| It's not a math thing. It's more about feel than counting. 3/4 is ONE two three, with a foot stomp on the ONE. It's a dance beat - STOMP skip skip. 4/4 is so common it appears in a lot of variations, from the bass drum beat of EDM to all the different rock and pop variations. The usual - not infallible, but strongly suggestive - tell is how often the chords change. Failing which, there's often a unique rhythm marker at the starter of each bar. 6/8 is skiddledeediddledee - often used in folk and/or ethnic music. It's a much lighter, more skittery feel. You can generalise the /8 time sigs to 9/8 and 12/8, although they're more rare. They're often used to signify something exotic, alien, ethnic, or maybe a bit spiritual. Like this, which you've probably heard, and is in 12/8 when it eventually gets going. The clue is in the phrase length: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLnL63cXmD8 Exotic sigs like 5/4 and 7/4 are much less standardised, so they're open to interpretation. You can play 5/4 as 2+3 or 3+2 or 4+1. Or just as 5. Likewise 7/4 (listen to the snare): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ |
There are two common forms of 6/8 (jigs) at least in the kinds of traditional music I'm used to: single jigs and double jigs. A double jig is "skiddledeediddledee" as you said, like the song "99 bottles of beer on the wall", while a single jig is more like "humpty dumpty".