Music of the Trecento system of division of the breve into 2, 3, 4, 6,8, 9, or 12 semibreves (later minims) with dots (singular "punctus divisionis") indicating breaks at the end of a breve (however, Marchetto never used a term 'punctus divisionis'). Although more Trecento music is written in the international system of notation descended from Franco of Cologne and Philippe de Vitry than in the Marchettian system (and there exist a few, mostly instrumental, works not of Italian origin that use this system), nonetheless, Marchetto's contribution to rhythmic notation is so connected with the Italian Trecento that it is often referred to as
Time signature note), in contradiction to the literal meaning of the phrase, it still indicates that the beat has changed to a longer note value. Time signature The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value is equivalent to a beat. In a music score, the time signature appears at the beginning as a time symbol or stacked numerals, such as or (read "common time" and "three-four time", respectively), immediately following the key