how to read 6/8 time,
and hear the two beats in it.

What 6/8 means

6/8 time is a compound duple metre: six quavers in every bar, grouped as two beats of three. The beat you tap is a dotted crotchet, worth three quavers, and there are two of them per bar. You count it “ONE-la-li TWO-la-li”, not “one two three four five six”, and the swing between the two strong beats is what makes a jig a jig and a lullaby rock.

The top number of a time signature normally tells you how many beats are in a bar, and the bottom which note gets one beat. 6/8 is the first signature most people meet where that rule misleads. The “6” counts quavers, but nobody feels six beats at a jig tempo; they feel two, each one a group of three. Signatures whose beats divide into three are called compound, and 6/8 is the common one. Its cousins 9/8 (three beats of three) and 12/8 (four beats of three) work the same way, which is why a blues shuffle is often written in 12/8.

6/8 versus 3/4

Both 6/8 and 3/4 contain six quavers per bar, so beginners assume 6/8 is a fast 3/4. It is not. 3/4 has three crotchet beats, each split in two: ONE-and TWO-and THREE-and, the waltz. 6/8 has two dotted-crotchet beats, each split in three: ONE-la-li TWO-la-li, the jig. The same six quavers, accented differently, are two different dances.

The printed page gives the grouping away before you count a thing. In 3/4, quavers are beamed in pairs, three pairs to the bar. In 6/8, they are beamed in threes, two groups to the bar, and a composer will go out of their way never to beam across the middle of a 6/8 bar. A dotted crotchet on its own in 6/8 is a whole beat; in 3/4 it is a beat and a half and would be an odd note to see on its own.

Say “Greensleeves” to yourself, or “We Are the Champions”, or a sea shanty. That swaying two-in-a-bar, where each sway has a little triple lilt inside it, is 6/8. Now say “The Blue Danube”: three even steps, oom-pah-pah. That is 3/4. Once you can hear the difference between the two you will never mistake them on the page.

How to count 6/8

Count 6/8 with one syllable per quaver and the weight on the two beats: 1-la-li 2-la-li. Some teachers use “1-and-a 2-and-a” or “1-trip-let 2-trip-let”; the syllables do not matter, the shape does. Two strong syllables, each followed by two light ones.

A bar of 6/8 adds up to six quavers, and the values you will meet inside it are: the quaver (one syllable), the crotchet (two syllables, usually the first two of a group), the dotted crotchet (a whole beat, all three syllables), and the dotted minim (the whole bar). The commonest rhythm in 6/8 is crotchet-quaver, crotchet-quaver: “ONE-la li TWO-la li”, long-short long-short. That is the rhythm of almost every jig and most 6/8 marches.

At a slow tempo, a lullaby or a slow air, it becomes reasonable to feel all six quavers. “Silent Night” is 6/8 and you could count it in six. But even there the first and fourth quavers carry the weight, and the song still breathes in two. The pulse is two; the six is how you subdivide it.

A worked example

Take the opening of “What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor”, written in 6/8. The first bar is six quavers, all the same pitch: “What shall we do with the”. Count it 1-la-li 2-la-li, one word per quaver, and notice the bar divides in half at “do”. The second bar is crotchet-quaver, crotchet-quaver: “drunk-en sail-or”, long-short long-short, ONE-la li TWO-la li. The third and fourth bars repeat that pair. The phrase ends on “morn-ing”, which most editions write as a dotted crotchet followed by a crotchet and a quaver rest, or simply as a dotted minim filling the bar.

Now check the arithmetic the way you would on any unfamiliar bar. Bar two: crotchet (two quavers) plus quaver (one) is three, a full beat; do it again and the bar is six. The “morn-ing” bar: dotted crotchet (three) plus crotchet (two) plus quaver rest (one) is six. Every bar of 6/8 comes to six quavers, and when a bar does not, you have missed a dot, a tie or a rest. They always add up.

The thing to hear in this example is that the tune does not sound like counting to six. It sounds like a rope being hauled on two pulls per bar. Tap two taps per bar on your knee while you sing it and the inner threes look after themselves.

Beginner mistakes

The three mistakes almost everyone makes with 6/8 are the same three, and each has a simple fix.

• Counting six slow beats. The commonest one. Reading “6” as six beats and plodding through them evenly turns a jig into a dirge and loses the accent that defines the metre. Fix: tap two beats per bar and say the six syllables inside them.
• Playing it as 3/4. Putting the accents on quavers one, three and five, so the bar has three even bumps instead of two swaying ones. Fix: look at the beams. Three quavers under one beam are one beat; accent only the first of each three.
• Misreading the dotted crotchet. In 4/4 a dotted crotchet is an awkward one-and-a-half beats; in 6/8 it is a plain, whole beat. Beginners bring the 4/4 habit with them and clip it short. Fix: in 6/8, a dotted crotchet gets all three syllables, 1-la-li, and nothing else happens during it.

A two-minute drill

1. Tap two, say sixTap your knee at a walking pace, and against every tap say “1-la-li” or “2-la-li”. Thirty seconds. The taps are the beat; the syllables are the quavers.
2. Long-shortKeep the taps going and change the words to “ONE-la, TWO-la”, holding the first syllable for two quavers. That is crotchet-quaver, the jig rhythm. Thirty seconds.
3. Clap a lineOpen any 6/8 tune you own, or the shanty above, and clap the rhythm of the first line while tapping your foot in two. Sixty seconds. If you lose the two, stop and restart from the taps.

Hear your own bar

Everything above is general. The bar you are stuck on is specific, and the fastest way to know whether you are feeling it right is to hear it played correctly. Photograph the page in Sheetly, press play on the bar, and slow it to half speed: the two beats come out of the playback by themselves, and you can tap along until your taps land on them. Then ask the coach why that bar has a crotchet tied into the next one, and get an answer about that bar. Photograph it, hear it, understand it, practise it.

Hear the two beats in your own bar.

Photograph the page, press play on the bar you are counting, slow it down, and loop it until the pulse is in your foot. Free to download on iPhone and iPad.

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When you get stuck

Sheetly is the only iPhone and iPad app we know of where the AI coach has read the actual notes of the page you photographed, so a question about bar 12 gets an answer about your bar 12. For 6/8 that matters, because the question is never “what is 6/8” but “why does this bar feel wrong”.

Ask Sheetly: a coach that has read your score

Not a chatbot bolted onto a music app. The coach has the actual notes of the page you just photographed, so you can ask about your bar 12 and get an answer about what is written in it.

it's 6/8 but bar 5 only has 4 notes, how do I count it?

Bar 5 is dotted crotchet, quaver, quaver, quaver. The dotted crotchet is the whole first beat, so hold it for “1-la-li”, then the three quavers are “2-la-li”. Four notes, six quavers, two beats. It is the same shape as bar 1, which you played fine.

why does bar 9 sound like a waltz when I play it

Because you are accenting the third and fifth quavers. Bar 9 is beamed in two groups of three, so only the first and fourth quavers carry weight. Loop bar 9 at half speed, tap twice per bar, and put the accent only where you tap.

We know of no other sheet-music scanner that does this. Every other tool hands you a transcription and stops.

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