Apedia

Meter Metric Basic Piece Rhythms Longer People Written

word meter
definition (1) The basic metric unit of length, equal to about 39.37 inches. (2) A systematic rhythm in poetry or music.
eg_sentence The basic meter of the piece was 3/4, but its rhythms were so complicated that the 3/4 was sometimes hard to hear.
explanation Meter is a metric measurement slightly longer than a yard; thus, a 100-meter dash might take you a second longer than a 100-yard dash. But the word has a different sense in music, where people aren't separated by whether they use the metric system. For a musician, the meter is the regular background rhythm, expressed by the “time signature” written at the beginning of a piece or section: 2/2, 2/4, 3/8, 4/4, 6/8, etc. Within a meter, you can create rhythms that range from the simple to the complex. So, for example, “America the Beautiful” is in 4/4 meter (or “4/4 time”), but so are most of the rhythmically complex songs written by Paul Simon, Burt Bacharach, or Stevie Wonder. In ordinary conversation, though, most people use “rhythm” to include meter and everything that's built on top of it. In poetry, meter has much the same meaning; however, poetic meters aren't named with numbers but instead with traditional Greek and Latin terms such as iambic and dactylic
IPA ˈmitər

Tags: mwvb::unit:6, mwvb::unit:6:word, mwvb::word, mwvb::word-cloze, mwvb::word-reverse, obsidian_to_anki

Learn with these flashcards. Click next, previous, or up to navigate to more flashcards for this subject.

Next card: Odometer traveled car instrument measure distance jennifer watched

Previous card: Metric basic unit relating system based arranged meter

Up to card list: Merriam-Webster Vocabulary Builder LITE (English)