Rhythm and Meter

Pitch is one axis of music; rhythm — when notes happen and how long they last — is the other, and it's just as structured. A whole note lasts twice as long as a half note, which lasts twice as long as a quarter note, which lasts twice as long as an eighth note: each level simply halves the one above it.

Music is grouped into measures (or bars), each holding a fixed number of beats, and a time signature tells you that grouping: the top number is how many beats per measure, the bottom number is which note value counts as one beat. 4/4 (four quarter-note beats per measure) is so common it's nicknamed "common time."

In simple meter (4/4, 3/4, 2/4), each beat naturally splits into two. In compound meter (6/8, 9/8, 12/8), each beat splits into three instead — the same music can feel completely different depending on which one you choose, which is why 6/8 has that rolling, triplet-based feel that 3/4 doesn't.

Meter creates its own kind of expectation, the same way a key does: the first beat of a measure (the downbeat) feels like a point of arrival, and rhythms that land just before or after it create push and pull — the rhythmic equivalent of the tension and release you'll study later in this course.