Meter

Meter is the organization of rhythmic pulses into recurring patterns of strong and weak beats — the framework of expectation against which rhythmic events are heard. In Western notation, meter is indicated by a time signature (4/4, 3/4, 6/8) that specifies how many beats per measure and which note value gets the beat.

Meter is not the same as rhythm. Meter is the grid; rhythm is what happens against the grid. A syncopation is rhythmic precisely because it departs from the metric expectation. Without the expectation, the departure would be inaudible. This relationship — between framework and deviation, between pattern and disruption — is where much of music’s rhythmic energy lives.

Not all music is metered. Free-rhythm performance (the alap in Hindustani classical music, recitative in opera, many forms of chant) organizes time without a recurring pulse pattern. And in many polyrhythmic traditions, the concept of a single governing meter is inadequate — the music sustains multiple metric frameworks simultaneously, and the listener’s sense of “where the beat falls” depends on which layer they attend to.

Related terms

• Rhythm — the broader temporal dimension that meter organizes
• Polyrhythm — the simultaneous presence of multiple metric frameworks