videos! I'd be interested to know more about Golden Brown by the Stranglers - believe it's the only number one song to be 6/8 alternating to 3/4 in uk.

I think the learned behaviour thing is the main reason here. I mean, 4/4 is just everywhere, so you can kinda do it unconciously, if you grew up in a 94 % 4/4 world. That's why anything but 4/4 takes much more concious thought if you want to play it, or at least that's the case for me, maybe other people can just inherently play in odd meters with no issue. But, maybe it's also got something to do with what we learn to play first, when we're starting out on an instrument. It's very likely it's going to be something easy in 4/4. Kind of like how a dog remembers the tricks it learned first as a puppy the best, and will go to those tricks, if it's in doubt of what you want from it in a training session.

Thank you, so many people ignore the history of blues, jazz and rock n roll and then wonder why modern music is like it is

I like the "groove in 13"...🙂 Good video, as usual. Thanks!

Great video

Honestly my favorite is 7/8. It’s fuckin groovy

Brilliant!

this channel is so good

Yeah 4/4 is the best tool for structuring our pop songs. The symmetry actually goes in both directions: song sections are normally, like, 4 or 8 bars. Using a 5-bar transition is a good way of creating a jarring experience for the listener without changing the meter of the song at all, because it's messing with the inherent cognitive leg up that structuring your song around a symmetrical time signature gives you.

Too much symmetry can get boring, so you need a bit of anti symmetry to make you appreciate the symmetry more.

I did a lot of playing of 3/2 Hornpipes - which were popular in the 17th Century when horses were popular as transport - I saw a horse trotting, and noted that gave a very nice 3/2 rhythm at the right speed for double hornpipes. May Indicate, human walking has an effect on the popularity of 4/4.

One of the Beatles most popular songs, "Here Comes the Sun" is in a mixture of time signatures, but it's so seamless that you hardly notice.

I really love the videos in this channel.... tonight

Very interesting. I'm going with the cultural camp as the main reason we love 4/4!

I think your videos is really good. Can you do a video on what makes rock sounds like rock, jazz like jazz, blues like blues etc.

This is really fascinating, it touches on so many areas. Though it seems many Blues songs are also in 6/8.

Hooray for the blues!

I think it's partially that symmetry thing and partially learnt.

Outstanding research and analysis, as always. From the innate and bipedal perspective i was wondering if there might be this Rhythmic association: first 2 quarter ->proposition next 2 quarter ->response or question - answer...

The blues and the train rhythm go hand in hand.

Wow when you played that foreign music I couldn’t even detect the beat in it at all, much less the time signature.

When you learn to count on your fingers, you basically learn it in 5/4, and no one is bothered by that.

Another good idea of a topic, and another great video. I really think you've nailed the most relevant arguments in trying to determine the success of 4/4. Still, the way you put it somehow implies an exclusion between the innate and the cultural. I think these are not mutually exclusive and on the contrary need both to be accounted for. Just like I think patriarchy in many cultures derived from a biological bias between genders, I think humans may have a tendency to find 4/4 appealing, or at least easy to resonate with their "innate rhythms" (the point you made about the heartbeat is really important too, and if not related to any signature, is probably at the root of any beat and tempo). The argument you made about mass market was very interesting too, as you could parallel the development of modern music with the XXth century economy and development of global, high-scale markets (or the invention of marketing itself for that matter). And the argument for simplicity may be the most important: the fact that 4/4 is quite easy to grasp intellectually and physically is without any doubt a reason for its success. Last, just like Hollywood movies became enormously influential for movies and culture in general, I think the 4/4 signature must have become ingrained in the western culture (some would say "the collective unconscious"). The fact it powerfully resonates with our biological structures (the bipedalism, the quest for symmetry) coupled to the increasing access and crafting of music for the masses must have made it the staple it is today, and led to this 94% figure. From this perspective, it is not unlike the kiss on the mouth: almost everyone in the western world seems to agree on it being a romantic, natural gesture while it actually is a modern by-product of the mass media.

This came up in my search results while looking for something else. :) One of my favorite time signatures is, I think, 12/8, which is basically 4/4, with triplets between the beats.