In music, metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling) refers to regularly recurring patterns and accents such as bars and beats. Unlike rhythm, metric onsets are not necessarily sounded, but are nevertheless implied by the performer (or performers) and expected by the listener.[not verified in body]
A variety of systems exist throughout the world for organising and playing metrical music, such as the Indian system of tala and similar systems in Arabic and African music.
Later music for dances such as the pavane and galliard consisted of musical phrases to accompany a fixed sequence of basic steps with a defined tempo and time signature. The English word "measure", originally an exact or just amount of time, came to denote either a poetic rhythm, a bar of music, or else an entire melodic verse or dance[4] involving sequences of notes, words, or movements that may last four, eight or sixteen bars.[citation needed]
Metre is related to and distinguished from pulse, rhythm (grouping), and beats:
Meter is the measurement of the number of pulses between more or less regularly recurring accents. Therefore, in order for meter to exist, some of the pulses in a series must be accented—marked for consciousness—relative to others. When pulses are thus counted within a metric context, they are referred to as beats.[5]
Metric structure
The term metre is not very precisely defined.[1]Stewart MacPherson preferred to speak of "time" and "rhythmic shape",[6] while Imogen Holst preferred "measured rhythm".[7] However, Justin London has written a book about musical metre, which "involves our initial perception as well as subsequent anticipation of a series of beats that we abstract from the rhythm surface of the music as it unfolds in time".[8] This "perception" and "abstraction" of rhythmic bar is the foundation of human instinctive musical participation, as when we divide a series of identical clock-ticks into "tick–tock–tick–tock".[1] "Rhythms of recurrence" arise from the interaction of two levels of motion, the faster providing the pulse and the slower organizing the beats into repetitive groups.[9] In his book The Rhythms of Tonal Music, Joel Lester notes that, "[o]nce a metric hierarchy has been established, we, as listeners, will maintain that organization as long as minimal evidence is present".[10]
Metric levels: beat level shown in middle with division levels above and multiple levels below.
"Meter may be defined as a regular, recurring pattern of strong and weak beats. This recurring pattern of durations is identified at the beginning of a composition by a meter signature (time signature). ... Although meter is generally indicated by time signatures, it is important to realize that meter is not simply a matter of notation".[11] A definition of musical metre requires the possibility of identifying a repeating pattern of accented pulses – a "pulse-group" – which corresponds to the foot in poetry.[citation needed] Frequently a pulse-group can be identified by taking the accented beat as the first pulse in the group and counting the pulses until the next accent.[12][1]
Frequently metres can be subdivided into a pattern of duples and triples.[12][1]
For example, a 3 4 metre consists of three units of a 2 8 pulse group, and a 6 8 metre consists of two units of a 3 8 pulse group. In turn, metric bars may comprise 'metric groups' - for example, a musical phrase or melody might consist of two bars x 3 4.[13]
The level of musical organisation implied by musical metre includes the most elementary levels of musical form.[6] Metrical rhythm, measured rhythm, and free rhythm are general classes of rhythm and may be distinguished in all aspects of temporality:[14]
Metrical rhythm, by far the most common class in Western music, is where each time value is a multiple or fraction of a fixed unit (beat, see paragraph below), and normal accents reoccur regularly, providing systematic grouping (bars, divisive rhythm).
Measured rhythm is where each time value is a multiple or fraction of a specified time unit but there are not regularly recurring accents (additive rhythm).
Free rhythm is where the time values are not based on any fixed unit; since the time values lack a fixed unit, regularly recurring accents are no longer a possibility.
Some music, including chant, has freer rhythm, like the rhythm of prose compared to that of verse.[1] Some music, such as some graphically scored works since the 1950s and non-European music such as Honkyoku repertoire for shakuhachi, may be considered ametric.[15] The music term senza misura is Italian for "without metre", meaning to play without a beat, using time (e.g. seconds elapsed on an ordinary clock) if necessary to determine how long it will take to play the bar.[16][pageneeded]
Metric structure includes metre, tempo, and all rhythmic aspects that produce temporal regularity or structure, against which the foreground details or durational patterns of any piece of music are projected.[17] Metric levels may be distinguished: the beat level is the metric level at which pulses are heard as the basic time unit of the piece.[citation needed] Faster levels are division levels, and slower levels are multiple levels.[17] A rhythmic unit is a durational pattern which occupies a period of time equivalent to a pulse or pulses on an underlying metric level.[citation needed]
For example, in the time signature 2 4, each bar contains two (2) quarter-note (4) beats. In the time signature 6 8, each bar contains two dotted-quarter-note beats.
