Talk:Bar (music)

Confusing
"In musical notation, a bar line or measure is a segment of time defined as a given number of beats of a given duration."

This is the first line, and I don't understand it fully. Is the same meaning derived by typing: (?) "In musical notation, a bar or measure is a segment of time defined as a given number of beats in the segment of time."

If it means the same thing I prefer the latter, because it's more clear to me.Logictheo 07:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Please sign your posts on talk pages per Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks! Hyacinth 07:26, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

"Hypermeasures must be larger than a notated bar, perceived as a unit, consist of a pattern of strong and weak beats, and along with adjacent hypermeasures, which must be of the same length, create a sense of hypermeter." Wow! What does that mean? Could someone clarify this? I'm not one of those jerks who brags about having two doctorate degrees... but I do and one of them is in music and I really, really don't know what this sentence is supposed to mean. Gingermint (talk) 06:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

word "preceded" has 2 meanings?
Since it seems it means both 1. Go before than, and 2. Has higher rank (with other words, has something extra), I'm replacing the word with the meaning behind each word. Comments welcome. Logictheo 09:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Awesome, noticed that too. 2001:8003:617A:7701:FD8B:95AC:276A:EFDC (talk) 09:50, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Repeat barline is not a barline
There is an article about this symbol, the title of which is [Repeat sign]. There, the expression "repeat barline" is not even mentioned. I suspect that this is not just an imperfection of that article. Indeed, theoretically the repeat sign should not be called a barline, because it consists of two barlines and two dots. See also modern musical symbols.

So, I suggest to delete the reference to "repeate barline" in this article, unless you have an authoritative reference proving that this improper terminology is accepted and used (as it often happens even in sciences). If you have such a reference, then I suggest to indicate this alternative terminology in the articles repeat sign and modern musical symbols as well, for the sake of consistency. Paolo.dL (talk) 19:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * If you can find a Wikipedia policy or guideline which suggests the removal of the term "repeat barline" for reason please do so. If you can find a source which denounces it as incorrect terminology please do so. Hyacinth (talk) 03:45, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Bar and measure
This is funny: "Measure (music)" redirects to "Bar (music)", but the latter article is mainly saying that "bar" is poor usage, "measure" is good usage. According to my New Grove (1980), English "bar" and American "measure" are equivalents, as are English "bar-line" and American "bar". Not to speak of the "twelve-bar blues". --91.32.134.232 (talk) 22:49, 18 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree, somewhat arbitrarily... I wonder what the reason is for our English bias? Seniority? =) So, I suppose we should transform this page a bit and rename it to Measure (music). Other input/opinions? --DJ Phazer talk 09:31, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * What? Why? No, ‘Bar (music)’ is a good name. As I said above, it is wrong to call ‘bar’ bad usage, ‘measure’ good usage; ‘bar’ is correct British English. We should remove the following sentence: ‘Although the words bar and measure are often used interchangeably the correct use of the word “bar” refers only to the vertical line itself, while the word “measure” refers to the music contained between bars.’ --91.32.132.189 (talk) 15:44, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Changed. --91.32.161.2 (talk) 16:59, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Bar is the same as measure - measure can be used more professionally in some situations but bars is just as fine. This is a weird edit in the publishing. 2001:8003:617A:7701:FD8B:95AC:276A:EFDC (talk) 09:51, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

We should still cite sources. Hyacinth (talk) 21:59, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that the distinction between bar and measure as British and American usages, respectively, is overemphasized in this article. I don't know about the UK, but in the U.S. the terms are used practically interchangeably. When the Andrews Sisters sang "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" they certainly weren't referring to the bar lines but rather to measures. That was many decades ago; the usage has become ever more common since then. Steve Bob (talk) 14:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Just to let you know, and obviously this is subjective, but in England I've only heard bar, I only came across measure a few years ago when I bought an American music book.--94.0.110.108 (talk) 18:58, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Bar numbering
Seems like a lot of the first section is concerned with bar numbering rather than bars per se. (Also it's pretty prescriptive.) Maybe the discussion of numbering could be moved lower down, and the first section could talk more about how bars typically divide the sound into regular patterns of stressed beats. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 06:34, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Requested move: "Musical scale" → "Scale (music)"
I have initiated a formal RM action to move Musical scale to Scale (music). Contributions and comments would be very welcome; decisions of this kind could affect the choice of title for many music theory articles.

