Ableton Forum

I don't understand why measures start at 1. If I'm at 4/4, shouldn't 4 bars end at 4 instead of 5? This confused me until I realized I didn't record 5 bars, It just says that. There must be a way to show 0 instead of 1, right? I personally think bar indicators should show LAST beat other than START OF beat.

Yeah, nah, that's the wrong way to think.

You count in music 1..2..3..4.. 2..2..3..4 3..2..3..4 4..2..3..4 and that is exactly how you see it (in the same way you visualise/hear that signature in your head as you count along.

You can easily say "i'd like to change the last beat in Bar 4" and easily see in the image you posted which one is Bar 4 then which is the last beat in the bar.

If we used your idea of starting at Zero then "Bar 4" would start at 3 and would then be confusing to everyone else on the planet basically.

That's just the way music is written and counted - you start counting a full measure/bar 1 at the beginning of measure/bar 1 with 1, not 0. Same with beats - like jestermgee wrote, you start counting with beat 1 not with 0.

This is the way modern/western music scores are written and software such as Live follows this convention. Just simply think "it's not math, it's music" and look on the left instead of the right

ryan.nguyen389 wrote:
I don't understand why measures start at 1. If I'm at 4/4, shouldn't 4 bars end at 4 instead of 5? This confused me until I realized I didn't record 5 bars, It just says that. There must be a way to show 0 instead of 1, right? I personally think bar indicators should show LAST beat other than START OF beat.

You're a programmer, right?

"The phrase ends at measure 5."

"The phrase ends at the end of measure 4."

Basically the same thing...but we don't usually think in terms of the first.

5 is the end of measure 4. The phrase is 4 measures long. We begin the measure with the count of the measure. We don't end the measure with the count of the measure. That would look like this:

1 and 2 and 3 and 1 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 2 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 3 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and...

weird, because we need to know where that 4th count is so we know when the next measure starts.

The phrase does not end when the value = 4. It ends when the value = 4 and 2 and 3 and 4 and

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and
2 and 2 and 3 and 4 and ... etc...

Just ask yourself the question “How many measures of music did I just write?”

There’s your answer.

There is nothing in the measure 5.

As a musician, I always disliked software that starts with 0. There is no zero measure.

ryan.nguyen389 wrote: I don't understand why measures start at 1.

Because there is no zero measure. A Beethoven sonata starts with measure 1.

ryan.nguyen389 wrote: If I'm at 4/4, shouldn't 4 bars end at 4 instead of 5?

Yes it ends at full 4.999... It doesn't end on 5.0 at all.

ryan.nguyen389 wrote: This confused me until I realized I didn't record 5 bars, It just says that.

Of course, you didn't record anything in the measure 5. It is empty.
You recorded full 4 measures.

Don't confuse music with ruler.

A similar problem, not the same though, is that two octaves are "quintdecima" = 15.
So, 8 + 8 = 15.
"Don't confuse music with ruler."

Normal people count from 1. Only computers (and programmers) count from 0.

Warmonger wrote:Normal people count from 1. Only computers (and programmers) count from 0.

nah. i think that's a red herring in this case.

i can understand why someone not familiar with music notation might ask why the first bar doesn't start at zero, like time does.

fishmonkey wrote:

Warmonger wrote:Normal people count from 1. Only computers (and programmers) count from 0.

nah. i think that's a red herring in this case.

i can understand why someone not familiar with music notation might ask why the first bar doesn't start at zero, like time does.

Maybe. But I have almost never heard anyone refer to the first minute as "minute zero". When did you hear this last? In a discipline where this is relevant just as within programming, yes, but in everyday language? I don't see it.

mikb wrote:

fishmonkey wrote:

Warmonger wrote:Normal people count from 1. Only computers (and programmers) count from 0.

nah. i think that's a red herring in this case.

i can understand why someone not familiar with music notation might ask why the first bar doesn't start at zero, like time does.

Maybe. But I have almost never heard anyone refer to the first minute as "minute zero". When did you hear this last? In a discipline where this is relevant just as within programming, yes, but in everyday language? I don't see it.

another red herring! have a look at arrangement view. bar 1 is physically drawn at time zero. it's just a different conception. a minute refers to the end of the minute, and a bar refers to the start of a bar. it's got nothing to do with whether or not people are "normal" or not...

fishmonkey wrote:

mikb wrote:
Maybe. But I have almost never heard anyone refer to the first minute as "minute zero". When did you hear this last? In a discipline where this is relevant just as within programming, yes, but in everyday language? I don't see it.

another red herring! have a look at arrangement view. bar 1 is physically drawn at time zero. it's just a different conception. a minute refers to the end of the minute, and a bar refers to the start of a bar. it's got nothing to do with whether or not people are "normal" or not...

How is that? My claim is that non-programmers, unlike programmers and other people from professions where it's natural to start at zero, almost never start at zero when counting anything. Personally I've only heard programmers do this, and actually only within the field of programming. I may of course be wrong on this, but I don't think I am so I am curious in how you think otherwise?

I'm not sure what you're trying to say? Even if time in music starts at "zero", the first bar is just that and not the "zeroth" bar.

It's possible I'm missing your finer point here. If so I apologize. Nothing you have suggested is wrong really. I just don't believe in that starting counting out loud at zero is very common and it seems you're suggesting this?

Just look at how you count 4ths, that I happened to do today in the studio to indicate the placement of these for a collaborator.

You don't go 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 0 - 1 - 2…
You go 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 1 - 2…

How is what you correctly point out, that there is a starting point before there is a one, relevant in that context? I don't see that it is. It's a zero with no time span. Music concerns time spans. No?

the thing is, when counting in natural numbers, we add to the count when we have another complete item/object. when i have no oranges, i have zero oranges. i have one orange when i have the whole object in my hand. if you are doing push-ups, you count one after the first push-up, not before. similarly, i have one minute when a minute has passed.

arguably it is actually music counting that is "unnatural", so to speak. we count '1' before anything has happened. zero time has passed. in this sense, music counting is a special case.

hence why i think the misunderstanding by the first poster is not unreasonable, and why it's not a matter of programmers versus "normal" people...