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3.2: Middleground Time

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    Middleground time is an oft-analyzed aspect of rhythm. This is the level at which the background pulse is organized into patterns of accented (emphasized through louder volume) and unaccented notes. In Western music the middleground time is called meter. Meter is a regular grouping of the background pulse. Most Western popular and art music is composed utilizing a simple meter. The three main simple meters are duple, triple, and quadruple.

    Music that is in duple meter groups the background pulse into a pattern of alternating strong and weak beats. The 2/4 in Figure 2 is a time signature that indicates a duple meter. The top number of a time signature tells how many beats are in a measure (2=duple). The bottom number indicates what kind of note gets the beat (4=quarter note). It is standard contemporary practice to assign the background pulse to the quarter note. Figure 3 shows the relationships between several commonly used notes. It starts with the whole note and subdivides it with all notes up to the sixteenth notes. All of the notes in Figure 2 are quarter notes. If these quarter notes are organized into measures of three then the music is in triple meter. Likewise, groupings of four are in quadruple meter. Quadruple meter is the most common middleground grouping of the beat.

    Figure 2: Simple Meters

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    Figure 3: Basic notes and subdivisions

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    In Western Art music simple duple, triple, or quadruple meters have a duple subdivision of the background pulse. (This is not the case in popular and world music genres). Compound meter is the Western terminology for meters when the subdivision of the pulse is three instead of two. As with simple meters, compound meters appear in duple, triple, and quadruple groupings. In compound time signatures the top number does not indicate the background pulse. A duple compound time will always have a six as the top number of the time signature. The “compound” aspect is that the 6 notes can be given a background pulse of three or two (See Figure 4). In compound time the eighth note most often gets the beat designation so the signature’s lower number is usually 8. 6/8 is a duple compound meter, 9/8 is a triple compound meter, and 12/8 is the signature for a quadruple compound meter. Compound meters are also utilized to create poly-metric music.

    Figure 4: Compound Meters

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    Polymetric music can be heard in more than meter at the same time. This is a complex concept that is heard in drumming from Africa and the diaspora. The effect of polymetric music is a shifting in the listeners understanding of where the emphasized beats occur.

    Although Western Art music is mainly composed using the simple and compound meters listed above there are many other possibilities for meter in music. When duple and triple meters are combined it is known as additive meter. The most common additive meters are combinations of 2 and 3 that add up to 5 (2+3 or 3+2) and 7 (2+2+3, 3+2+2 or 2+3+2). Meters like these are not as common in Western Art and Popular music though they are often used in rhythmically adventurous genres like progressive rock and 20th century ballet. They are more common in traditional music of places like the Balkans (Eastern Europe) and India.

    When music stays in the same meter throughout a song it is considered regular. When music shifts between meters it is called irregular. This can happen when a work is in quadruple meter for a few measures and then shifts into triple or quintuple meters. In lengthy works this is a common occurrence.

    This page titled 3.2: Middleground Time is shared under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Todd Mueller, Elizabeth Whittenburg Ozment, Irina Escalante-Chernova, Marc Gilley, Catherine Kilroe-Smith, & Rachael Fischer (GALILEO Open Learning Materials) .