Meter (Noob Theory 5/10) – Pico-8 Music Tutorial #41

Taking a break from talking about scales and modes to talk about meter. Very technically, the word “meter” refers to points in time, that are part of a repetitive, organized hierarchy. 

In Pico-8, there are two types of meters. Those that work very nicely, and those that don’t. In this tutorial, I talk about the nice ones – the ones that can be organized in 32 rows. These are symmetrical meters, often referred to being in duple or quadruple time. 

You’ll see in the video that I try a different approach to composing drum grooves. I start with a very simple ‘pendulum’ effect. The left side of the pendulum is the beginning of the cycle and represents the most stable beat (often called the downbeat). The right side of the pendulum is the height of tension in the cycle – everything past this point is in anticipation of the downbeat. 

Often these two points are emphasized with kick and snare drums sounds. But establishing meter and drum beats doesn’t have to be restricted to these sounds. Sometimes silence is just as impactful for expressing tension and stability. Regardless of the sounds you use and how you organize them, the foundation of any beat is a repetitive pattern that can be easily anticipated. Once you have this foundation, you can create little deceptions and syncopations that make your beat more interesting.

From this pendulum, I gradually increase the resolution by halving the SPD and doubling the distance between notes. With this approach, you can see (and hear) subdivisions becoming more apparent. You can fill subdivisions with more sounds to complement your beat (like a hi-hat sound), or you can fill them with more snare and kick sounds. 

As you keep on increasing the resolution of your beat, some subdivisions can be used to create minor deceptions – silence where you expect emphasis, and emphasis where you expect silence. At some point though, the expression you gain from increasing the resolution has diminishing returns. Sounds become less impactful at lower SPDs, and eventually you’ll need to fill two SFXs to accommodate the higher resolution, which isn’t always the best for resource management. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_(music)