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.
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Articles
Rhythm & Meter
Compound Meter: 6/8 vs 3/4 and How to Hear the Difference
Six eighth notes per bar can group as 3+3 in 6/8 or 2+2+2 in 3/4. Accent, contour, hemiola and conducting show which grouping you are hearing.
Rhythm & Meter
Odd Meters in 5/4 and 7/8: Counting, Feeling, Writing
Hear 5/4 and 7/8 as beat groups, not math: counting systems, conducting, repertoire from Brubeck to Balkan dance.
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.
Rhythm & Meter
Polyrhythm and Cross-Rhythm: Counting the Distinction
Polyrhythm, cross-rhythm and polymeter are not interchangeable. Counting the ratios shows what separates a divided span from a pattern set against a metre.
Rhythm & Meter
Syncopation, Accent and Groove: Rhythm That Pushes Back
Tied overbeats, attacked offbeats, hemiola and groove: how syncopation displaces accent and why the body keeps the score.
Rhythm & Meter
Swing Timing: What the Notation Does Not Say
Jazz notation asks for swing and leaves the ratio to the players, because the timing is tempo-dependent and a fixed written value would be wrong at most speeds.
Rhythm & Meter
Note Values, Rests, Ties and Dots Explained
Each note value is half the one above it. Whole to sixteenth notes and their rests, plus how dots, ties and beams change what you count.
Orchestration
String Bowing and Articulation: A Practical Arranger Guide
Legato, detache, spiccato, staccato, martelé: what each bowing sounds like, how to mark it, and writing playable string parts.
Fundamentals
Tempo Markings Explained: Largo to Presto in Beats per Minute
Italian tempo words run from slow to fast. Approximate beats-per-minute bands for each, the modifiers and transitions that change them, and why a metronome number needs a time signature.
Music History
After Tonality: What Composers Replaced It With
When chromatic harmony outgrew the tonal hierarchy, composers tried serial rules, rhythm, folk modes, and sound mass. What each method actually solved.
Form
Theme and Variations Form: Ornament to Transformation
How variation form works: the fixed theme, ornamental and character variations, and strategies from Haydn to Beethoven.
Fundamentals
Scientific Pitch Notation: What C4 Actually Means
Middle C is C4 in scientific pitch notation, C3 on some manufacturers' labelling, and MIDI note 60 in every sequencer. The numbering is a convention.
Glossary
- MeterThe repeating pattern of strong and weak beats that groups the pulse into bars, shown by a time signature…
- Compound meterA meter in which each beat divides into three equal parts, as in 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8.
- Simple meterA meter in which each beat divides into two equal parts, as in 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4.
- HypermeterThe grouping of bars into larger metrical units, such as four-bar phrases, that the ear hears as strong and…
- Time signatureA pair of numbers after the key signature: the top gives beats per measure, the bottom the note value of one…