speaking of, what is the difference between 4/4 8/8 16/16 2/2 or anything else like that
those are all mathematically the same (like the bars will look the same on paper) but usually the second number says what kind of note gets the beat. so like, in 4/4, the quarter note is where the beat is. in 2/2 (also nicknamed "cut time") the bars look exactly the same, but the half note gets the beat (you tap your foot on the half note intead of the quarter note.) the main difference would really be the tempo -- cut time (2/2) is designed for the bars to basically go twice as fast. and when you see a tempo marking on the top of the page, it will say "half note = xxx b.p.m" instead of "quarter note = xxx b.p.m". so in cut time (2/2) the bars will usually go by twice as fast. what the point of this is exactly, i'm not sure. i think cut time was used much more 100 years ago. perhaps people were too lazy to write 16th notes and preferred to use 8th notes for the fast stuff instead. i'm not sure. 8/8 and 16/16 are really never used. time signatures ending in 8 also don't necessarily follow this rule of what note gets the beat, for example sometimes 7/8 is used when in reality the quarter note should get the beat, and the actual time signature would be "3 and a half/4" but no one says that for insanity reasons. also 6/8 is very very commonly counted as the dotted quarter note getting the beat, in which case the actual time signature would technically be "2/2.66666" which again would be completely insane to see written on the page