High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Quintuple meter (Brit. metre) or quintuple time (chiefly Brit.) is a musical meter characterized by 5 beats in a measure. Like the more common duple, triple, and quadruple meters, it may be simple, with each beat divided in half, or compound, with each beat divided into thirds. The most common time signatures for simple quintuple meter are 5/4 and 5/8, and compound quintuple meter is most often written in 15/8. A time signature of 15/8, however, does not necessarily mean that the bar is a quintuple meter with each beat divided into three. It may, for example, be used to indicate a bar of triple meter in which each beat is subdivided into five parts. In this case, the meter is sometimes characterized as "triple quintuple time". It is also possible for a 15/8 time signature to be used for an irregular, or "additive" metrical pattern, such as groupings of 3 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 2 eighth notes or, for example in the Hymn to the Sun and Hymn to Nemesis by Mesomedes of Crete, 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 2, which may alternatively be given the composite signature (8+7)/8. Quintuple meter can also be notated by using regularly alternating bars of triple and duple meters, for example 2/4 + 3/4, or 6/8 + 9/8, or through the use of "compound meters", in which two or three numerals take the place of the expected numerator 5, for example, (2 + 3)/8, or (2 + 1 + 2)/8. Conversely, the presence of a 5/4 or 5/8 meter signature does not necessarily mean that the music is in quintuple meter. The regular alternation of 5/4 and 4/4 in Bruce Hornsby`s "The Tango King" (from the album Hot House), for example, results in an overall nonuple meter (5 + 4 = 9).