Sondheim & Musical Meter
Meter? Meet her! A listener's guide
In music, meter is the pattern of recurring strong and weak beats we hear—the way the pulse is regularly grouped.
Symbols like 4/4, 3/4, and 6/8 are time signatures: they indicate how many beats are in each measure (the top number) and which note value represents one beat (the bottom number). For example, 4/4 means four quarter-note (𝅘𝅥) beats per measu…