Foundations
Meter and beat division
Written by a guitar teacher who runs a private studio in Japan. Published October 2, 2026
Meter
In the clock system, twenty-four hours make a larger unit: a day. “Two days and eleven hours from now” is easier to grasp — and easier to make plans with — than “fifty-nine hours from now”. (The clock system and the beat system are compared in Thinking in clock time.)
Beats work the same way. If four beats grouped together make a meter of four, “14 bars and 3 beats from now” is easier to grasp than “59 beats from now”. (One cycle of the meter is counted in bars, the unit used in written music.)
A meter is not only for keeping track of position, either. Just as the morning and the afternoon feel different within a day, each beat of a meter of four has a feel of its own.
Two kinds of two, and the backbeat
A meter of two comes in two forms, depending on where the accent goes. In the diagrams, the height of each bar is the strength of the accent: strong, medium and weak. (Accents themselves are covered in Accents: how a pulse becomes a beat.)
Popular songs generally use (2). This accent on beat two — on beats two and four in a meter of four — is called the backbeat. From here on in this series, unless stated otherwise, a meter of two means (2), and a meter of four means two of (2) in a row. For a way to practice with the click on the backbeat, see Move the click to 2 and 4.
Rhythm in popular songs
By popular songs I mean the music of today that is widely enjoyed by general audiences — music that grew out of the Western tradition and picked up new elements as it spread around the world. My own field is popular music, and I cannot speak lightly about the classical world, but I think one of the differences between music of the classical era and popular songs lies in how rhythm is felt.
For example, even in the same meter of four, the beats are accented like this:
The interesting part is that where the accent falls seems to be open to almost any interpretation by the listener. Moving the accent does not move the notes themselves. That is why a rock arrangement of a classical masterpiece does not confuse anyone. To play it the same way, though, you have to listen carefully for what the player intends.
Common meters, and five
Popular songs mostly use meters of two, three and four, and usually keep one meter for the whole song.
A meter of five is often easier to understand as a three and a two (or a two and a three) alternating. Practical exercises for five and seven, and how to set them up on the dial, are in Getting into 5/4 and 7/8.
Beat division
Hours alone are too coarse for detailed plans. Splitting an hour into thirty or fifteen minutes — or into twenty or ten — lets you plan in more detail. Beats are the same: splitting a beat into halves, thirds or quarters lets you schedule notes in more detail.
The basic split of the beat (the division) is into two or three. Finer splits are made by dividing each part again by two or three.
So there are two kinds of sixth: the beat split in two with each half split in three (3+3), and the beat split in three with each third split in two (2+2+2). The two are kept distinct.
What all of this is for: Pulse, pattern, and why a metronome is only a scaffold