Music notation glossary · Time signatures
Common time
stands for 4/4
As a Unicode character — to paste into text, spreadsheets or chat. Whether it appears depends on the font.
In the score
What it means
The C is not a letter for common time but a broken circle: in medieval notation the full circle stood for triple division, held to be perfect, the open one for duple.
Related pages
Anotona does this for you
Photograph a page of sheet music or play the melody — Anotona finds the key, engraves the notes and transposes them into any other. Free.
See AnotonaEvery note on this page is computed, not typed in — following the rule that also makes F# major spell its seventh degree E#, not F.