Most music you’ll ever play or listen to is organised into regular groups of beats. Triple metre is one way those beats can be organised, with the music grouped in threes. A beat is the steady pulse you can tap your foot to, while a bar is a group of beats. The time signature at the start of a piece tells you how those beats are organised. If you’d like a broader explanation of how time signatures work, including the difference between simple and compound time signatures, see our guide to simple and compound time signatures.
You’ve almost certainly encountered 4/4 already. You hear it a lot in rock, pop and most of what’s on the radio. But music doesn’t have to be counted in fours. This article looks at 3/4 time, also called triple metre.
What is triple metre?
The name gives you a pretty good clue. In triple metre, the music is organised around groups of three beats.
In 3/4 time, each bar contains three beats, and the quarter note represents one beat. You can count the music like this:
1 2 3 | 1 2 3 | 1 2 3
The first beat of each bar is normally felt as the strongest beat, with beats two and three feeling lighter:
ONE two three | ONE two three | ONE two three
That helps us hear where each group of three begins.
It’s worth remembering that being in 3/4 doesn’t mean you have to play three quarter notes in every bar. The rhythm can contain different note values and rests, as long as the total rhythmic value of the bar adds up to three beats.
How does triple metre sound?
Here’s the thing — 3/4 doesn’t just look different on paper. It feels different when you play it or listen to it.
In 4/4, you’re counting:
1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4
In 3/4, you’re counting:
1 2 3 | 1 2 3
Try this right now: tap your foot steadily and count out loud, giving the first beat of each group a little more emphasis. Notice how the pattern starts again after three beats instead of four.
The metre is the underlying organisation of those beats. The rhythm is what the notes and rests actually do within that framework. The two work together, but they aren’t the same thing.
An example of 3/4 time
Let’s put triple metre into practice with a short musical example. Below is an eight-bar melody written in 3/4, with a piano playing the melody and guitar, bass and drums providing the accompaniment.
As you listen, count 1 2 3 along with it. The recording begins with a three-beat count-in on the hi-hat, so you can hear the pulse before the music starts. If you can, follow the melody on the score at the same time. Reading and listening together can make the rhythm much easier to understand.
Pay attention to the drums, because they’re helping establish the three-beat pulse. The bass drum plays on beat one, while the snare plays on beats two and three. The ride cymbal keeps the steady pulse going on all three beats.
Listen for:
ONE – two – three | ONE – two – three
One more thing worth noticing is that the melody and chords keep moving and changing across the eight bars, but the underlying three-beat organisation stays the same. This is an important point: the metre is the frame, not the picture.
Try it yourself
Tap your foot steadily and count 1 2 3 along with the recording. Then try counting 1 2 3 4 instead.
Notice how the music fits naturally into groups of three rather than four.
Where is 3/4 time used?
If you’ve ever watched or listened to a waltz, you’ve probably already heard 3/4. The familiar ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three feeling is one of the things that gives a waltz its characteristic movement.
An example is “The Blue Danube” by Johann Strauss II, one of the best-known Viennese waltzes.
But don’t think of 3/4 as only a waltz or classical music time signature. It also appears in folk, pop and rock music.
For example, “Manic Depression” by Jimi Hendrix uses 3/4 time, showing that a three-beat metre can sound very different from the traditional waltz style.
The easiest way to recognise 3/4 is to listen for the grouping of the beats. Count along with the music and ask yourself which pattern your ear is actually hearing:
ONE two three | ONE two three
or:
ONE two three four | ONE two three four
Triple metre and other time signatures
Quick clarification, because these terms can easily get mixed up: triple metre and 3/4 aren’t exactly the same thing.
Triple metre is the broader idea of beats being organised into groups of three. 3/4 is one particular time signature, where there are three quarter-note beats in each bar.
There are other types of metre too. Duple metre organises beats into groups of two, while quadruple metre organises them into groups of four.
You may also come across 6/8, which can sound similar to 3/4 because it also contains groups of three smaller notes. However, 6/8 is normally felt as two larger beats, each divided into three, whereas 3/4 is normally felt as three beats, each capable of being divided into two.
Once you start hearing these different groupings, you begin to hear music differently. You start to notice why a piece feels the way it does, not just which notes are being played.
Learning about time signatures
Getting a real feel for time signatures is one of those things that quietly makes everything else easier, whatever instrument you’re learning — piano, guitar, drums, voice, you name it. At Do Re Mi Studios, rhythm and music theory are taught alongside learning to play your instrument, rather than as something separate.
Our music lessons are available in the Sutherland Shire.