Talk:Rhythm

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Contents 1 Pitiful 2 Topics that still need to be addressed: 3 Meter 4 Macedonian, Bulgarian and other Balcanian Rhythms 5 examples & clave separation 6 Rythm the most important element in music 7 I wrote a small essay about rhythm 8 Improvement drive 9 Rhythm 10 Steps vs. Beats 11 Basics 12 Sound File Examples 13 More Organization Needed 14 Body Rhythm 15 DEFINITION OF RHYTHM 16 Rhythm Only Important to Percussionists?! 17 Change of wording 18 Rhythm in relation to human life 19 Doubts about edit 20 WhatTheRhythm 21 The origin of rhythm

[edit] Pitiful

Ok, this is pitiful. Rhythm is a huge aspect of music and we should have a decent page on it. I'm willing to do the initial writing (not promising any brilliance), but please help generate ideas. What needs to be on this page? I have music specifically in mind here, but other uses should be addressed as well. Of course, if you want to add the material, go for it ;) -- Merphant

I've started an expansion, but it's still weak. -- Merphant

[edit] Topics that still need to be addressed:

• basic role in music
• on beat/down beat up beat/off beat, maybe seperate articles?
• common rhythms: rock beat, surf beat, clave, etc.
• mention contemporary electronic music with its driving rhythm
  • Please don't lump all electronic music in with dance music. In some cases it has no percussion at all. If you are going to talk about driving rhythm then please stick to the relevant genres. sugarfish 03:03, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)
• more stuff that I can't think of right now

THE FIRST

[edit] Meter

Things like the down beat and, it seems, specific rhythms like clave, really belong in meter and not the more general rhythm, since, for instance, clave is always in cut time (2/2), which is a specific meter.Hyacinth

[edit] Macedonian, Bulgarian and other Balcanian Rhythms

Can anyone give any information about Macedonian, Bulgarian and other Balcanian Rhythms. They have very unusual rhythms as 7/8 (3 - 2 - 2) and 9/8 (3 - 2 - 2 - 2).

==Everything I know about "Rhythm"==d:

In the most basic rock rhythm used in almost all popular music since the 50's:

• The bass drum plays on the "onbeat", 1 and 3
• The snare drum plays on the "offbeat", 2 and 4

This is the simplest and a basic rhythmic interest and tension used in virtually all contemporary popular music: "boom-chick", and many variations exist, often formed from adding or leaving out, replacing with rests, beats. A variant of this is the familiar "boom-chick boom-boom-chick" of someone beatboxing. Meanwhile:

• The cymbal plays the "ride", eighth notes, 1&2&3&4&
• The bass will play supportively rhythmically and harmonically, often playing the root and fifths of chords strongly on the onbeats.
• The rhythm guitar will play supportively harmonically and rhythmically, while adding some degree of rhythmic interest. Often an additive 12312312, or divisive/metrical 1&2-&3&-4&, rhythm.
• The lead vocalist and lead guitar will provide more melodic and rhythmic interest, with the lead guitar often supporting the vocals. The drummer, in addition to playing variations of the main beats may augment them with fills and otherwise add rhythmic interest.

When creating variations on the main beats through subtraction or addition of notes the role of a beat in supplying amibguity and resolution relative to other beats may be taken into account. For instance, removing the important first beat drastically alters the feel of the rhythm, and is common in some reggae music.

In bossa nova, there is no offbeat, and syncopation is used in many other ways. In the most basic bossa nova rhythm:

• The bass drum still plays 1 and 3.
• The clave plays the clave son rhythm, 1&2-&3&-4& 1&-2&-3&-4&.

This was featured recently in a Nike commercial, in which the tired and slow cross country team being led by cheerleaders chanting, "Nobody runs like [Tommy] runs, Oh Yah!"

[edit] examples & clave separation

hi.

i think that this article needs to display examples of different types of clave written in western musical notation. this would make the article much more interesting in that different clave patterns can be compared cross-culturally. no?

and i think that if undertaken this would be a significant enough expansion to warrant a separate article. peace — ishwar  (SPEAK) 16:19, 2005 May 15 (UTC)

[edit] Rythm the most important element in music

Would it be correct to say that Rhytm is the most important element in music and why?