Corresponding quadruple metres are 4 4, which has four quarter-note beats per measure, and 12 8, which has four dotted-quarter-note beats per bar.
Triple metre
Triple metre is a metre in which each bar is divided into three beats, or a multiple thereof. For example, in the time signature 3 4, each bar contains three (3) quarter-note (4) beats, and with a time signature of 9 8, each bar contains three dotted-quarter beats.
In classical music theory it is presumed that only divisions of two or three are perceptually valid, so a metre not divisible by 2 or 3, such as quintuple metre, say 5 4, is assumed to either be equivalent to a measure of 3 4 followed by a measure of 2 4, or the opposite: 2 4 then 3 4. Higher metres which are divisible by 2 or 3 are considered equivalent to groupings of duple or triple metre measures; thus, 6 4, for example, is rarely used because it is considered equivalent to two measures of 3 4. See: hypermetre and additive rhythm and divisive rhythm.
Higher metres are used more commonly in analysis, if not performance, of cross-rhythms, as lowest number possible which may be used to count a polyrhythm is the lowest common denominator (LCD) of the two or more metric divisions. For example, much African music is recorded in Western notation as being in 12 8, the LCD of 4 and 3.
Metres classified by the subdivisions of a beat
Simple metre and compound metre are distinguished by the way the beats are subdivided.
Simple metre
Simple metre (or simple time) is a metre in which each beat of the bar divides naturally into two (as opposed to three) equal parts. The top number in the time signature will be 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.
For example, in the time signature 3 4, each bar contains three quarter-note beats, and each of those beats divides into two eighth notes, making it a simple metre. More specifically, it is a simple triple metre because there are three beats in each measure; simple duple (two beats) or simple quadruple (four) are also common metres.
Compound metre
Compound metre (or compound time), is a metre in which each beat of the bar divides naturally into three equal parts. That is, each beat contains a triple pulse.[18] The top number in the time signature will be 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 24, etc.
Compound metres are written with a time signature that shows the number of divisions of beats in each bar as opposed to the number of beats. For example, compound duple (two beats, each divided into three) is written as a time signature with a numerator of six, for example, 6 8. Contrast this with the time signature 3 4, which also assigns six eighth notes to each measure, but by convention connotes a simple triple time: 3 quarter-note beats.
Examples of compound metre include 6 8 (compound duple metre), 9 8 (compound triple metre), and 12 8 (compound quadruple metre).
Although 3 4 and 6 8 are not to be confused, they use bars of the same length, so it is easy to "slip" between them just by shifting the location of the accents. This interpretational switch has been exploited, for example, by Leonard Bernstein, in the song "America":
Compound metre divided into three parts could theoretically be transcribed into musically equivalent simple metre using triplets. Likewise, simple metre can be shown in compound through duples. In practice, however, this is rarely done because it disrupts conducting patterns when the tempo changes. When conducting in 6 8, conductors typically provide two beats per bar; however, all six beats may be performed when the tempo is very slow.
Compound time is associated with "lilting" and dancelike qualities. Folk dances often use compound time. Many Baroque dances are often in compound time: some gigues, the courante, and sometimes the passepied and the siciliana.
The German children's song "Drei Chinesen mit dem Kontrabass" shows a common fourfold multiplication of rhythmic phrases into a complete verse and melody.
