9/8 Time Signature: How to Count It, Why It Is Not an Odd Meter, and a Click to Practise With

What 9/8 time means

The bottom number says the eighth note is the written pulse and the top number says there are nine of them. But 9/8 is not counted in nine. Because nine divides into three threes, the real beat is the dotted quarter note, three eighths long, and there are three of them in the bar. That is what compound triple means: three beats (triple), each splitting into three (compound). It stands to 3/4 exactly as 6/8 stands to 2/4: same number of beats, but each beat rolls in three instead of two.

There is one famous exception. When 9/8 is grouped 2+2+2+3 instead of 3+3+3, it stops being a compound meter and behaves like an odd one, with a short-short-short-long lurch. That is the Bulgarian daichovo rhythm, and it is what Dave Brubeck borrowed for Blue Rondo à la Turk. The tool above defaults to 3+3+3; in the Metro Gnome app you can move the accents to 1, 3, 5 and 7 for the Brubeck grouping.

How to count 9/8

Compound (3+3+3): count ONE and a TWO and a THREE and a, or ONE two three FOUR five six SEVEN eight nine, with accents on pulses 1, 4 and 7. Feel three beats, not nine.

Odd grouping (2+2+2+3): count ONE two ONE two ONE two ONE two three, accents on 1, 3, 5 and 7. This is the Blue Rondo feel and it is a completely different piece of music from the same nine eighth notes.

If a 9/8 piece feels like a waltz that skips along, it is 3+3+3. If it feels like it keeps tripping over its last step, it is 2+2+2+3. Let the feel tell you which count to use.

What 9/8 feels like

Compound 9/8 rolls. Three big beats per bar, each one bouncing in three, gives it a swing that straight triple time never has, which is why it suits slow lyrical piano music as well as it suits a fast Irish slip jig. Played slowly it feels like a gentle rocking; played fast it feels like a jig with an extra beat in every bar. The 2+2+2+3 version feels nothing like that: it is nervous, forward-leaning, and unmistakably Balkan.

Songs and pieces in 9/8

• Clair de Lune (Claude Debussy): written in 9/8 and felt in three slow, unhurried beats per bar.
• Ride of the Valkyries (Richard Wagner): the galloping figure is 9/8 in three, the dotted rhythm driving each big beat.
• Slip jigs (Irish traditional): the whole dance form is in 9/8, three lilting beats to the bar, faster than a 6/8 jig feels.
• Blue Rondo à la Turk (The Dave Brubeck Quartet): the famous exception, 9/8 grouped 2+2+2+3 for three bars and then 3+3+3 for the fourth.

How to practise 9/8 with a metronome

Count three, not nine. With the click running, tap only the accented pulses (1, 4, 7) until the bar feels like a slow three. Counting all nine eighth notes at tempo is what makes 9/8 feel harder than it is.

Say the subdivision as a word. Try straw-ber-ry straw-ber-ry straw-ber-ry: three syllables per beat, three beats per bar. It puts the weight in the right place without any arithmetic.

Check the grouping before you assume. Not every 9/8 is 3+3+3. Look at the beaming in the score or listen for the lurch; if the piece is 2+2+2+3, set the accents to 1, 3, 5 and 7 in the app rather than practising it as a jig.

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 9/8