Meter and Rhythm

Meter and Rhythm

Introduction to Meter

As you listen to most music, you will notice a discernible beat, or a primary pulse. In common practice music, we can either divide this beat into two parts (and multiples of two, such as four), which we call simple meters, or we can divide it into three parts (and multiples of three, such as six), which we call compound meter. When we say we can divide the beat into two or three, all we are saying is that it is easiest to divide the beat into this number. We could arbitrarily divide the beat into five or seven, but almost all music naturally divides into two or three.

Notice all that we have been talking about is how the beats divide. But beats can also be grouped into larger sections. We could place beats into groups of two (which we callduple), three (which we call triple), or four (which we call quadruple). We could place the beats into as large a group as we want, but for now let us stay with duple/triple/quadruple as they are the most common. These groupings of beats are called measures or bars and are shown on sheet music with thin lines to divide the measures.

Thus, we could have a piece of music with a simple triple meter. Refer to the terms above. A simple triple meter would be one in which we could put the beats into groups of three and the beats themselves divide easily into two parts. The familiar song "Amazing Grace" is in simple triple meter.