The concept of metre in music derives in large part from the poetic metre of song and includes not only the basic rhythm of the foot, pulse-group or figure used but also the rhythmic or formal arrangement of such figures into musical phrases (lines, couplets) and of such phrases into melodies, passages or sections (stanzas, verses) to give what Holst (1963) calls "the time pattern of any song".[19]
Traditional and popular songs may draw heavily upon a limited range of metres, leading to interchangeability of melodies. Early hymnals commonly did not include musical notation but simply texts that could be sung to any tune known by the singers that had a matching metre. For example, The Blind Boys of Alabama rendered the hymn "Amazing Grace" to the setting of The Animals' version of the folk song "The House of the Rising Sun". This is possible because the texts share a popular basic four-line (quatrain) verse-form called ballad metre or, in hymnals, common metre, the four lines having a syllable-count of 8–6–8–6 (Hymns Ancient and Modern Revised), the rhyme-scheme usually following suit: ABAB. There is generally a pause in the melody in a cadence at the end of the shorter lines so that the underlying musical metre is 8–8–8–8 beats, the cadences dividing this musically into two symmetrical "normal" phrases of four bars each.[20]
Metre is often essential to any style of dance music, such as the waltz or tango, that has instantly recognizable patterns of beats built upon a characteristic tempo and bar. The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing defines the tango, for example, as to be danced in 2 4 time at approximately 66 beats per minute. The basic slow step forwards or backwards, lasting for one beat, is called a "slow", so that a full "right–left" step is equal to one 2 4 bar.[24]
But step-figures such as turns, the corte and walk-ins also require "quick" steps of half the duration, each entire figure requiring 3–6 "slow" beats. Such figures may then be "amalgamated" to create a series of movements that may synchronise to an entire musical section or piece. This can be thought of as an equivalent of prosody (see also: prosody (music)).
In music of the common practice period (about 1600–1900), there are four different families of time signature in common use:
Simpleduple: two or four beats to a bar, each divided by two, the top number being "2" or "4" (2 4, 2 8, 2 2 ... 4 4, 4 8, 4 2 ...). When there are four beats to a bar, it is alternatively referred to as "quadruple" time.
Simple triple: three beats to a bar, each divided by two, the top number being "3" (3 4, 3 8, 3 2 ...)
Compound duple: two beats to a bar, each divided by three, the top number being "6" (6 8, 6 16, 6 4 ...) Similarly compound quadruple, four beats to a bar, each divided by three, the top number being "12" (12 8, 12 16, 12 4 ...)
Compound triple: three beats to a bar, each divided by three, the top number being "9" (9 8, 9 16, 9 4)
If the beat is divided into two the metre is simple, if divided into three it is compound. If each bar is divided into two it is duple and if into three it is triple. Some people also label quadruple, while some consider it as two duples. Any other division is considered additively, as a bar of five beats may be broken into duple+triple (12123) or triple+duple (12312) depending on accent. However, in some music, especially at faster tempos, it may be treated as one unit of five.
The use of asymmetrical rhythms – sometimes called aksak rhythm (the Turkish word for "limping") – also became more common in the 20th century: such metres include quintuple as well as more complex additive metres along the lines of 2+2+3 time, where each bar has two 2-beat units and a 3-beat unit with a stress at the beginning of each unit. Similar metres are often used in Bulgarian folk dances and Indian classical music.
Hypermetre
Hypermetre: four-beat measure, four-bar hypermeasure, and four-hyperbar verses. Hyperbeats in red.Opening of the third movement of Beethoven's Waldstein sonata. The melodic lines in bars 1–4 and 5–8 are (almost) identical, and both form hypermetric spans. The two hyperbeats are the low Cs, in the first and fifth bars of the example.
