Can i have number of notes in a bar that doesn't conform with the time signature?
In the following image the time signature is 4/4.
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That looks like someone was overcorrecting syncopated phrases. If you just remove all dots from the top system, things actually scan reasonably well. However, while quite a few people are fine with and prefer not splitting up quarter notes (into two tied eighths) that are shifted by an eighth inside of the measure, nobody would write a half note shifted by an eighth in that manner. So while the second bar is the only one that adds up as written, it's the one where it is hardest to guess what was actually meant. If it was just badly written, the whole thing could be meant as (using similar notation)
However, I suspect that the half note in the middle bar should be rather displaced by a fourth than an eighth which would mean (now splitting syncopated notes up everywhere)
No, in a word. The point of any time signature is to establish just what is in each bar, time wise. The top number tells how many of the notes there are, the bottom tells what those notes actually are.
In your sample, in 4/4, that bottom 4 tells that they are going to be crotchets - quarter notes. The top tells that in fact there are going to be four of them - or their equivalent: 8 quavers (1/4 notes),two minims (half notes), or any mix of notes (and/or rests) that mathematically add up to that exact number, no more, no less.
In your sample, the bass line is good - although all the dots could be evenly spaced - they will be when played. With 5 crotchets' value in bar 1 treble clef, and bar 3 having four and a half beats, it just won't be playable. If someone played the four bass parts, where would the top fit against them? It couldn't. However, bar 2 is good !
In the second bar, the notation with the half note is illegible, even if it is mathematically correct.
Therefore IMO it is reasonable to assume the first and third bars are just wrong.
Given a score of "0 out of 3" it's anyone's guess what the perpetrator intended.
A more useful question is what notation program allows you to write this sort of nonsense - if only to avoid recommending it to anybody else.
That looks like it's from notation software. How did you get that first bar to display? I imagine there is some kind of hidden rest and possibly some hidden parameter that actually makes the bar 5/4. When all that stuff is revealed you will probably see something like it starts in 4/4, changes to 5/4 for one bar, then changes back to 4/4. Either make that stuff visible. Or, if you want a regular meter, revise the bar to remove the extra beat.
No, that is a mistake. The sum of the notes has to add up to the time signature.
If your time signature is 4/4, you'd need to remove some notes from the first bar, because the notes sum up to 5/4.
Or, you can change the time signature to 5/4 for the first bar and 4/4 for the following ones.
The last bar is wrong as well. The durations add up to 4.5/4 (or 9/8) and not 4/4.
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