Editing Metre (music) (section)

==Metre in song==
{{anchor|Meter in song}}
{{see also|Musical form#Levels of organization}}
[[File:3Chinesen.png|thumb|left|400x400px|The German children's song "[[Drei Chinesen mit dem Kontrabass]]" shows a common fourfold multiplication of rhythmic phrases into a complete verse and melody.[[File:3Chinesen.mid]]]]
The concept of metre in music derives in large part from the [[meter (poetry)|poetic metre]] of [[song]] and includes not only the basic rhythm of the foot, pulse-group or figure used but also the [[rhythm]]ic or [[Form (music)|formal]] arrangement of such figures into musical phrases (lines, couplets) and of such phrases into melodies, passages or sections (stanzas, verses) to give what {{harvtxt|Holst|1963}} calls "the time pattern of any song".{{sfn|Holst|1963|loc=18}}

Traditional and popular songs may draw heavily upon a limited range of metres, leading to interchangeability of melodies. Early [[hymnal]]s commonly did not include musical notation but simply texts that could be sung to any tune known by the singers that had a matching metre. For example, [[The Blind Boys of Alabama]] rendered the [[hymn]] "[[Amazing Grace]]" to the setting of [[The Animals]]' version of the [[folk song]] "[[The House of the Rising Sun]]". This is possible because the texts share a popular basic four-line ([[quatrain]]) [[Verse (poetry)|verse]]-form called ''[[ballad]] metre'' or, in hymnals, [[Meter (hymn)|''common metre'']], the four lines having a syllable-count of 8–6–8–6 (Hymns Ancient and Modern Revised), the rhyme-scheme usually following suit: ABAB. There is generally a pause in the melody in a [[cadence (music)|cadence]] at the end of the shorter lines so that the underlying musical metre is 8–8–8–8 beats, the cadences dividing this musically into two symmetrical "normal" phrases of four bars each.{{sfn|MacPherson|1930|loc=14}}

In some regional music, for example [[Music of Southeastern Europe|Balkan music]] (like [[Bulgarian dances|Bulgarian music]], and the [[Macedonians (ethnic group)|Macedonian]] [[Leventikos|{{serif|3+2+2+3+2}}]] metre), a wealth of irregular or compound metres are used. Other terms for this are "additive metre"{{sfn|London|2001|loc=§I.8}} and "imperfect time".{{sfn|Read|1964|loc=147}}{{Failed verification|date=August 2013}}<!--Read is evidently the intended source, but his use of "imperfect time" does not correspond exactly to this description of additive (or aksak) metres, nor does he mention music of the Balkans at all.-->