Rhythm
Rhythm (
Greek ρυθμός = flow (in
Modern Greek = 'style') is the
variation of the accentuation of
sounds or other events over time. "Rhythm involves patterns of duration that are phenomenally present in the music" with duration perceived by
interonset interval (London 2004, p.4). When governed by rule, it is called
meter. It is inherent in any time-dependent medium, but it is most associated with
music,
dance, and the majority of
poetry. The study of rhythm, stress, and
pitch in
speech is called
prosody; it is a topic in
linguistics. All musicians,
instrumentalists and vocalists, work with rhythm, but it is often considered the primary domain of
drummers and
percussionists.
In
Western music, rhythms are usually arranged with respect to a
time signature, partially signifying a meter. The speed of the underlying
pulse, called the
beat, is the
tempo. The tempo is usually measured in 'beats per minute' (bpm); 60 bpm means a speed of one beat per second. The length of the meter, or metric unit (usually corresponding with
measure length), is usually grouped into either two or three beats, being called
duple meter and
triple meter, respectively. If each beat is grouped in two, it is
simple meter, if in three
compound meter.
Syncopated rhythms are rhythms that accent parts of the beat not already stressed by counting. Playing simultaneous rhythms in more than one time signature is called
polymeter. See also
polyrhythm. In recent years, rhythm and meter have become an important area of research among music scholars. Recent work in these areas includes books by
Fred Lerdahl and
Ray Jackendoff,
Jonathan Kramer, Christopher Hasty, William Rothstein, and Joel Lester.
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. This use may be explained by a comment of
John Cage's where he notes that regular rhythms cause sounds to be heard as a group rather than individually; the irregular rhythms highlight the rapidly changing pitch relationships that would otherwise be subsumed into irrelevant rhythmic groupings (Sandow 2004, p.257).
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). In the 1930s,
Henry Cowell wrote music involving multiple simultaneous periodic rhythms and collaborated with
Léon Theremin to invent the
Rhythmicon, the first electronic
rhythm machine, in order to perform them. Similarly,
Conlon Nancarrow wrote for
player piano.
Clave is a common underlying rhythm in
African,
Cuban music, and
Brazilian music.
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 as any of these three types of instruments).
Narmour (1980, p.147-53) describes three categories of prosodic rules which create rhythmic successions which are additive (same duration repeated), cumulative (short-long), or countercumulative (long-short). Cumulation is associated with closure or relaxation, countercumulation with openness or tension, while additive rhythms are open-ended and repetitive. Richard Middleton points out this method cannot account for
syncopation and suggests the concept of
transformation.
A
rhythmic unit is a
durational pattern which occupies a period of time equivalent to a
pulse or pulses on an underlying
metric level, as opposed to a
rhythmic gesture which does not (DeLone et. al. (Eds.), 1975, chap. 3).
In recent years, music theorists have attempted to explain connections between rhythm, meter, and the broad structure and organization of sound events in music. Some have suggested that rhythm (and its essential relationship to the temporal aspect of sound) may in fact be the most fundamental aspect of music. Hasty (1997, p. 3), for example, notes that "Among the attributes of rhythm we might include continuity or flow, articulation, regularity, proportion, repetition, pattern, alluring form or shape, expressive gesture, animation, and motion (or at least the semblance of motion). Indeed, so intimate is the connection of the rhythmic and the musical, we could perhaps most concisely and ecumenically define music as the 'rhythmization' of sound."
*
Prosody (linguistics)*
Timing (linguistics)*
Meter (music)*
Soul (music)*Hasty, Christopher (1997).
Meter as Rhythm. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195100662.
*London, Justin (2004).
Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter. ISBN 0195160819.
*Middleton, Richard (1990/2002).
Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0335152759.
*Narmour (1980). Cited in DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975).
Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130493465.
*Sandow, Greg (2004). "A Fine Madness",
The Pleasure of Modernist Music. ISBN 1580461433.
*McGaughey, William (2001). "Rhythm and Self-Consciousness: New Ideals for an Electronic Civilization". Minneapolis: Thistlerose Publications. ISBN 0960563040.
* Honing, H. (2002).
"Structure and interpretation of rhythm and timing." Tijdschrift voor Muziektheorie [Dutch Journal of Music Theory] 7(3): 227-232.
*
Research group specializing in rhythm, timing, and tempo, University of Amsterdam*
Research group specializing in rhythm of the Young Academy of Sciences, Humanities and Arts of Germany*
Melodyhound has a "Query by Tapping" search that allows users to identify music based on rhythm
