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The time signature of a piece of music indicates how many beats are in each bar. A time signature allows a musician to count a steady beat while playing a piece.

The time signature is written at the beginning of the staff. It comes after the clef and key signatures.

You may find certain pieces of music have include changes to different time signatures. This will be marked on the sheet music, so always check through a piece of music to ensure you are aware of any changes of time signature it might have.

Metronome mark

A composer may include a metronome mark to indicate the tempo - how fast or slow the music should be played.

For example, the metronome mark above tells you there are 80 crotchet beats per minute.

Below are three examples of the same song being played at three different tempos.

You can use a traditional metronome to give you a tempo to follow. You can also download metronome apps to your smartphone.