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Music vocabulary · Notation and Reading Music

Bar

Meaning in music, with examples

/bɑːr/nounCore term

In music, bar means: A short section of music that contains a fixed number of beats, shown on the page between two vertical lines called bar lines.

In Turkish: ölçü

How it is used

Constantly used in rehearsals to find a place in the music: 'Let's go from bar 32', 'a four-bar intro', 'repeat the last two bars'. Bars are counted and numbered; a 'bar line' separates them.

Example sentences

  1. Let's start again from bar 17, just after the key change.

  2. The drums come in after an eight-bar piano intro.

Common collocations

  • from bar
  • four-bar phrase
  • bar line
  • count the bars
  • last two bars
  • beatThe steady pulse that you tap your foot to in a piece of music. Beats are grouped into bars, and their speed is the tempo.
  • time signatureThe two numbers at the start of a piece that show how many beats are in each bar and which note value gets one beat, for example 3/4 or 6/8.
  • downbeatThe first and usually strongest beat of a bar. It also means the conductor's downward hand movement that starts the music.
  • restA symbol in notation that tells you to be silent for a set length of time, such as a quarter rest or a whole-bar rest.
  • staffThe set of five horizontal lines and four spaces on which notes are written. A note's position on the staff shows its pitch.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Notation and Reading Music

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