Having just explored how changing the tempo of a piece written in 3/x can change the classfication between compound and simple, it should be no surprise that aural interpretation of meter is a subjective process. Many factors play a role in determining how a listener perceives a meter including tempo, accented beats, melodic patterns, and previously established “grooves”.
The examples on the following page will help you explore a few of the many ways in which a composer or performer can alter the perception of meter.
Syncopation occurs when a note emphasizes the “weak” beats of a measure, but as discussed in Topic 4b, meter is based on our perception and is therefore a subjective phenomenon. Listen to the first three bars of the following example without looking at the music. Try tapping your perceived pulse until the end of the excerpt, and then see if your mental construction of the rhythm matches the piece.
The very idea of strong and weak beats relies on a recognizable, steady pulse. Even though the first line above is clearly written in a syncopated pattern that begins on the & of 1, most listeners hear the first pitch as the downbeat because it is the first pitch they hear. However, when the top line is added in the fourth measure, it becomes possible to hear the bottom line as syncopated because an earlier reference has been established. In general, a listener will hear the first sound of a piece of music as a downbeat unless other contextual clues–such as melodic shape, note shape, or accents–lead them to think otherwise.
Syncopation occurs when emphasis is put on the “weak” beats of the meter, but the above example shows the subjectivity of this. If a listener listens to the example without looking at the notation, it would be impossible to know that the example starts on an offbeat. It is therefore worth noting that strong and weak beats are determined by context, not by meter. Once the top line is added to the excerpt, the listener may still hear the bottom line as taking place on the beat if they listened to it without looking at the notation, while some may “switch” the beat in their mind to make the bottom line a strongly syncopated rhythm. Syncopation can occur within a single line if the beat is established first and then weak beat rhythms are introduced, but this is still an example of establishing the strong beats for the listener before syncopation can begin.
The next example contains a rhythmic pattern scored in two different meters. Discuss the differences between the two ways of notating the examples and which one best reflects your perception of the excerpt. Are there other methods of which you can think that could alter a listener’s perception of meter?
After you hit play, do not follow the part in order to allow your ear to determine how it hears the meter.
This excerpt demonstrated how a variation–in this example, melodic shape–can affect listener perception. Aurally, both parts sounded identical regardless of the meter, but when listening and not looking at the excerpt, most listeners feel that the piece is in a compound duple meter. This demonstrates that even though a pattern can be written in various meters, there are other factors that can strongly pull toward a particular meter. In this case, the motif is melodically grouped into two groups of three, so it pulls most of the listeners toward a 6/8 feel. One may hear this in 3/4, but this would require other factors such as accents, silence, and tempo to affect how the listener perceives the passage.
It should be noted that many composers rely on using meters to evoke particular rhythmic biases in the performer, so it is disingenuous to say that meter is entirely subjective. Stravinsky was well-known to write the same passage in various meters (e.g. Rite of Spring, L’histoire du Soldat), so a good performer is aware of what the meter is trying to tell them.
Listen to the first 20 seconds of the following clip of Sintra from Snarky Puppy’s incredible collaboration with the Metropole Orkest. How would you classify the meter? What can you tell about the performers’ sense of the meter from their body language, particularly the conductor? Does it match yours?
The next clip starts slightly before the previous clip. How would you classify this meter? Does it affect how you perceive the material from the previous clip? What can you tell about the performers’ sense of the meter from their body language, particularly the conductor? Does it match yours?
The final clip starts in the introduction of this piece. This is clearly in a different meter than the previous two clips but it segues smoothly into the new section. How does this affect your perception of the material from the previous two clips? What can you tell about the performers’ sense of the meter from their body language, particularly the conductor? Does it match yours?
By starting at this particular point in the piece, most listeners will hear this section in a slow, simple triple meter. But an observant student may have noticed the conductor in the background (around the 2:29 mark) conducting in a double-time three, which means that the conductor is placing an off-beat where the listener is likely hearing beat 2 of their slow simple triple meter. If we move our starting point backward by only ten seconds, we hear the original groove of this section of the tune, which is the origin of the double-time simple triple meter that we saw the conductor using.
By starting at this new point, many listeners will switch to a faster (double-time) simple triple meter. The listener may or may not carry this feel through the half-time section from the first clip, but given the conductor’s beat pattern, we can be fairly certain that the orchestra is counting this section as if there is no change in meter.
Perhaps even more interesting is the effect on the listener when we move our starting point back into the the intro of the piece.
The introduction is clearly in a slow compound quadruple meter. The melody happens mostly at the beat level, and the cellos have a constant arpeggio at the subdivision level. At the 1:20 mark, there is a slightly disconcerting two-beat transition, and then a new section starts that most listeners will hear as a continuation of the slow compound quadruple meter of the intro. This is reinforced by an ostinato in a contra-bass clarinet as well as the body language of the performers. When the trumpet and saxophone enter with a new melody at 1:32, we realize that this slow compound quadruple meter is the exact same feel and melody that we heard as a fast simple triple melody in the second clip.
The conclusion of this exercise should be that the listener’s perception of meter is not tied to what is on the page, only to a complex array of aural input. Therefore, we can discuss meter in an objective manner by looking at what is written, but a listener is not required to hear the meter similarly to an analysis or even in the way in which the composer intended.