Florence

[edit] I wrote a small essay about rhythm

How wonderful it is to listen to an orchestra play, as you unleash yourself to the harmony, melody, and different timbres that characterize each instrument! However try taking out the maestro from the stage, can you imagine the chaos that will happen? Who will tell the guitarist when to stop and the vocalist when to start? Thus I believe that without doubt each element plays a very important role in creating a successful musical experience, yet rhythm is one of the most important elements of music since it is the time element.

Almost everything in our lives follows a certain rhythm, a time cycle. The sun has a time to rise and a time to set. Even the globe rotates on a certain pace. What would happen if there was no pattern for these things? What if the sun would just set in the middle of the day or the globe would just start spinning very fast? We would be lost, confused, puzzled to all these changes. It is like the orchestra without a maestro. The same applies for music, rhythm is essential to organize the time in music. When listening to music I feel the need to nod my head or pat my foot along with the beat. This is due to the organization of rhythm, which marks the character and expression of music.

In contrast the time element, rhythm, may be free. Such as the central Javanese gamelan music, but then again this free rhythm only last for the first 11 seconds, before which rhythm takes its place. The Javanese syakuhati is also an example of free rhythm, where the musician is free to improvise; hence melody plays a more important role in this case. Therefore even if the rhythm is free like in the syakuhati, there is still a time element that drives the musician to stop blowing or to prolong the blow. The strong existence of this element cannot be ignored.

Finally, every element has its own flavor to add to the richness of a certain musical composition. However, although some type of music can have a free rhythm, rhythm does exist in most types of music and plays the role of the maestro in an orchestra!

Florence

[edit] Improvement drive

A related topic, Percussion instrument has been nominated to be improved on WP:IDRIVE. Come and support the nomination there or comment on it.--Fenice 06:52, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rhythm

For my understanding rhythm is tempo, metric and dynamic in appliance. It is not within music, not within sounds, not within melody.
It is being or can be being played by itself.

Steve Miller

[edit] Steps vs. Beats

Many musical traditions from Europe and Asia have rhythms constructed out of long and short beats (or steps) rather than a regular pulse, a long step being 3/2 times as long as a short step. For instance the Bulgarian kopanitsa, given an 11/16 time signature in classical notation, is actually a five-step dance with a long step in the middle - quick-quick-slow-quick-quick (2-2-3-2-2).

I haven't put this in the main article because I am not sure of the correct terminology.

I think you guys should talk more about rhythm used in writing, ex. Shakespeare sonnets, poetry

[edit] Basics

I have revised the article to eliminate the prominence of duration, which is an extremely abstract way of understanding rhythm. It has a sorry history, and is ultimnately based in a convoluted bit of medieval theology. My definition defines rhythm on the regularity of pulse, which opens the door to undertanding rhythm's role both in dance and in song, where the rhythms of beats and the rhythms of syllables cooperate. A modest plea: please consider the practicality of these ideas before reverting to the preconception that rhythm is duration.

MWM

Sorry, I reverted you as you removed cited information without citing a contradictory source. Feel free to readd your point of view to the article without removing the cited information and its point of view. Hyacinth 12:34, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I reverted you again. Hyacinth 10:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sound File Examples

Some of these rhythmic concepts are very hard to understand. Perhaps it would be helpful to put in some sound files to illustrate these terms better. Timothyreal 16:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Which concepts? Hyacinth 21:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Any sort of rhythmic concept. Not just on this page, but any page related to rhythm. For example, on the Swung Note page, it's a bit tough to read. Maybe if we put up an example sound file, not just that page, but other rhythm pages, it'll become clearer.Timothyreal 04:17, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More Organization Needed

A number of comments on ths talk page indicate that a lot of people have trouble understanding this article. I think one of the problems is the seeming lack of organization. We have an introductory paragraph that provides some (conflicting) definitions for rhythm in poetry versus music, etc. Then we have a collection of seemingly random bits of information on other rhythms encountered in various cultures/composers. Then we have a collection of random quotes by various theorists, whose explanations are justifiably incomprehensible to people who have no background in music theory and are just looking to figure out what rhythm is.

