Rhythm and Meter: An Introduction (part 3)
The mind has a hard time dealing with an undifferentiated series of pulses and tends to try and group them hierarchically. We call this hierachical grouping of impulses a meter. By hierarchical we mean that one pulse is more important than another. Because of this it tends to receive an accent of some kind, whether through an increase in volume, a particular way of striking the note or some other way of differentiating it from the other notes. In a meter, this hierarchical pattern will repeat.
Meter is similar to poetic scansion. In the work excerpted below, one of Juliet's soliloquys from Romeo and Juliet, certain syllables are unstressed while others are stressed. I have marked the unstressed syllables with a "u" and the stressed ones with a " - " Try speaking it following the accent marks.
u - u - u - u - u -
Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.
u - u - u - u - u -
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
u - u - u - u - u -
That almost freezes up the heat of life:
u - u - u - u - u -
I'll call them back again to comfort me:
- u - - u -
Nurse! What should she do here?"
Reciting it whle emphasizing the repeated pattern can cause the alternation of unstressed and stressed syllables to overwhelm the meaning of the words. The emphasis on the word "nurse" in the final line is made stronger by its interruption of the pattern.
A similar pattern of stressed and unstressed is found in marching.
"Left - right; Left - right . . . "
Marching is a recurring series of steps, we could say impulses, of which the first is more important than the second for the simple reason that it comes first. Marching duplicates one of the ways that our minds tend to group impulses: in marching the impulses are grouped in twos. In the repetition of a grouping pattern it becomes a sort of meter. A meter which comprises two beats grouped in a repeating pattern of stress is called a duple meter. You can hear a duple meter clearly in the Sousa March, The Stars and Stripes Forever.
Listen to the recording and try to count along with it: 1 - 2; 1 - 2 starting at the very beginning. (You may find this easier to get into if you begin counting after the monophonic introduction: "da da da-dum-tum, dum-dum dum-dum dum-dum") If you do so, you'll find that the first beat of the measure, the downbeat, is usually accented by a cymbal crash. You'll also notice that the lowest bass has a repeating series of two notes beginning at around 11 seconds into the excerpt.
Now listen to the Sousa march again and try to count it in a triple meter, that is: 1 - 2 - 3. While it might be possible to do so, the accented notes don't always happen at the beginning of the measure. Sometimes the cymbal crashes come on 2, sometimes on 1. This experiment shows that like most marches, "The Stars and Stripes Forever" is in a duple meter.
Not surprisingly, a second way the mind tends to organize pulses is in a series of three. As in duple meter, the first impulse is the most important.
One - two - three; One - two - three; One - two - three
We call this a triple meter. The classic example of a triple meter is a waltz. Listen here to the opening of the Blue Danube Waltz of Johann Strauss.
Try and count along to it in a relatively quick 1 - 2 - 3 beginning after the accompaniment enters. As in, "bum ba - da da Da 2 3 Da 2 3 Da 2" then "bum ba - da da Da 2 3 Da 2 3 Da 2 etc" In so doing, you should notice that the "pah-pah" as in "oom-pah-pah" always comes on 2 and 3. You'll also notice that the melody itself constantly moves toward the first beat of the measure. If you listen particularly carefully you may notice the harp arpeggiating a chord (playing it one note at a time) after every four groups of three. Listen to the melody and say to yourself along with it, "1 - 2 - 3 - 1." The final beat of the measure is known as the upbeat in that it leads right into the "1" of the melody: the downbeat.
Now try to count the excerpt in two: 1 - 2 and you can see that it just doesn't work very well, in fact it's downright difficult to do.
A good reference for the difference between duple and triple meter is the Beatles song: "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds". The verse - "Picture yourself in a boat...." - is in triple time and the refrain - "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds...." - is in duple. Listen to this excerpt and see if you can count along. Notice how John Lennon emphasizes the first beat of each measure in the verse and how the bass adds emphasis on the first beat of each grouping of three in the first half of the first verse. In the second half of the first verse - "cellophane flowers" - the bass changes and repeats its note three times before changing to another note. In the refrain the duple time is magnified by the drums accenting the offbeat (the beat that should be unaccented, in this case the second beat) - 1 - 2, 1 - 2, 1 - 2 etc. .
In writing their pieces, composers group beats into duple or triple units (as well as other more complex units) and separate their groups into measures (or bars) through the use of barlines. Historically, barlines began to appear in music for lute or organ in the late 1400s. Originally they were used to help the eye coordinate multiple lines of music. Later barlines and measures came to denote a repeating scheme of beat groupings.
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| A Musical Measure |
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Modern usage of barlines |
A measure need not only have groupings of two or three beats. Both groupings can be doubled.
Two becomes the duple meter four.
One two Three four; One two Three four; One two Three four
In four, the first beat traditionally has the strongest accent, while the second strongest accent is reserved for the third beat of the measure.
A work in four, that is with a meter that groups four beats together, tends to feel more broad (less rushed) than one that groups two beats together. You can hear this broadness rather clearly in the famous Ode to Joy of Beethoven. If you count along with the music in a quick 1-2-3-4, you'll see that the performers tend to put stress on the first beat and a smaller stress on the third.
Groupings of three become groupings of Six when doubled
One two three Four five six; One two three Four five six;
as in this clip, a section of Handel's Messiah entitled O Thou that tellest good tidings to Zion. Although it moves at a quick pace,
try counting along and see how the stresses in the music tend to fall on "one" and "four." When the voice enters - with an upbeat and the text "O" - we can hear this: "O thou - 2 - that tell - est - good ti - dings - to Zi - on - 6; 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6; 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - Get - thee up - 2 - in to - the - high moun - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6" etc.
Groupings of Six beats are known as a compound meters because it can be divided into two parts as in the Handel example above or into three parts as below.
One two Three four Five six; One two Three four Five six;
It is difficult to find works that use a grouping of six with three accents, because they tend to be heard as groupings of three. However, composers do enjoy alternating between groupings of six with two accents and groupings of six with three accents like this:
One two three Four five six; One two Three four Five six;
that's called a hemiola. You can hear it rather clearly in Leonard Bernstein's America from West Side Story. Try counting along.
In many traditional musics these two groupings will be put together at the same time such that a tension is created between the three accents and the two accents. This is called a polyrhythm. Try seeing if you can count three with your lefthand and two with your right hand at the same time. The table below should help you be able to do so.
Harmony and Meter
A very important way that a composer articulates the meter of a piece is with harmonic progression. Often the harmony changes with each measure of music. The blues is a fine example of this, in that the blues form calls for a shift in harmony at each measure change. You can hear this shift in harmony and hence the way that the meter and phrase-length is toyed with quite clearly in this excerpt, Robert Johnson's classic Cross Road Blues.
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All text © Todd Tarantino 2002-2012.
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