Rhythm & Meter
Meter, Beat Hierarchy and Hypermeter in Performance
Meter is a pattern of strong and weak positions, not a time signature: how it is built, how it stretches past the bar, and where performance contradicts it.
Beat
One unit of the steady pulse that runs under a piece, the level at which listeners tap a foot or count.
Also called: pulse, count
A beat is one unit of the steady pulse that runs under a piece of music. Listeners tap a foot or clap on the beats, and a conductor's gestures usually fall on them. In 4/4 there are four beats in each bar, and the quarter note usually receives one beat. At 120 beats per minute each beat lasts half a second, so a bar of 4/4 lasts two seconds. A beat is not the same as a note. The pulse continues whether or not an instrument sounds on it, and a rest can fall exactly on a beat. The sense of the beat lets a listener predict where the next strong accent will arrive, and syncopation is defined against it.
Related terms
- MeterThe repeating pattern of strong and weak beats that groups the pulse into bars, shown by a time signature such as 3/4.
- TempoThe speed of the beat, usually given as beats per minute or by an Italian marking such as allegro or adagio.
- DownbeatThe first beat of a bar, normally the strongest accent in the meter and the beat marked by the conductor's first downward gesture.
- SubdivisionDividing a beat into smaller equal parts, such as two eighth notes or four sixteenths, so the rhythm can be counted exactly.
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Rhythm & Meter
Time Signatures Explained: Simple, Compound and Beyond
A time signature gives beats per bar and the note value that counts as one beat. Simple meters split each beat in two, compound meters split it in three.