I think we need a few subheadings, perhaps a basic definition followed by a short section on "rhythm in poetry" and perhaps dance or whatever else, and then detailed subheadings on rhythm in music: perhaps a "basics of rhythm in music" section with examples of various basic rhythms, then perhaps a section of a greater variety of rhythms in different kinds of music, and then perhaps a section with broader speculations by theorists -- but organized and contextualized to make it sound like more than a bunch of random quotes.

Finally, I think one important distinction needs to be made which I think is the reason behind a lot of confusion on this talk page (and in the article). The term "rhythm" is used in two different senses in music. The first is extremely general, and is the one that has the most in common with rhythm in poetry, etc. This definition is something like "the pattern of movement in time," which encompasses notions of meter, tempo, duration, accent, etc. This is basically the definition of the opening sentence of the article. Using it broadly, we can speak of such things as a "Latin rhythm" or even a "waltz rhythm" (which is more than duration -- it necessarily includes patterns of accent and meter, and usually a range of tempos), or the "rhythm of speech" (which includes accent and perhaps other features).

The second meaning of the term "rhythm" in music is closer to London's definition of patterns of duration created by interonset intervals that is given in the second sentence of the article. In this sense, rhythm is related to ideas of meter, tempo, and accent, but it is not founded on any of them. Meter is created by patterns of accent, some of which are caused by patterns of duration in agogic (durational) accents, i.e., "rhythm," while meter is also created by dynamic accents (strong versus weak) as well as melodic and harmonic components. Tempo is created by a sense of underlying pulse, which is created by patterns of duration, i.e., rhythm -- but this pulse is usually only generated by a sense of regularity. We can have rhythm in this more specific sense without a strict sense of metric organization, and, depending on how irregular the rhythm is, we may not have a sense of underlying tempo. But we cannot have meter and tempo without rhythm, because rhythm is generated any time we have events happening at different times (effectively creating duration). Whenever we have one event following another, we get rhythm. In this second sense, it doesn't make sense to speak of a "waltz rhythm," since without accents created somehow, you simply can't feel a waltz through a steady stream of quarter notes -- you need the "BOOM" to contrast with the "chick-chick." Somehow you have to group it into threes, and that only happens through accent (whether dynamic, agogic, harmonic, etc.).

Anyhow, my point is that some people who have written stuff in the article and on the talk page obviously think of rhythm in only the broad sense, which is the most common use of the word by most people (thus we speak of the "rhythm section" in a jazz band, which does more than create simple patterns of duration). But when music theorists use the term "rhythm" in a specific sense, it is often in contrast to "meter" or "pulse," even though the latter are (mostly) generated by the rhythm along with other kinds of accents. Without meter and pulse, we end up with raw patterns of duration, which is the thought behind the definitions and theories of London, Narmour, etc. One of the reasons this article comes across as so confusing is that it seems like a collection of thoughts from both categories of people, but without a differentiation between the practical use of the term and the way music theorists talk about it. To make the article more comprehensible, these two different concepts need to be made more explicit, and the various quotes and ideas need to be sorted out.

If what I've said makes any sense to people, but no one else wants to undertake this reorganization, I could take a stab at it myself. I don't think anything needs to be deleted, but merely reorganized with some further explanation added. Jzmckay 01:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me

Please sign your posts on talk pages per Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks! Hyacinth 22:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Body Rhythm

Im beginig to do some research for Uni about rythm in the body and wether it is habitual or learnt, can anyone direct me to soem resources regarding this?

Please sign your posts on talk pages per Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks! Hyacinth 22:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DEFINITION OF RHYTHM

As a painter, poet and philosopher my attempt to define rhythm resulted in following definition: Rhythm is the interval (disconnection) which allows creative force to implement a new element to the contents of the given work. Without this (rhythm - interval) there would be no movement, no flow, only dead matter. This is the combination of basic laws of mechanics and thermodynamics. The intervention of force is instantenous, this means that it does not consume time, time is created by reflecting on the percieved, therefore the repeatance of the force intervention is perceived as rhythm, and of course, we can adjust this repeatance to various meters, simple or complicated, and thus get various rhythms. Artists do not simply manipulate the existing matter, they create. This is what distinguishes art from other activities. (Creative work is, of course, possible in any domain of human activity, which not usually called art.) Rhythm allows distribution of matter/energy in space (painting, sculpture, dance etc.) and/or in time (thinking/speech/literature, music, motion pictures etc.) Of course, more can be said, but I think this properly addresses the problem. --Skerovic Slobodan 04:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rhythm Only Important to Percussionists?!