Hypermetre is large-scale metre (as opposed to smaller-scale metre). Hypermeasures consist of hyperbeats.[25] "Hypermeter is metre, with all its inherent characteristics, at the level where bars act as beats".[26] For example, the four-bar hypermeasures are the prototypical structure for country music, in and against which country songs work.[26] In some styles, two- and four-bar hypermetres are common.[citation needed]
The term was coined, together with "hypermeasures", by Edward T.Cone (1968), who regarded it as applying to a relatively small scale, conceiving of a still larger kind of gestural "rhythm" imparting a sense of "an extended upbeat followed by its downbeat"[27]London (2012) contends that in terms of multiple and simultaneous levels of metrical "entrainment" (evenly spaced temporal events "that we internalize and come to expect", p.9), there is no in-principle distinction between metre and hypermetre; instead, they are the same phenomenon occurring at different levels.[28]
With polymetre, the bar sizes differ, but the beat remains constant. Since the beat is the same, the various metres eventually agree. (Four bars of 7 4 = seven bars of 4 4). An example is the second moment, titled "Scherzo polimetrico", of Edmund Rubbra's Second String Quartet (1951), in which a constant triplet texture holds together overlapping bars of 9 8, 12 8, and 21 8, and barlines rarely coincide in all four instruments.[30]
With polyrhythm, the number of beats varies within a fixed bar length. For example, in a 4:3 polyrhythm, one part plays 4 4 while the other plays 3 4, but the 3 4 beats are stretched so that three beats of 3 4 are played in the same time as four beats of 4 4.[citation needed] More generally, sometimes rhythms are combined in a way that is neither tactus nor bar preserving—the beat differs and the bar size also differs. See Polytempi.[citation needed]
Research into the perception of polymetre shows that listeners often either extract a composite pattern that is fitted to a metric framework, or focus on one rhythmic stream while treating others as "noise". This is consistent with the Gestalt psychology tenet that "the figure–ground dichotomy is fundamental to all perception".[31][verification needed][32] In the music, the two metres will meet each other after a specific number of beats. For example, a 3 4 metre and 4 4 metre will meet after 12 beats.
In "Toads of the Short Forest" (from the album Weasels Ripped My Flesh), composer Frank Zappa explains: "At this very moment on stage we have drummer A playing in 7 8, drummer B playing in 3 4, the bass playing in 3 4, the organ playing in 5 8, the tambourine playing in 3 4,[clarification needed] and the alto sax blowing his nose".[33] "Touch And Go", a hit single by The Cars, has polymetric verses, with the drums and bass playing in 5 4, while the guitar, synthesizer, and vocals are in 4 4 (the choruses are entirely in 4 4).[34]Magma uses extensively 7 8 on 2 4 (e.g. Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh) and some other combinations. King Crimson's albums of the eighties have several songs that use polymetre of various combinations.[citation needed]
Polymetres are a defining characteristic of the music of Meshuggah, whose compositions often feature unconventionally timed rhythm figures cycling over a 4 4 base.[35]
Rhythm generally means a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time can apply to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to several seconds ; to several minutes or hours, or, at the most extreme, even over many years.
In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "placement of rhythmic stresses or accents where they wouldn't normally occur". It is the correlation of at least two sets of time intervals.
A time signature is a convention in Western music notation that specifies how many note values of a particular type are contained in each measure (bar). The time signature indicates the meter of a musical movement at the bar level.
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rhythm), or a momentary section. Polyrhythms can be distinguished from irrational rhythms, which can occur within the context of a single part; polyrhythms require at least two rhythms to be played concurrently, one of which is typically an irrational rhythm. Concurrently in this context means within the same rhythmic cycle. The underlying pulse, whether explicit or implicit can be considered one of the concurrent rhythms. For example, the son clave is poly-rhythmic because its 3 section suggests a different meter from the pulse of the entire pattern.
In music, hemiola is the ratio 3:2. The equivalent Latin term is sesquialtera. In rhythm, hemiola refers to three beats of equal value in the time normally occupied by two beats. In pitch, hemiola refers to the interval of a perfect fifth.
The clave is a rhythmic pattern used as a tool for temporal organization in Brazilian and Cuban music. In Spanish, clave literally means key, clef, code, or keystone. It is present in a variety of genres such as Abakuá music, rumba, conga, son, mambo, salsa, songo, timba and Afro-Cuban jazz. The five-stroke clave pattern represents the structural core of many Cuban rhythms. The study of rhythmic methodology, especially in the context of Afro-Cuban music, and how it influences the mood of a piece is known as clave theory.
In music and music theory, the beat is the basic unit of time, the pulse, of the mensural level. The beat is often defined as the rhythm listeners would tap their toes to when listening to a piece of music, or the numbers a musician counts while performing, though in practice this may be technically incorrect. In popular use, beat can refer to a variety of related concepts, including pulse, tempo, meter, specific rhythms, and groove.
In music, the terms additive and divisive are used to distinguish two types of both rhythm and meter:
In music theory, the pulse is a series of uniformly spaced beats—either audible or implied—that sets the tempo and is the scaffolding for the rhythm. By contrast, rhythm is always audible and can depart from the pulse. So while the rhythm may become too difficult for an untrained listener to fully match, nearly any listener instinctively matches the pulse by simply tapping uniformly, despite rhythmic variations in timing of sounds alongside the pulse.
