How to learn to quickly recognize the meter(s) in prog metal ?

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KoolFartWind wrote:Yeah, but I doubt that I ever will be able to differentiate between for example :

- a 6/8 - meter with just doublets rhythm
- a 2/4 - meter

In most cases, the intent of 6/8 and 2/4 is essentially not the same. If you constantly have 6 to a bar, the two feel is 2 dotted quarters. But then multiplying x2, 'duplet' eg., 4:6 where we're accustomed to 6 to the bar is going to seem like the difference. Where 2 quarters is your basic pulse, triplets is meaningful as compared with the (expectation of) duplet. If it's all triplets, which is your basic confusion, they are not so much triplets; that is your pulse, 3/8 or 6/8 etc. (And in your sequencer, that's the simplest choice of meter.)

IE: Where we have 6/8 established as meter, most typically 6/8 does have the two feel; here the dotted quarter is a given. Note well: if we double up to want 4 in the time of this 6, that's dotted 8ths, 4:3 or 8:6 is dotted 16ths, etc. To reiterate, if you feel like there is a two pulse but the articulation of it is constantly three for each one of the two, safe bet it's 6/8. The meaning of triplets is 3 in the time of 2 in terms of regular values. 3 in the time of a quarter is triplet eighths; 3 in the time of a dotted quarter is not triplets, it's the regular expected subdivision.
Last edited by jancivil on Fri Oct 16, 2015 5:17 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Although, 6/8 potentially is articulated as 2+2+2. But that's an alternate perspective, and should that be constantly happening it's going to pretty much be 3/4. Alternating the two perspectives is known as hemiola. I want to be in Amer-i-ca (West Side Story, America - Bernstein/Sondheim)

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