Is it OK to write time signatures as fractions like this:
4
-
4
instead of
4
4
? Is it allowed? If yes, could you show me proof?
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Sign up to join this communityIs it OK to write time signatures as fractions like this:
4
-
4
instead of
4
4
? Is it allowed? If yes, could you show me proof?
In music notation, time signatures are written without the fraction line. Apart from anything else, it would get muddled up with the lines of the stave. In text, such as this reply, we write them with a slash, 4/4, 6/8 etc.
You'll occasionally find key signatures like this in music written in and after the twentieth century.
I'm not sure I've ever seen it for a single-staff instrument, but I have seen it for piano music and in full scores. When it's done, the time signature is either written between staves (e.g., in piano music) or stretched across several grouped staves (e.g., the woodwinds in an orchestral setting).
Edit: I thought I had seen slashes in time signatures before, but I'm having trouble finding an example in my own library. Nevertheless, here is an image from the Prelude to Schoenberg's Op. 25, which shows the between-staff time signature I mentioned.
See also this terrific answer that elucidates some "hidden" time signatures in a score much like what I mentioned in my second paragraph. But, again, there is no fraction bar.