Meter guide · 10–15 minutes

How to count 6/8 and odd time.

Do not fight your way through every eighth note. Find the pulse by breaking the bar into short groups of two and long groups of three.

By Matt · GigClick developer and drummer

7/82 + 2 + 3

The useful distinction

Odd time becomes easier when it stops feeling like arithmetic.

A time signature tells you how many notes fit in a bar, but not how those notes are phrased or how the bar feels. You can count seven eighth notes one by one, but musicians usually feel 7/8 as smaller groups of notes that form a musical phrase.

Most uneven bars become much more manageable when you hear them as combinations of two kinds of pulse: a short pulse containing two eighth notes, and a long pulse containing three. Instead of counting to seven, you might feel short–short–long: 2+2+3.

The accents, bass movement, melody and chord changes tell you where those groups begin. Once you can hear that shape, the time signature stops being a number you must survive and becomes a repeating rhythmic phrase.

Count the musical shape of the bar, not just the number printed at the start of it.

Subdivision versus pulse

The written notes give you the grid. The grouping gives you the main beats.

2 eighthsshort pulse

3 eighthslong pulse

2 + 2 + 3 = 7/8

Two short pulses and one long pulse account for all seven eighth notes: 2+2+3.

How to find the grouping

01
Ignore the written count for a moment. Listen for the repeating accents, bass notes, chord changes or melodic attacks.
02
Tap only those main pulses. Some spaces will feel short and some long.
03
Count how many eighth notes fit between each tap. Each gap will usually contain two eighth notes or three.

Compound duple meter · 3+3

Six eighth notes usually become two broad pulses.

A common mistake is to make 6/8 sound like six equal beats. In most 6/8 music, the eighth notes fall into two groups of three. The bar feels in two, and each main pulse is a dotted-quarter note.

Written gridsix eighth notes

Felt pulse3 + 3

1& a2& a

Count the full grid when you need it, but let the two group starts carry the bar.

How to count it

Try ONE & a TWO & a, with the weight on ONE and TWO. You can also say “one-two-three, two-two-three”. The words matter less than preserving two equal groups of three.

In GigClick

GigClick’s 6/8 preset counts the bar in two. You can choose a click on just beats 1 and 2, or on all six eighth notes with a stronger click on 1 and 2. The display shows that the BPM counts dotted-quarter notes.

Seven eighth notes · several valid shapes

There is no single correct way to group 7/8.

Seven can be built from two short pulses and one long pulse. Moving the long pulse changes the character of the bar without changing the time signature.

2 + 2 + 3short · short · long

3 + 2 + 2long · short · short

2 + 3 + 2short · long · short

2 + 2 + 2 + 1four pulses · short last beat

The first three patterns contain the same two short and one long pulse in different orders. A four-pulse 2+2+2+1 feel treats the final pulse as deliberately shortened.

Match the grouping to the riff

Give each group its own number, then fill in the eighth notes inside it. A group of two is 1 & and a group of three is 1 & a, so 2+2+3 is counted “1 & 2 & 3 & a”. Those are the syllables GigClick shows and clicks in meter mode, the same way 6/8 counts “1 & a 2 & a”.

Seven needs more explanation than the other meters here: how to pick the grouping that matches a riff, how to hear it in real songs, and why most famous “songs in seven” are in 7/4 rather than 7/8. That has its own guide.

How to count 7/8 time

A reusable method

Build larger odd meters from the same short and long pulses.

The same method works for larger meters. Listen for the repeating order of short groups of two and long groups of three instead of inventing a new count for every time signature.

5/82+3 or 3+2one short + one long

9/83+3+3compound triple

9/82+2+2+3three short + one long

11/83+3+3+2three long + one short

13/83+3+2+2+3follow the phrase

These are examples, not defaults. The notes and accents in the music determine the useful grouping.

Do not confuse an odd numerator with an odd feel

Nine is an odd number, but a conventional 9/8 bar grouped 3+3+3 is a regular compound meter. The same nine eighth notes grouped 2+2+2+3 create an uneven four-pulse bar. “Odd time” is useful everyday language, but the grouping tells you more about what the music actually does.

The denominator matters too. An /8 meter uses eighth notes as its written units; /16 uses sixteenth notes. The grouping principle remains the same. Decide where the pulse begins, then count how many written units each pulse contains.

From shape to fluency

Practise the grouping before you practise the part.

If the grouping is still uncertain, adding the instrumental part gives you more to think about. Learn the grouping by saying and clapping it first.

Seven steps to a grouping you can play

01
Say “short” and “long”. Speak your chosen grouping in time without an instrument, using short for two eighth notes and long for three.
02
Clap the group starts. Keep the underlying eighth notes with your voice or a quiet foot tap.
03
Hear only the main pulses. Set GigClick to click only on the group starts. Make the uneven pulse feel steady.
04
Add the full eighth-note count. Keep the start of each group louder so you can still hear the shape of the bar.
05
Add the musical part. Start with the simplest version of the groove, riff or phrase, then restore its detail.
06
Remove support. Use Gap training to mute complete bars. Keep the grouping alive through the silence and listen to where you meet the returning click.
07
Build tempo last. Use the tempo trainer to raise the BPM in small steps only after the pulse shape stays clear.

Rehearsal to performance

Save the feel of the song, not only its BPM.

On stage, “this one is 120 BPM in 7/8” is not enough information. The grouping, BPM reference, click pattern and accents are part of the arrangement. They should not need to be reconstructed between songs.

01Build the meterChoose the numerator, denominator and grouping that match the phrase

02Choose the clickHear group starts or every meter division; set accents and mutes

03Save the songKeep its BPM, note value, meter, pattern and accents together

04Load the setlistStep through songs with large previous and next controls

How GigClick helps on stage

Full screen mode keeps the count and setlist controls large enough to read and operate while playing. If the next song changes from straight 4/4 to a custom odd-meter grouping, you set that up at rehearsal instead of entering it between songs.

Hear the phrase

Odd time should still feel like time.

Save each song’s tempo, grouping, accents and click pattern. When you load a setlist, every song opens with those settings ready.