Chapter 2
Simple Meter
This chapter, like last chapter, was mostly review for me. However I did learn a lot of new things in this chapter. I learned about the conductors pattern and about meter. I also learned how to count music and how to interpret the time signature. The hardest part of this chapter for me was probably writing out the counts for each measure of music. It took me a while to understand all the extra beats with the eighth notes and all the parenthesis counts. But after lots of practice on the part I think I finally got the hang of it. Here is everything I learned and reviewed in Chapter 2.
- Dividing Music
- Beats are the main pulse of a piece of music, but you can divide these beats into twos or threes, which is called beat division. The beats are grouped into measures with bars on either side of the measure. The amount of beats per measure determines the meter type of the piece of music. If the beats are grouped into units of two the meter is called duple. If the beats are grouped into units of three they are called triple, units of four are called quadruple. The conducting patterns usually explain the meter. The picture below explains the conducting patterns for 2, 3, and 4 beats.
- Tempo means speed. The speed of a musical piece gives the music the mood or how someone feels when they hear the song. The tempo is located on above the music as some kind of french word. They're are all kinds of different speeds used by musicians.
- Rhythm is the duration of notes and rests used in music. Meter gives off the strong and weak beats heard in music.
- Beats are the main pulse of a piece of music, but you can divide these beats into twos or threes, which is called beat division. The beats are grouped into measures with bars on either side of the measure. The amount of beats per measure determines the meter type of the piece of music. If the beats are grouped into units of two the meter is called duple. If the beats are grouped into units of three they are called triple, units of four are called quadruple. The conducting patterns usually explain the meter. The picture below explains the conducting patterns for 2, 3, and 4 beats.
- Rhythm Notation
- There are many different types of notes that all have different amounts of rhythm. The whole note receives four beats, the half note receives two beats, the quarter note receives one beat, the eighth note receives half a beat, the sixteenth note receives a quarter of a beat, and a thirty-second note gets an eighth of a beat. There is also a breve which fills up the whole measure no matter how long it is. There are several different parts that make up the notes. There is the stem, the flag, the beam, and the head.
- Meter Signature also known as Time Signature is at the beginning of a piece of music. It describes the meter type and the how any beats per unit. The time signature is two numbers stacked on top of each other. The top number tells you how many beats are in a full measure. The bottom number tells you which note gets one beat. For example, if I were to have a 3 on the top and a 4 on the bottom I would have a quarter note for my beat unit and three of those quarter notes would make up a measure.
- Counting Rhythms
- Counting rhythms are pretty tricky. To count them you write out the number of beats under the beats that make sound. If there is a beat that is just a hold, such as a half note then you write it in parentheses. If it's an eighth note then you write 1 + for each beat that it puts off.
- There is also what is called an Anacrusis, this is when the first measure continues from the unfinished measure at the end of the song. So the last and first measure make up only one measure, they are just broken up.
- If you want to break down notes to get a faster, energetic type of beat we can break up the notes into smaller ones. This is called Subdivision. You can break up whole notes into half notes, half notes, into quarter notes, and so on. This helps to keep track of the beat when you put all those half and quarter beats in music.
- When you are writing out music you have to make sure that you are beaming all your eighth and sixteenth notes properly. When they are beamed the note farthest from the middle line determines what direction the stem will go. Also you have to beam your notes according to beat. If a quarter note was the beat unit you would have to beam eighth notes together in groups of two, likewise you need to group your sixteenth notes together in groups of four because that equals one quarter note. An easy way to fix these on music is to go through and circle the groups of notes that need to be grouped together and then re-wright them.
- Rests are breaks or silence in music. There are rests for all the different rhythmic notes; such as quarter rest, half rests, whole rests, and so on. If you want to find out what these rests look like there is a picture below.
- Dots add half the value of the note on to the existing note. So if you had a dotted half note it would get three beats because, the half note gets two beats and the dot adds half the value of the half note which is one beat onto the original half note making it 3 beats. The same goes for all the other notes.
- Slurs are used by musicians to make a piece of music sound smooth. A slur is a small arc that will be connecting two or more notes together. When you see them it means to play the notes together not detached. Ties look similar to slurs, the tie affects the duration of a note. Usually the tie only connects two notes together. When you see a tie that means to hold the note for the duration of both notes without playing it a second time.
- Metric accents are strong beats heard in a measure. Usually beat one of a measure is the strongest beat.
- Syncopation is when these metric accents move around unexpectedly by ties, dots, rests, dynamic markings, accent marks, or the rythym.
- Beats other than a quarter note
- There are lots of different beat units in music. For example if you wanted a fatster past song you could make the beat unit a sixteenth note and have it get four beats per measure. To change the beat unit you just have to change the time signature at the beginning of the song. Quarter notes are the most common types of beat units.
- There are lots of different beat units in music. For example if you wanted a fatster past song you could make the beat unit a sixteenth note and have it get four beats per measure. To change the beat unit you just have to change the time signature at the beginning of the song. Quarter notes are the most common types of beat units.