IB Music/Music Theory/Meter
Metre is important when a musical passage has a text. However it can be relevant in other music. Metre refers to stresses on notes or words in passages of text or music.
Iambic Metres[edit | edit source]
The stress falls on the second syllable.
_ I (the _ refers to a un-stressed and I refers to the stressed syllable)
Iambic metres are flowing and allow for lyrical patterns. They could be used in "love" songs, and in impressionist music. Any music that has a flowing lyrical feel could have an iambic metre.
Trochaic Metres[edit | edit source]
The stress falls on the first syllable.
I _
Trochaic metres are disjointed and jarring in their feel. When passages are conflicting they may use a trochaic metre. For example in the set work "Dido and Aeneas" (Next year Mozart Jupiter Suite), the fight between Dido and Aeneas has a trochaic metre when she refers to Aeneas as a "deceitful crocodile".
The extension of these two metres is Anapaestic _ _ I, and Dactylic, I _ _