How does 'meter' differ from 'rhythm' in music?
The following introductory books' definitions don't distinguish meter from rhythm. Please see the titled question. I asked this on Music Fans, but I still don't understand. Please expound more plainly?
Source: The Complete Classical Music Guide (2012). General Editor: John Burrows OBE HonRCM, edited with Charles Wiffen MMus DMus RCM. pp. 14-16.
Many human activities, such as
running, walking, or dancing, produce
distinctive rhythms, which are often reproduced in music. Rhythm involves
not only the positioning or spacing of
notes in time, but also their duration, and
both of these can be notated in Western
music (see p.15).
The pulse (commonly known as the “beat”) is
a regular unit of time around which the rhythm
of a piece is organized. In a march, this would be the position in time of each footstep. The
composer decides whether the pulse should
be a half or a quarter, or any other note value.
The speed of the pulse is the “tempo”
of the work. Most composers have used
Italian terms (see p.14) to indicate tempo.
The meter corresponds to the grouping of
the pulse. Much Classical music is grouped
in twos or threes. Each group is known
as a “measure” or “bar” and in notation
is separated by a “barline." The meter is
indicated by a “time signature,” such as 3/4.
The top number shows the number of beats in
the measure, while the lower number shows
the value assigned to each beat.
Yale Prof. Craig Wright, MA PhD Musicology (Harvard). Listening to Music (2013 7 ed).
[p. 463] meter: the gathering of beats into regular
groups
[p. 465] rhythm: the organization of time in music,
dividing up long spans of time into
smaller, more easily comprehended units
p. 14
Rhythm is arguably the most fundamental element of music. Its primacy may result
from our experience in utero; we heard the beat of our mother’s heart before we were
aware of any sort of melody or tune. Similarly, our brain reacts powerfully and intuitively to a regularly recurring, strongly articulated “beat” and a catchy, repeating
rhythmic pattern. Pop music derives its power primarily from the way it stimulates in
the brain a direct, physical response to rhythm. We move, exercise, and dance to its
pulse (Fig. 2.1).
??The basic pulse of music is the beat, a regularly recurring sound that divides the passing of time into equal units. Tempo is the speed at which the beat
sounds. Some tempos are fast (allegro) or very fast (presto) and some are slow
(lento) or very slow (grave). A moderate tempo (moderato) falls somewhere in
the range of 60 to 90 beats per minute. Sometimes the tempo speeds up, producing an accelerando, and sometimes it slows down, creating a ritard. But,
oddly, we humans don’t like undifferentiated streams of anything, whether they
proceed rapidly or slowly. We organize passing time into
seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, and centuries. We
subconsciously group the clicking of a seatbelt warning
chime into units of two or three “dings.” So, too, with the
undifferentiated stream of musical beats, our psyche
demands that we organize them into groups, each
containing two, three, four, or more pulses. The
first beat in each unit is called the downbeat, and
it gets the greatest accent, or stress. Organizing
beats into groups produces meter in music, just
as arranging words in a consistent pattern of emphasis produces meter in poetry. In music each
group of beats is called a measure (or bar).
Although music has several different kinds of
meter, about 90 percent of the music we hear
falls into either a duple or a triple pattern—
duple meter or triple meter. We mentally
count “ONE-two” or “ONE-two-three.” A
quadruple pattern exists as well, but in most
ways our ear perceives this as simply a double
duple.
Steven Laitz, PhD Music Theory (Eastman). The Complete Musician (2011 3 ed). As my library's 2015 4th ed. can't be borrowed, I quote the 2011 edn. p. 699 Top.
The time, or temporal (horizontal), aspects of music and the pitch (vertical)
aspects of music are intimately intertwined and complement each other. This
chapter concentrates on the essential concepts and terminology related to
temporality. First, some basic terminology. Undifferentiated (e.g., same
quality, loudness, and length) and equally spaced clicks or taps are called
pulses. When you nod your head or tap your foot at a steady rate when
listening to music, these pulses are called beats, because they now occur
within a context that differentiates them; for example, some beats feel
stronger than others. The tempo is the speed of the beat; that is, how fast or
how slowly you nod or tap. Meter refers to the grouping of both strong and
weak beats into recurring patterns. Rhythm refers to the ever-changing
combinations of longer and shorter durations and silence that populate the
surface of a piece of music. Rhythm is often patterned, and rhythmic
groupings may divide the beat, align with the beat, or extend over several
beats. The following discussion proceeds from temporal events that take
place on the rhythmic surface of a piece to the metric grid that regulates the
rhythmic surface.
