FROM BEAT TO METER

GROUPING THE PULSE

When we are faced with a pulse — that is, a constant sound always identical to itself — it has been proven that we tend to divide it into groups¹.

In practice, if we listen to the tick of a clock, the heartbeat, or the tapping of a foot, we do not simply count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc., nor do we repeat 1, 1, 1, but we segment the impulse into groups such as 1, 2, 1, 2, tick, tock, tick, tock; or 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3; or even 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

The meter is an indication that tells us how we form these groups when we are faced with an infinite pulse, always identical to itself.

THE ACCENT

What marks the beginning and end of a group of pulses is the accent². The accent is a specific variation in volume, pitch, timbre, etc.³, used to indicate the start of a group. The group ends with the next accent.

MEASURES

In music, these groupings of two or more pulses are called measures or bars. Measures are graphically represented with vertical lines marking their boundaries. To sum up: when we have a pulse that is always identical to itself, we tend to divide it into groups by means of the accent; these groups are called measures, and measures are delimited by vertical bars.

THE METER

The meter first tells us how many beats are in each measure. In Spanish, metro and measure are both expressed with the same word, compás. However, if we refer to the symbol with two numbers, one above the other, we are talking about an indication that helps us interpret the score: the top number tells us how many beats are in each measure, and the bottom number tells us which note value represents the beat on the staff. In essence, the number on top tells us the quantity, the one below the quality.

According to this indication, each group is made up of four red apples.

In music, we don’t have fruit to represent the beat, but rather a more or less varied choice of note values. The most common to represent the beat is the note with a black head — the quarter note (or crotchet).

For example, a meter of four-four indicates that each measure contains four beats (top number), each represented by a quarter note, also called a crotchet (bottom number).

Many people make the mistake of placing a fraction sign between the two numbers. In reality, the meter indication does not imply any mathematical operation.

WHAT IS THE METER FOR

Grouping beats into groups gives us two great immediate advantages:

PRACTICALITY: If I have 80 beats, it’s probably better to divide them so I don’t have to tell my fellow musician that the change is on beat 48. It’s better to divide these beats into groups of 4 and say let’s meet at measure 12. Or better to say that a certain phrase is between measure 9 and measure 10 rather than between beat 36 and beat 44.

SYMMETRY: Even visually, it’s easier to recognize a melody or rhythm that repeats every 4 or 8 measures rather than every 16 or 32 beats. Thanks to the meter, we can build larger structures like verses, choruses, sections, facilitating the management of symmetries, repetitions, and contrasts on a macro level.

STRONG AND WEAK BEATS

When the first accent is placed and a measure is formed, a hierarchy of stronger and weaker beats automatically arises inside it, on which we articulate rhythm and the entire musical discourse with extraordinary combinations⁴. This is where all the fascination of meter lies.

HOW THE METER EMERGES IN COMPLEX SITUATIONS

We began speaking of meter as if it were born from nothing, from a series of imaginary, ancestral, or very simple beats like those of a clock.

In reality, meter is not always explicit: in most cases, it emerges as a latent structure from a network of musical events sharing an underlying pulse. When we listen to a complex piece, the brain searches for regularity and identifies a common pulse that serves as a reference. Meter manifests as the way this pulse is grouped.

METER AS RHYTHM

Some theorists see meter as a simple form of rhythm⁵. This way of viewing meter is not wrong at all and spares us the effort of trying to find a deeper meaning in this concept. On the other hand, meter consists of the alternation between accented and unaccented movements, just like rhythm. Certainly, even if we were to understand meter as rhythm, its configuration maintains special properties, such as symmetry in the case of 4/4 time, and in the end, it would somehow be treated differently from common rhythm.

CONCLUSION

Dividing a series of beats into groups by means of the accent forms measures, a new unit of measurement. The meter, which can vary depending on the piece, indicates how many beats are contained in each measure and on the score also shows how to represent each beat. Applying meter indications and enclosing beats in measures makes musical measurement more practical and, not least, gives life to a hierarchy of strong and weak points among the beats inside the measure. The measure is the first true musical cell with internal dynamics and its own life.

NOTES

1. Page 171, Oxford Handbook of Music and Brain and page 9, The Geometry of Musical Rhythm

2. Studies conducted via electroencephalogram have shown that even imagining an accent that is not physically present causes the brain to generate the expected peak at specific frequencies. Interesting, isn’t it?

3. See the article “accentuation techniques”

4. See the article “strong and weak beats”

5. Christopher Hasty, Meter As A Rhythm

6. Godfried T. Toussaint, The Geometry of Musical Rhythm