When learning how to read music, meter is no doubt one of the first lessons you’ll need to learn, in the next few posts we’re going to be learning about simple and compound time…
A main feature of western music is its meter, a repeating pattern of pulses with a regular accent pattern.
Music has three different meters: duple time, triple time, and quadruple time. The names of these meters reflect the number of pulses or beats in each measure of music: duple time tells us that the meter has two pulses per measure, triple time has three, and quadruple time has four pulses per measure.
For each of these meters there is also a basic accent pattern. Duple time has a strong-weak pattern, a triple meter usually has a strong-weak-weak pattern, and quadruple meter has a strong-weak-medium weak pattern for each measure. There are variations to these accent patterns for specific genres or styles, or occasionally composers will play with our expectations of these meters, but for our purposes here, we shall stick with these basic patterns.
Learn to Read Music Fast and Easy
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