What is the time signature for "Greensleeves"?

Greensleeves is in 6/8 time.

http://experts.about.com/q/Musical-Composition-Theory-652/Time-Signature-2.htm

That is determined by the arrangement of the song. For example, Greensleeves and/or What Child Is This are typically 3/4 or 6/8 but Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) has a version of Greensleeves in 7/4.


[http//indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A20666 -- this link is broken]

Incidentally, here is a version in 3/4 AND in 4/4...which is probably why you are asking because it can sound like either.

[http//southwinddulcimer.com/03725.html -- this link is broken]

I reckon I play it in 6/8.

I'm sure the composer wrote it originally in 6/4.

At the time that Greensleeves was written, they didn't use bar lines and time signatures, so the composer would not have used a time signature. Which one you use know depends on exactly how fast you are playing it, but it is definitely a triple time, based on 3. So you can pick 3/4, 6/4 or 6/8 - all are valid.

Thanks for the help.

"At the time that Greensleeves was written, they didn't use bar lines and time signatures, so the composer would not have used a time signature..."

They actually did, if you go by the theory that the composer was Henry VIII. Metric musical notation had been invented hundreds of years earlier in France, and the days of Franconian notation were on the way out in most of Europe by the mid 16th century.