> I have 18 3" binders all filled with tabs and songs I have collected over my 50+ years, both Flatpick Guitar and Banjo. I have the entire Banjo News Letter collection dating back to 1973 full of tablatures and the entire Frets Magazine collection. All of the songs are written in 4/4 time using 8th notes per measure, not 16th notes. Now no one is going to tell me that for the past 50 years I have been involved in bluegrass that all these teachers and all these books are wrong and PG Music is right.

Are you sure they weren’t using the cut-time signature mark (a C with a vertical line through it, indicating 2/2 time, with four 8th notes per beat), rather than just a C (indicating 4/4 time)?


Many of the bluegrass sheet music and instruction books I look at use 8th notes, but clearly label the time signature as “cut-time” which is 2/2. The cut time signature is a C with a vertical line through it. That doubles the displayed note values turning 16ths into 8ths and 8ths into quarter notes etc., so that it is easier to read. In that time signature, there are 4 eighth notes per beat and 2 beats per bar. But that isn’t 4/4 time, and if you want to write it in 4/4 time signature (as done in BIAB and most other styles of music) you need to use 16ths notes.

Using either time signature, the typical tempo of bluegrass is about 130 bpm, and not 260. If you don’t believe me, try counting in a bluegrass tune with your band at tempo 260 and see what happens!

For example, the Real Bluegrass Book https://www.amazon.com/Real-Bluegrass-Bo...C310&sr=8-7
( click "Look Inside" and scroll down to a tune like Alabama Jubilee and notice the cut-time 2/2 indicator)

If someone walked up to you and asked you to play some 16ths notes banjo riffs for him, would you answer that bluegrass banjo players would only rarely play 16ths notes, and typically play 8th notes, as seen in bluegrass music books?

As mentioned, we plan on coming up with a cut-time display mode before the end of the year, so that any notation could be displayed with 8th notes instead of 16ths, but that will just affect notation display and not affect the tempos or sound of the music.

Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.