Guide to metres and rhythms on your listening CD


Before you read this list...
I have done the same listening exercise as you, and come up with this list. Do remember that this is not an objective test to see if you are "right" - you will see that there are plenty of grey areas where things may be one thing or another.  

When I have said things might be quadruple or duple, it is because it all depends on how you count the music, and that depends on what you're doing to it. The confusion usually arises when the tempo is such that you could physically do movements at two speeds. 

My musical background means that I am acquainted with the scores of some of these pieces.  It may be that I have imagined there to be metre where it is in fact indistinct or not even present.  Feel free to challenge my perception and description of the metre.    
 
My perception of the metre Dance rhythm 
1. Simple quadruple/duple Gavotte
2. Simple quadruple Something spanish
3. Compound duple Bayadere
4. Compound triple Giselle (Myrthe)
5. Simple duple Polka
6. Simple quadruple Mambo/Polyrhythmic
7. Compound duple, but changes  Rather like the beginning of a quadrille (Le Pantalon) 
8. Compound duple Gounod
9. Repeat of 7 See 7
10. Simple triple Polka mazurka
11. Simple duple Hornpipe
12. Simple quadruple Samba - listen to the high pitched percussion taps - 
13. Simple quadruple Sylphide
14. Piano version of 10 Polka mazurka - but listen to my phrasing - I play this in 6 (compound duple), the orchestral version is more obviously in 3
15. Simple triple Waltz
16. Simple triple Sarabande (Grieg)
17. Simple duple if you count slowly, quadruple if you count fast Tango
18. Compound duple Waltz - hard to hear, but it is
19. Simple triple Waltz
20. Simple or compound quadruple  Reel
21. Simple duple Polka
22. Simple triple Kujawiak - what we wrongly call a slow mazurka
23. Simple quadruple or duple Bourrée
24. Simple triple Very slow waltz
25. Simple triple Minuet
26. Simple quadruple Satie being mad 
27. Simple duple or quadruple Polka schnell
28. Simple quadruple Tango (post 1920)
29. Compound triple  Triple jig 
30. Simple triple Spanish
31. Simple triple Spanish "only"
32. Simple triple or compound duple Waltz
33. Simple triple  Polonaise
34. Simple quadruple March
35. Simple triple Sarabande
36. Simple triple Waltz 
37. Simple triple Polonaise
38. Simple triple or compound duple Waltz?
39. Simple triple  Mazurka (oberek?)
40. Simple or quadruple  Rag (of a certain type)
41. Compound duple Le cid
42. Simple or compound quadruple Funiculi funicula
43. Simple triple or compound duple Mazurka
44. Simple triple but more like compound duple Waltz
45. Simple triple or compound duple in parts Waltz
46. Simple triple  Polonaise
47. Simple duple or quadruple Galop/Polka schnell 
48. Simple triple or compound duple Mazurka (oberek)
49. Simple triple  Polonaise
50. Simple duple or quadruple Morris dance (hornpipe?)
51. Additive meter 5/4. Section A is in 2+3, Section B is in 3+2, then Section A (2+3)  repeated 
52. Simple quadruple/duple
53. Simple triple or compound duple Slow waltz
54. Simple duple or quadruple Charleston
55. Simple triple Minuet
56. Compound duple Pantalon (opening figure of a quadrille)
57. Simple or compound duple  Tarantella (mention sleeping b)
58. Simple duple or quadruple Manic galop/Polka Schnell
59. Compound duple Spanish - sort of cachucha-ish
60. Simple duple/quadruple March
61. Simple duple/quadruple
62. Simple triple/Compound duple
63. Simple duple/quadruple
64. Simple triple Very fast waltz
65. Simple triple Very fast waltz
66. Compound duple Jig 
67. Compound triple Triple jig (or "slip" jig)
68. Compound duple Waltz
69. Simple duple/quadruple Somewhere between a polka, a galop, a neapolitan dance, a bolero (for they can be either triple or quadruple)
70. Simple quadruple/duple Pavane

Famous Last Words....

From what you have read on the introduction to rhythm and metre page, you should be clear that metre is not a straightforward issue at all. It depends on:

  1. What you can hear.  How does your brain organize incoming sound into patterns and groups? Most people are now familiar with the black and white picture of what appears to be either a vase or two faces nose-to-nose.  Similar paradoxes/dualities can happen in rhythm perception - such as hemiola, where depending on how you listen, you might hear three lots of two beats, or two lots of three beats.


    2. If you say to a student in a class "can't you hear the rhythm?!" perhaps you are really asking "can't you hear what I can hear?"
     

  2. What is written down on paper (if it is at all) - time signature. How have composers or notators written down music, how have they organized it on paper?  This is subject to conventions of notation. sometimes there is no notation, sometimes in notation there is no time signature. Composers' use and performers understanding of different time signatures in has varied over the centuries and in different contexts. In addition, the use of Western notation to notate non-Western musics means that what is notated is what can be notated rather what actually happened.

    3.  
  3. How the performer interprets what he reads.  Performance practice in music means that what may be notated in 4/4 with even note values, for example, is played with what would now perhaps call "feel".  That "feel" may mean that the metre that you perceive is nearer to a 12/8. This is the case with a lot of part-improvised music such as jazz and folk music. Notation is a quantized version of a musical reality.

    4.  
  4. What metre is objectively measurable in the audio signal - if you subjected a recording to acoustic analysis (aided by technology) is there an objectively measurable  pattern of beats with louder beats signifying the beginning of metrical groups?

    5.  
  5. Conventions of metrical analysis and description.  Behind time signatures lies a system of analysing metre which deals only in two basic units - groups of two and groups of three.  Everything else is a composite of these units in some form or other.  Our perception of groups changes with change of tempo - an extremely slow 6 is much harder to count than a fast one, for example. 

  6. Periodic/Dynamic rhythm - or Syllabic v. Accentual metre. The late and much-missed Belinda Quirey used to talk about the difference between periodic rhythm and dynamic rhythm, particularly in relation to baroque music, and it is a very useful distinction.  If you chop wood or dig roads, the metre of your movement (and the sound that it makes) is defined by accent - a difference in force or volume.  If you swan around Royal Courts with big hair and heavy costumes, your gait, bearing, demeanour - call it what you will - is more likely to be defined by a variation in the duration of your movements.  

    It is probably no coincidence that popular music (enjoyed by the majority of people who do have to dig roads and chop wood) is heavily accented and fast.  Contemporary art music (enjoyed by a very few) still retains a longeur and avoidance of regular, dynamic rhythm.  It is characteristic of middle of the road music (The Carpenters/Classic FM for example) to steer a safe course between genteel dynamic accent (Scott Joplin), moderate tempo (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Cats: Memories) and occasional bouts of non-work rhythms (Gorecki) - a bit like chopping your own vegetables but having a gardener.