How to find the most correct meter of a riff or phrase

Question

When one comes up with a riff or phrase of music out of "context"(an inspired thing or whatever), how can one find the best meter to set the riff too... or the natural meter the riff is in? (Mainly for notation)

Obviously there are certain things one generally goes by such as harmonic changes, accents, etc and usually counting 1 & 2 & or 1 pul let 2 pul let, etc will find the correct meter(more or less).

But what happens when this isn't the case or it is difficult for other reasons? or one just doesn't have the gift to visualize it instantaneously or doesn't want to go with "trial and error".

Is there certain fundamental rules that pretty much 99.9% of all melodies/riffs/phrases have in relation to their "natural" meter?

We are generally told that agogic accents coincide with metrical accents, etc. But this "rule" only occurs about 50% of the time, say. (definitely not a "law", at least).

Of course, most melodies are easy. Assume this is hard(difficult syncopation that may allow multiple interpretations if one is "fuzzy" on how to proceed).

e.g., if there was a method to go about, it would be nice because it would at least have another way to help me figure this stuff out. I'm trying to avoid trial and error, as some complex melodies with multiple meter changes or heavily "syncopated" could be hard to resolve. Obviously I'm talking about stuff that probably isn't in 4/4 as that is generally the easiest to figure out.

Tempo also is an issue, because obviously one can notate the same melody at double or half the speed and it will still "fit" more or less.

I'm trying to find the best way to notate ideas I have and sometimes I create melodies in odd times or have weird syncopation that make me feel they are in a different meter than they are. I also sometimes find certain melodies easier to play along with a click that is double speed than what they would be notated at.

[I have a guess that when one learns to read sheet music well, most of these problems become moot as you can just "visualize" the melody and your mind figures out all the details... basically from lots of experience with many melodies. Is this sound logic?]

[Edit]

http://www.filedropper.com/ex1

Here is an example file of a little idea I made up for an example(nothing special). I'm not sure what overall meter it is, I'm sure it's 4/4 as there is a steady pulse most of the time but there are a few dropped beats and added beats here and there. I feel the "temp" to be around 35 bpm but I'm sure its about 70 since I tend to feel things at "half" the speed they usually are.

Of course I could go through and count everything and figure out what stuff is off, but then I'll have some trouble if I've dropped half a beat somewhere, specially if I get the down beat "wrong".

This example is mainly directed at Johannes, as the example was created from scratch without any clue of what meter I am playing in. I mainly just see it as a "pulse train"(equal beats). I'm not thinking about meter or anything like that.

Thanks.

Answer 1

The best method is really to tap it out (with your feet if you're playing the instrument) and then count the number of beats. By subdividing your tapping you should eventually be able to make your feet line up with the beginning of the riff (or the "1" beat).

For example, take this random obscure rhythm (I made it weird to demonstrate the method):

X   XX X X X*     (* = the pattern repeats again)

First try tapping quarter notes to it:

X   XX X X X*
1   2   3   1

Ok, the 1 didn't line up at the end, so it's not 3/4. Try 8th notes now:

X   XX X X X*
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Nope, still not lining up with the 1, so it's not 7/8 either. Try 16th notes now:

    X   XX X X X*
    123456789011

There it is! So the note value is 16th notes and we counted 11 of them before getting back to the "1" beat, so the meter would be 11/16.

It is also entirely possible if you are just creating music on the fly without regard for time or meter that you could create riffs that do not fit precisely into any particular meter. If this is the case, then you may have to nudge some notes/rests in order to make it conform to a specific meter.

My rhythm example could also be tweaked to make it fit into a more common meter by nudging the last note out by one 16th note:

X   XX X X X*
X   XX X X  X*
1   2   3   1

Now it fits better into 3/4 after that slight tweak, but if you liked it better the original way then you could keep it in 11/16. Here it's up to you to decide which meter best describes the overall feel you're going for.

[EDIT] I saw your edit adding the audio example after posting. The entire thing could easily be made to fit entirely in 4/4. However the way you played it, there are a couple times you cut it short to 2/4 (or you could say the measure goes longer to 6/4, however you want to phrase it), which is totally fine to leave it like that or you could tweak those parts to make them standard 4/4. There is a little bit of "rushing" in places, but this can happen even when playing a song that is strictly 4/4. And really, all I did to figure it out is tap it out and count. The pulse is constant, but the count was altered slightly and didn't line up with 4/4.