"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[citations needed]."

This is completely incorrect. All music requires knowledge of rhythm in order to play/sing pieces of music correctly. While percussionists are stereotypically considered to be more concerned with rhythms than other things (for example: snare drum doesn't require tones, but focuses upon rhythms; however, mallets and timpani require just as much knowledge of tones and rhythms than other musicians). Therefore, this seems to me biased.

[edit] Change of wording

The paragraph currently ends off challenging readers to "Try playing Music with only melody or harmony, or both (without rhythm), it can't be done." While this may be true, it's not very good wording for an encyclopedia. I'll leave it the way it is for now, and let everyone decide whether or not this needs to be changed. Sandwiches99 06:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree; it's poor wording. It's also slightly inaccurate. Arguably, psychological studies show that once the interonset interval between sound events becomes long enough, we can no longer create meaningful rhythmic groups. If you held a chord for a minute, then changed the chord for a minute, then had silence for two minutes, and then had a third chord and a fourth chord coming at equally long intervals, would we be able to hear anything like "rhythm" in such a sequence of sound events? Or what about spectral music that sometimes consists of sounds whose timbres or pitches are gradually changed or morphed without ever stopping? There's nothing like rhythm in such sounds, and many composers refer to such an organization of sounds as music. Such things rarely occur in folk musics or indigenous musics, although sustained chants or music consisting of rather continuous humming for religious purposes may approach this ideal of melody or harmony that moves so slowly that it might be considered arrhythmic. So, yes, the wording should be changed, both because it is unencyclopedic and because it is (in some rare cases) wrong. 76.118.181.158 03:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rhythm in relation to human life

Someone with good rhythm is likely to be a better athelete and a better lover. Rhythm is an important part of good sex. Thats why people go to discos and dance.. to show off their rhythm to a potential mate. Someone with poor rhythm is likely to be clumsy and uncoordinated. Rhythm is also very important in speech. Someone with good rhythm puts you in a trance when they talk whereas someone with poor rhythm will be all over the place. People with no rhythm are usually non threatening and dont enjoy music as much as someone with good rhythm. James Prtenjacarhythm is the beat of music

[edit] Doubts about edit

I have some doubts about this edit. Others have already reworked the heading, commented on portions of it inappropriately, and deleted material they deemed to be "nonsense". --Atavi (talk) 17:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and changed the opening section back to how it used to be. The concise and clear definition is much better. Liffey (talk) 08:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WhatTheRhythm

Maybe some of you know the site "whatthefont": You can submit any font as graphic and will get the name of the font used. Isn't there such recognition service or at least catalogue that helps to specify the name for a known ryhtm? Like: is it a tango or a mambo? This time I'd like to know the origin of a rhythm like: |....- - |- - P P | where any dot is a eighth, any hyphen a quarter beat, P is a quarter pause, 120bps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.60.5.122 (talk) 13:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The origin of rhythm

The section "Rhythm in Music" ends thus: "Another piece of evidence suggesting that rhythm is the most fundamental aspect of music is that percussion instruments were likely in use long before stringed instruments. Tribal groups dancing to music made only with percussion instruments is an ancient human practice, which reportedly continues today. The three fundamental elements of music are rhythm, melody, and harmony."

There is no citation for this claim. This "evidence" seems to overlook the primordial presence of the Human voice, which makes the ability to create melodies innate. Most tribal dances I've ever run across seem to include singing or chanting. Moreover, any audible sound has a tone, and so it doesn't make any real sense to me to try and establish the primordiality of rhythm over melody. They seem inextricably bound up and "equiprimordial".

In any case, the ever present human voice should not be forgotten: music doesn't equal sound made by instruments.

--Adynatoniac (talk) 21:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I also don't think that rhythm needs POV pushing. Hyacinth (talk) 00:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)