Home > Rhythm

In Western music, rhythms are usually arranged with respect to a time signatureThe time signature (also known as " meter signature") is a notational device used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each bar and which note value ( quaver, crotchet, quarter note and so on) constitutes one beat. Most time signat, partially signifying a meter. The speed of the underlying pulseIn music, a pulse is an unbroken series of distinct yet identical periodically occurring short stimuli perceived as points in time (DeLone et. 1975, chap. Ideally, this is opposed to a series of identical but aperiodically occurring stimuli, a series of p, called the beatSee also the beat disambiguation page. A beat is a pulse on the beat level the metric level at which pulses are heard as the basic unit. Thus a beat is the basic time unit of a piece; when you tap your foot to music, each tap is a beat. Depending on the c, is the tempoThis article is about tempo in music. For tempo in chess, see Tempo (chess). In musical terminology, tempo ( Italian for " time") is the speed or pace of a given piece. Measuring tempo The tempo of a piece will typically be written at the start of a piece. The length of the meter, or metric unit (usually corresponding with measureMeasure can mean: To perform a measurement. In mathematics, a measure is a way to assign non-negative real numbers to subsets of a given set, in order to "measure their sizes or probabilities". See measure (mathematics) for a treatment of the concept. length), is divided almost exclusively into either two or three beats, being called duple meter and triple meter, respectively. If each beat is further divided by two it is simple meter, if by three compound meter.

Some genres of music make different use of rhythm than others. Most Western music is based on divisive rhythm , while non-Western music uses more additive rhythm. African music makes heavy use of polyrhythms, and Indian music uses complex cycles such as 7 and 13, while Balinese music often uses complex interlocking rhythms. By comparison, a lot of Western classical music is fairly rhythmically simple; it stays in a simple meter such as 4/4 or 3/4 and makes little use of syncopation. In the 20th century, composers like Igor Stravinsky, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich wrote more rhythmically complex music using odd meters , and techniques such as phasing and additive rhythm. At the same time, modernists such as Olivier Messiaen and his pupils used increased complexity to disrupt the sense of a regular beat, leading eventually to the widespread use of irrational rhythms in New Complexity . LaMonte Young also wrote music in which the sense of a regular beat is absent because the music consists only of long sustained tones ( drones).

A rhythm section generally consists of percussion instruments, and possibly chordal instruments (e.g., guitar, banjo) and keyboard instruments, such as piano (which, by the way, may be classified in any of these three types of instruments).

"Rhythm," wrote Tom Robbins in Another Roadside Attraction, "is everything pertaining to the duration of energy."