What made 4/4 the default time signature?
Most artists tend to gravitate towards what is most familiar to them. Even though it’s easy to say that musicians must go against the grain every time they set foot in a studio, there are always specific foundations of any great song that will remain constant in pop music. Then again, with all the different trends that have clogged up the charts, why is 4/4 the go-to rhythm for every mainstream song?
Although many different trends have come and gone throughout pop history, the idea of having a foundation of four beats for every bar of music has remained consistent. Even though there are exceptions when songs leave out a specific beat or add in more, the idea of having four beats goes back far earlier than the traditional pop charts.
When music was first being written out, sheet music was being made for various church musicians, who needed the music scripted for what songs would be played during the service. To indicate how to interpret the song’s rhythm, the initial standard time was considered three beats to every measure, signifying the ‘Holy Trinity’ concept of the church.
As musicians began expanding their craft, though, the idea of the triple metre started to dwindle, with artists more commonly picking up four measures in every bar to give a sense of finality to every musical passage. The 4/4 became known as “complete-time” throughout different translations due to its resolution by the end of the bar.
Once the first strains of pop music started to crop up in the 20th century, the sounds of the early pop records by the likes of Bing Crosby also featured 4/4 time, such as the slow burn of the song ‘White Christmas’. As the rest of the pop sphere began to branch out into rock and roll, though, it was only natural for them to adopt the exact figure of time.
Throughout the early years of rock and roll, you rarely heard a 6/8 shuffle on the radio, with artists like Chuck Berry and Little Richard interpreting the 12-bar blues through three-minute blasts of adrenaline. Even though 4/4 is still the most comfortable for fans to listen to, there have been a handful of artists who have been able to play around with the rhythm of their hit songs.
Outside of the massive progressive rock bands of the 1970s, artists like The Beatles were also responsible for switching up the time whenever they played, with John Lennon becoming notoriously known for swapping out different beats to provide a natural flow to songs like ‘Across the Universe’ and ‘All You Need is Love’.
Once the grunge movement kicked in in the early 1990s, fans were treated to other heavy songs with odd meters, like the swirling riff in ‘Them Bones’ by Alice in Chains or the 5/4 uneasiness going on in Soundgarden’s ‘Fell On Black Days’. When talking about the songs that stand the test of time, it usually comes back to what the brain hears as the one beat, constantly wanting to return to that same rhythmic structure.
The idea of 4/4 as a standard time is also considered a Western idea, with plenty of other cultures using different time signatures in their traditional tunes, like 11/8 and 5/4. Even though artists might claim to be daring when working in unusual time signatures, there’s something about 4/4 that your brain responds to before your ears.
