Rhythm
by Merryn Brose

Rhythm is the one indispensable element of all music. It can exist without melody, as in the drumbeats of primitive music, but melody cannot exist without rhythm. Rhythm is the movement of sound through time. It is also a term used to refer to the patterns of lengths in a certain group of notes. Music's pattern in time. A listener can tell from the rhythmic structure of a composition its unique personality or mood. A slow tempo with long notes gives the impression of nobility, dignity, or peace; a rapid tempo with many short notes gives the impression of excitement pleasurable or otherwise according to the other features of the music.

The human mind instinctively seeks to organize music into units of time called beats. The beat or pulse is the most basic rhythmic unit------ a recurring time pattern like the ticking of a clock. The mind groups regular and identical sounds into twos and threes, stressing every second or third beat and so organizing the beats into strong and weak i.e. tic-toc tic- toc--- duple or quadruple time as in a march, or tic-toc toc tic-toc toc--- triple time as in a waltz.

Metre is the grouping of musical beats into basic recurrent units called bars. A composer will indicate how the beats are to be grouped by inserting a time signature, e.g. 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8,2/2, 3/2, 3/16,4/1 etc. next to the key signature at the beginning of a composition. Bar lines mark off the metrical units and indicate where the stresses in the bar will be. The upper figure indicates the number of beats per bar and the lower figure indicates the value of the beats. To explain further, here is a chart:

Therefore: ---
2/4 means two crotchet beats to a bar | ONE two
3/2 means three minim beats to a bar | ONE two three
4/1 means four semibreve beats to a bar |ONE two three four
6/8 means six quaver beats to a bar which is contracted further to two lots of three quavers to a bar i.e. two dotted crotchet beats. | ONE two three FOUR five six
                                                                            | ONE....TWO....

Once a metre is established, however, it doesn't need continue that way. Composers often change the time signature and/or the stresses within a bar,(syncopation), which delight the mind, creating surprise and interest for the listener. Furthermore, the pulse need not necessarily be maintained rigidly throughout: it may be played with rubato, that is, with variations so slight that they don't destroy the basic value. Of course, beat and metre are only the foundations of rhythm. However vitally the composer conceives his music, he relies on the performer to recreate it rhythmically. Certainly no two performers have played the same composition in exactly the same way rhythmically and a performer can vary their performance of the same composition on different occasions. Yet 'a good sense of rhythm' is evident to any listener despite the variations in performance. Judgments regarding the amounts of accuracy and liberty differ between performers and performances but if there is a general feeling of onward motion and sense of purpose experienced by the listener, then satisfaction occurs.

Rhythm; the heartbeat of music.

[Return to Newsletter]

Return to Newsletter

Merryn Brose is a presenter on 5MBS.