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For each example below identify whether it is in duple or triple meter. Write down your answers and then check them with the answer key.
PLEASE NOTE: There is no Listening component on the exams in this course! The examples below are merely meant to give you some experience in trying to hear and identify meters. If you cannot hear the differing meters at first, don't panic. Keep working and listening to your CD set, and come back here in a few weeks. Most likely you will be surprised to find that you can hear things that you could not hear before! That is what this course is all about: helping you to listen ACTIVELY so that you hear things you never heard before.
| Example 1: | Example 2: |
| Example 3: | Example 4: |
| Example 5: |
Example 1: Duple, with heavy accent on first beat of 4.
Example 2: Duple
Example 3: Triple- but this is a tricky one! It can also be felt as a
compound meter with two major units of 3 beats a piece. What we're
talking about here in triple vs. compound is the musical equivalent of an
optical illusion. Do you know how, with an optical illusion, you can be looking
at something and all of a sudden it will switch appearances on you? Well,
you can be listening to something and it will feel like 1-2-3, 1-2-3--and
then a moment later it feels like instead of hearing 6 separate *small* beats
you are now hearing two *large* beats. That's because you are now hearing
each of those 1-2-3 units as ONE SINGLE unit. Here's another analogy: have
you ever seen impressionist paintings where, if you get very close, every
last detail of brushstroke is visible and you're looking at it on an almost
microscopic level? And then you stand back and when you get distance, the
little strokes blend together to form larger units? This is much the same
as in music, where you can hear smaller units but after a while, the smaller
units get grouped together and fall naturally into larger units. (Don't
get too hung up about this one if you can't hear it at first. As the course
progresses you will begin to listen differently--more intently--and you will
hear things that you never picked up before. Also, there is no listening
component on the exams, so you will not need to identify meters like this
one. This is purely an exercise in helping you to listen more
carefully.)
Example 4: No meter- freely performed
Example 5: Duple, with heavy accents on "off" beats: 1 2 3
4. What's interesting about this example, though, is that
there is an underlying subdivision into 3 which you can hear if you listen
closely-- it's very subtle. I suppose that calling this duple is a bit of
a judgment call. But the larger, more prominent beats fall into
a duple division-- and the blues (which this excerpt is) is a genre that
is overwhelmingly written in duple meter.