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A meter describes a scale of pulses within a measure. A rhythm is a distinct pattern of pulses regardless of the scale and measure length.
In many cases the rhythm has a recurring pattern that fits the measure length, whether syncopation is used or not.
If a second rhythm is played next to the 'main' rhythm, we could
see the difference between meter and rhythm more clearly.
We could distinguish between:
(A) pattern of different pulses using the same scale in the same measure length -> no polyrhythm, no polymeter
(B) pattern of pulses in a different scale in the same measure length -> polyrhythm, no polymeter
(C) same pattern of pulses in a different measure length -> polymeter, no polyrhythm
(D) pattern of pulses in a different scale in a different measure length -> polyrhythm, polymeter
Examples:
A. no polyrhythm, no polymeter
- inst1: X---x---x---x---X---x---x---x--- (4/4) pulse on 4th note
- inst2: X-x---x-x-x-x---X-x---x-x-x-x--- (8/8) pulse on 8th note (~4/4 with syncopation)
- inst3: X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-X-x-x-x-x-x-x-x- (8/8) pulse on 8th note (~4/4)
B. polyrhythm
- inst1: X ---x---x ---x---X ---x---x ---x--- (4/4) pulse on 4th note
- inst2: X--x--x--x--x--x--X--x--x--x--x--x-- (6/8) pulse on 8th note triplet
C. polymeter
- inst1: X---x---x---x---X---x---x---x--- (4/4) pulse on 4th note
- inst2: X---x---x---x---x---X---x---x--- (5/4) pulse on 4th note
D. polyrhythm and polymeter
- inst1: X ---x---x ---x---X ---x---x ---x--- (4/4) pulse on 4th note
- inst2: X--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--X--x--x-- (9/8) pulse on 8th note triplet
'Meter' is the time-signature. Maybe constant, maybe different every bar.
'Rhythm' is the notes. Maybe there will be repeated patterns, maybe not. It's still rhythm.
'Meter' is the framework we hang rhythm on to.
I'm impressed by how complicated an explanation of this can be made!
Consistently with others' replies, my own runs:
Rhythm denotes an entirely general attribute of sequences of musical sounds (and also of sequences of actions of any kind) that emerges as they are experienced in succession with the passage of time. Specifically, the term rhythm refers to any discernible regular characteristic of a succession of sounds, whether it be simply a constantly maintained or alternating pulse, the experienced subdivisions and multiples of a given pulse, or any recognizable grouping-effects that emerge as the result of how the durations or pitches of sound-sequences have been intentionally or unintentionally organized.
Meter is a specific rhythmic manifestation of the last-named kind, emerging as the effect of having organized the successive durations of sounds in some cumulatively conceived, regularly grouped and recurring manner.
There's one word that clearly distinguishes these two concepts, and I'm a little stunned it doesn't appear in any of your sources: hierarchy. (Edit: Although I see Dom's answer at Music Fans uses this term!)
Meter is a hierarchy of beats. Such a hierarchy determines which beats are emphasized (though authors vary on how they define "emphasis" here), the subdivisions of the beats, and so on. Some theorists claim that meter must be a regularly recurring pattern of one hierarchy, but that's a distinction that we don't need right now.
But rhythm has no hierarchy; not accounting for any accents added by a composer, rhythm is an undifferentiated sequence of articulations and durations.
Imagine you have three eighths notes in a row:
Nothing tells you which of those three eighth notes deserves an accent. But now consider these three eighth notes written differently in the same meter:
With the pattern beginning on beat one:
With the pattern beginning on an eighth-note anacrusis:
And with the pattern beginning on beat four:
These examples show that it's only when those three eighth notes occur in a given meter that you begin to form opinions about emphasis.
Once you're aware of this distinction, it's hard for me to imagine anyone confusing the two.
If you're interested in reading another source, I highly recommend Justin London's Hearing in Time.
Although the terms are used interchangeably, in the strictest, most distinct sense of the word, rhythm is groups of notes of different duration, while meter is the overall "feel" of a song as far as which beats are accented and unaccented.
For instance, a dotted quarter followed by an eighth followed by two sixteenths is a rhythm, but meter has more to do with the time signature. For instance, you might say that a song has a triple or "three" (ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three) meter, even though there may be subdivision like dotted notes, eighths, sixteenths, or triplets in the actual rhythm of the melody. 6/8, 4/4, 3/4 and such refer to the meter of the song, whereas rhythm refers more to the duration of individual notes or groups of notes in the song.
This is how I would differentiate between the two. Hope this helps!
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