Duple metre is a musical metre characterized by a primary division of 2 beats to the bar, usually indicated by 2 and multiples (simple) or 6 and multiples (compound) in the upper figure of the time signature, with 2 2, 2 4, and 6 8 being the most common examples.
In music, a tuplet is "any rhythm that involves dividing the beat into a different number of equal subdivisions from that usually permitted by the time-signature " This is indicated by a number, or sometimes two indicating the fraction involved. The notes involved are also often grouped with a bracket or a slur.
A drum beat or drum pattern is a rhythmic pattern, or repeated rhythm establishing the meter and groove through the pulse and subdivision, played on drum kits and other percussion instruments. As such a "beat" consists of multiple drum strokes occurring over multiple musical beats while the term "drum beat" may also refer to a single drum stroke which may occupy more or less time than the current pulse. Many drum beats define or are characteristic of specific music genres.
Sextuple metre or sextuple time is a musical metre characterized by six beats in a measure. Like the more common duple, triple, and quadruple metres, 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 sextuple metre are 6 4 and 6 8, and compound sextuple metre is most often written in 18 8 or 18 16. A time signature of 18 8 or 18 16, however, does not necessarily mean that the bar is a sextuple metre with each beat divided into three. It may, for example, be used to indicate a bar of triple metre in which each beat is subdivided into six parts. In this case, the metre is sometimes characterized as "triple sextuple time". Such a division of time may be encountered more frequently in the Baroque period: for example, variation 26 of the Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach has 18 16 in one hand against 3 4 in the other, exchanging hands at intervals until the last five bars where both hands are in 18 16. Using 3 4 for both hands would result in continuous sextuplets.
Triple metre is a musical metre characterized by a primary division of 3 beats to the bar, usually indicated by 3 (simple) or 9 (compound) in the upper figure of the time signature, with 3 4, 3 8 and 9 8 being the most common examples. In these signatures, beats form groups of three, establishing a triple meter feel in the music or song.The upper figure being divisible by three does not of itself indicate triple metre; for example, a time signature of 6 8 usually indicates compound duple metre, and similarly 12 8 usually indicates compound quadruple metre.
In music, counting is a system of regularly occurring sounds that serve to assist with the performance or audition of music by allowing the easy identification of the beat. Commonly, this involves verbally counting the beats in each measure as they occur, whether there be 2 beats, 3 beats, 4 beats, or even 5 beats. In addition to helping to normalize the time taken up by each beat, counting allows easier identification of the beats that are stressed. Counting is most commonly used with rhythm and form and often involves subdivision.
A bell pattern is a rhythmic pattern of striking a hand-held bell or other instrument of the idiophone family, to make it emit a sound at desired intervals. It is often a key pattern, in most cases it is a metal bell, such as an agogô, gankoqui, or cowbell, or a hollowed piece of wood, or wooden claves. In band music, bell patterns are also played on the metal shell of the timbales, and drum kit cymbals.
In music, a cross-beat or cross-rhythm is a specific form of polyrhythm. The term cross rhythm was introduced in 1934 by the musicologist Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980). It refers to a situation where the rhythmic conflict found in polyrhythms is the basis of an entire musical piece.
Quintuple meter or quintuple time is a musical meter characterized by five beats in a measure.
Sub-Saharan African music is characterised by a "strong rhythmic interest" that exhibits common characteristics in all regions of this vast territory, so that Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980) has described the many local approaches as constituting one main system. C. K. Ladzekpo also affirms the profound homogeneity of approach. West African rhythmic techniques carried over the Atlantic were fundamental ingredients in various musical styles of the Americas: samba, forró, maracatu and coco in Brazil, Afro-Cuban music and Afro-American musical genres such as blues, jazz, rhythm & blues, funk, soul, reggae, hip hop, and rock and roll were thereby of immense importance in 20th century popular music. The drum is renowned throughout Africa.
Tresillo is a rhythmic pattern used in Latin American music. It is a more basic form of the rhythmic figure known as the habanera.
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