N oetica Tea? 00:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)


 * This will help with consistency and understanding 2001:8003:617A:7701:FD8B:95AC:276A:EFDC (talk) 09:52, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Notational convention
Is a bar an aspect of audible music, or only a convention of notation? The current lede defines a bar as a segment of time defined by a given number of beats, but I would suggest that only notated music contains bars, which are demarcated by barlines. This in turn implies something about the meter of the music, but the word bar itself is only meaningful in notation, much like note values themselves. Agree? &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 06:04, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The bar is a 2D-diagram of music, where the x coordinate is time and the y coordinate is sound frequency. You can fold the bar into a circle and use polygons to represent monophonic sounds like percussion . In the latter example, the ability to represent musical notes has been traded for the ability to represent polygons in a circle (instead of a series of bars on a line). The barrel organ, phonograph cylinder and compact disc are examples of 3D notational systems. Machine readability increases with every dimension, but human readability decreases. --83.137.6.237 (talk) 10:51, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Piano music in the 15th and 16th ???!!!???
We read at the section "History": The earliest barlines, used in piano and vihuela music in the 15th and 16th centuries... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.65.56.10 (talk) 18:12, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Replaced with "keyboard" &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 19:46, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
 * nope 2001:8003:617A:7701:FD8B:95AC:276A:EFDC (talk) 09:51, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

A Manual of Modern Practice?
Is it wise to be using a source for distinctions of usage in modern English that was written almost 40 years ago (1979)? I don't have access to any more recent books with a similar purpose but I feel that, especially given that it was cited in regards to a distinction that could easily be outdated (whether the term bar and measure can be used interchangeably in American English) it might be wise to get a source from this millennium to weigh in on the issue.Snowblinded (talk) 00:45, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

barline spelling
In the article there are two spellings in use: barlines and bar lines. I don't care if it should be the British or the American spelling, but it should be spelled uniformly. --Rettinghaus (talk) 12:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

First illustration is misleading
The first image gives the impression that barlines are called "bars". It doesn't show that a bar contains notes and is about duration and rhythm. Instead, there should be a time signature and for example three bars of music, each bar in a different color, and the figure caption can explain that ("the first two notes are in the first bar (shown in blue), ..."). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.10.194.100 (talk) 01:09, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Intro
The introduction is unclear to me in terms of everything but visuals. "The bar line (or barline) is a vertical line written in the music which separates the bars."along with the illustration is clear enough, but how does one hear a bar? Kdammers (talk) 02:35, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
 * You can't hear a bar; it's strictly a notational device. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 01:14, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

New lede
I'd like to rewrite the lede, both to remove specialized topics (which might go lower down) and to steer away from the term "beats," since the relation between time signature and beat is not consistent (e.g. compound meter), while accommodating nonstandard usages, such as irregular unmetered bars, which occur both in early music and modern usage. Here's a proposed first sentence:


 * In musical notation, a bar (or measure) is a short passage of notated music bounded by vertical lines, known as bar lines (or barlines), usually indicating one or more recurring beats. The length of the bar, measured by the number of note values it contains, is normally indicated by the time signature.

This would replace most of the first two paragraphs. Obviously I'd add suitable links to related topics.

Comments welcome. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 23:06, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Basically I agree. The current first paragraph includes such gems as "each bar of staff symbols can be read and played as a batch", which is simply beyond meaningless. A couple of comments: in your phrasing, I do not think "passage" is the right word, since this normally refers to a (longer) mucisally coherent stretch of music. I think a more neutral word, like "section" would be better.
 * Secondly, I strongly disagree with the claim above that we should pretend that English and American are more or less the same. A properly written article in AmE could reasonably say, with proper sources, that it is incorrect to call a measure a "bar", while a properly written article in BrE could reasonably ignore the word "measure" entirely, as it is essentially never used. The current article has some rather silly claim about "international usage", whatever that is supposed to mean. A very simple table of the equivalences (including 'bar' and 'barline') would help. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:56, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I hope you can clarify for me what the situation is with British vs. American usage. This isn't really like "elevator" and "lift". As an American, I'd usually say "measure" but I hear plenty of people say "bar", and it wouldn't occur to me or any American to think that's "incorrect." Same with "barline." What is the usage in UK (or other Anglophone countries)? Since the article is titled "Bar," it seems like the British usage should predominate, but I don't think the difference is as clean-cut as "lorry" and "truck." More like "taxi" and "cab." I'm happy to be educated, though.

I don't think changing "passage" to "section" really solves the problem. "Fragment"? "Segment"? "Period"? &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 16:40, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

By the way, none of Lorry, Elevator, or Taxi dwell on the regional usages; they just give the synonyms and go on. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 16:43, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Bar x line
The question is the value of x: space, hyphen, or null. I think the last ("barline") is preferable. Reference books to hand suggest: older British texts (first pub. 1940s and 1950s) use "bar-line"; Gardner Read (US) uses "barline", even in the middle of a misguided rant about how non-American terminology is wrong or unprofessional. The Dolmetch reference I just removed also uses "barline", as do most of the comments above. I think it is OK to list all three alternative spellings, but suggest using "barline" through the article. Imaginatorium (talk) 12:07, 10 December 2023 (UTC)