5/4 Time Signature: How to Count It, What It Feels Like, and a Click to Practise With

What 5/4 time means

The top number says there are five beats in the bar and the bottom number says a quarter note gets one beat. That makes 5/4 a quintuple meter, and because five cannot be divided into equal groups of two or three, it is also an odd meter (the accurate umbrella term is irregular meter, and you will hear asymmetric meter too). What sets it apart from 4/4 is not the extra beat itself but what the extra beat does to the grouping: every bar has one two-beat group and one three-beat group, and the order of those two groups is the single most important decision in any piece of 5/4.

A useful way to picture it: a bar of 5/4 is a bar of 2/4 glued to a bar of 3/4, in one order or the other. Some composers literally write it that way, alternating 2/4 and 3/4 bars. The feel is identical; 5/4 is simply the tidier notation.

How to count 5/4

2+3: count ONE two ONE two three, accenting beats 1 and 3. The short group comes first, so each bar starts with a quick pair and then stretches.

3+2: count ONE two three ONE two, accenting beats 1 and 4. The long group comes first. This is how Take Five is grouped.

Whichever grouping the music uses, say the numbers out loud with the click before you play a note. If you find yourself counting a smooth one two three four five, you have flattened the meter into something it is not; the accent on beat 3 or beat 4 is the whole point.

What 5/4 feels like

5/4 limps, in the best sense. A 2+3 bar feels like a march that keeps stretching its last step; a 3+2 bar feels like a waltz with a hurried ending. At slow tempos you hear five clear beats with two of them heavier. At fast tempos the beats blur and you feel only the two groups, a short pulse and a long pulse, which is exactly how Take Five is felt on the bandstand: not as five, but as long-short.

Songs and pieces in 5/4

• Take Five (The Dave Brubeck Quartet (written by Paul Desmond)): the most famous 5/4 tune in existence, grouped 3+2, with the piano vamp carrying the long-short feel.
• Mission: Impossible theme (Lalo Schifrin): the two long notes and two short ones of the main riff fill exactly one bar of 5/4.
• Mars, the Bringer of War (Gustav Holst, from The Planets): an ostinato in 5/4 that drives the whole movement.
• 15 Step (Radiohead): a modern 5/4 groove with the drums leaning into the 2+3 shape.
• Living in the Past (Jethro Tull): a rare 5/4 hit single, riff and vocal both in five.

How to practise 5/4 with a metronome

Decide the grouping before the first note. Listen to the piece and work out whether it breathes 2+3 or 3+2; then set the accents to match. The tool defaults to 2+3, and the Metro Gnome app lets you move the accent onto beat 4 for a 3+2 tune.

Clap it first. With the click running, clap the accents only (beats 1 and 3, or 1 and 4) for a full minute before you pick up the instrument. The group shape has to be in your body before it can be in your hands.

Slow it right down. 5/4 collapses into 4/4 or 6/4 fastest at speed, precisely where there is no time to think about the fifth beat. Start around 60 BPM and only speed up once you stop counting consciously.

For the theory behind why the bottom number never changes a meter's class, and how simple, compound and odd meters relate, see Time Signatures Explained. For any meter not covered here, the odd meter metronome plays anything from 1 to 16 beats with its natural grouping.

Questions about 5/4