This post is one of a 2-part series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here. Please feel welcome to make a comment or ask a question.
Structure
When we listen to music, we can generally “follow the music”: we have a sense of where we are within the piece. This is because, other than ambient music, much of what we recognise as music has a structure. Let’s zoom in on a piece from the outside…
Most pieces are made up of sections. In a popular work a typical section might be a verse, chorus or bridge. A classical work might have large-scale sections called movements as well as smaller sections within a movement such as exposition, development and recapitulation.
Within each section, the music is made up of phrases. In the language of music, phrases are the equivalent of phrases in speech. Question marks, full stops and commas all have their musical equivalent.
In music, each phrase is typically made up of a number of bars. Bars provide a way of dividing a phrase up into manageable chunks that we can see and hear.
In Western music culture we seem to be attracted to the number 4. Phrases in many genres are often 4 bars long. In a typical 4-bar phrase, we can feel the phrase get started in the first bar and arrive at a note or chord in the 4th bar. Please note that this is a very general statement for illustration purposes: music is certainly not restricted to phrases of 4 bars, or even of a whole number of bars. Overall, though, many melodies are made up of 4-bar phrases.
Bars
Each bar is made up of a number of beats. Usually all the bars in a section have the same number of beats (but again this isn’t always the case). The boundary between one bar and the next is marked by a vertical line through the stave called a barline. Barlines are convenient markers to help navigate through the notes. Without barlines it would be easy to get lost when trying to read music.
The following example has bars which are 4 beats long:
Bars aren’t just visual: they form part of the structure of the music. Not only can we count the number of bars in a phrase, but we can count the number of beats in a bar. The beats are a reference for where we are in a bar, just as bars are a reference for where we are in a phrase.
A bar can be any number of beats in length but if a bar is too long we feel the need to mentally divide it into smaller chunks. Bars are easiest to feel when they have a small number of beats. Most typically, bars are made up of 2, 3 or 4 beats.
The first beat of a bar has an implied emphasis. This can be articulated in the music by making the note on the first beat of each bar stronger/louder. Even when the music is intended to be played smoothly and evenly, musicians tend to “play” that emphasis in their mind as they count.
Counting in bars and beats
Being able to count or tap to the music in beats and bars is an essential skill for the aspiring musician. In the previous post, 3. Beats, Tempo and Timing, we looked at some basic counting exercises. There we counted to 2, so there were 2 beats in each bar.
Try This…
As a quick exercise, listen to a piece of music you enjoy and tap where you feel the beats might go. Once you settle into the tempo, try counting “1,2”, then “1,2,3” then “1,2,3,4” and see which of these seems to fit the structure of the phrases. As you count, emphasise “1” a little.
If the piece has a rhythmic accompaniment, beat 1 might be emphasised by one or more of the accompanying instruments. For instance, in a typical rock song, the bass drum plays the first beat of the bar. Even without such accompaniment, the right number of beats per bar will “make sense” and fit the phrases, whereas the wrong number will, at times, feel out of step.
As 4 is two lots of 2, the difference between counting to 2 and to 4 isn’t always obvious, but counting to 3 feels quite different than 2 or 4.
Example
Below is the audio only for two simple melodies. One has 2 beats per bar, the other has 3. Listen to both and count “1,2” or “1,2,3”. See if you can tell which is which… (the answer is at the end of this post).
NOTE: Both melodies are at a medium-fast tempo but the tempo is slightly different for each. For each melody, listen first and tap along to the tempo. Only start counting when you feel that you’ve settled in to the tempo.
This post is one of a growing series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here.
Please feel welcome to like, comment or to share this post. If you have any questions, pleased leave them as a comment and I will respond as soon as I can. If you enjoy my posts and would like to be kept up to date, please subscribe.
Parts of this post, including the movie above, are taken from Music Theory De-mystified, my upcoming music theory e-book, due to be released late 2023.
NEXT LESSON: 5. How Long Is A Note? Note Values 1
PART 1 CONTENTS: Basic Music Theory Course Contents
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Answer: The first melody has 3 beats per bar, the second melody has 2 beats per bar.