Meter is the grid onto which rhythmic patterns are laid. Simple meters (2/4, 3/4, 4/4) give the familiar feel of a walk or a dance; asymmetric meters (5/8, 7/8) are characteristic of Balkan and Caucasian folk music, as well as contemporary art music.
Mixed meters — when different time signatures alternate within a work — create an effect of surprise. Bartók in his dances with changing meters, and Bernstein in “America” from West Side Story, brought this technique to a dazzling peak.
Metre is written as a time signature — a fraction at the start of a piece: the top number gives the count of beats in a bar, the bottom their duration. Metres are classed as simple (duple and triple), compound (built of several identical simple units), and mixed (built of different ones). In the folk music of many lands — Balkan and Carpathian among them — asymmetric metres live on, lending dances their characteristic “limping” spring.
