Music Fundamentals A Balanced Approach

Pattern 5 (Clap on every note.)

Meter

Meterrefers to the stresses of strong and weak beats. An example of the stressing of accented words may be
heard in the opening line of Edgar Allan Poe’s narrative poem “The Raven”:

/ / / / / / / /

Once uponamidnight dreary, whileIpondered, weakand weary,

In music, the first beat of each measure is normally the strongest and is given an accent (>). This is called the
metric accent.

Simple Meter

When the top number of the time signature is a 2, 3, or 4, this is called simple meter.In simple meter, the pulse
note is divided into two or four equal parts.

Exercise 7—Class Exercise

Count and clap the following rhythms in simple meter, stressing beat one.

Meter: Simple duple

Meter: Simple triple

BASICS OF RHYTHM

49

# of beats:

Count: 1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a

Say: 1 ee and uh 2 ee and uh 3 ee and uh 4 ee and uh

Workbook Exercise 2.3

qq qql qq qql qqqqql qql l

Counts: 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2

Accents: > > > >

3

qqqllqqq qqql l

Counts: 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

Accents: > > >