Rhythm

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Rhythm (disambiguation).


Rhythm, a sequence in time repeated, featured in dance: an early moving picture demonstrates the waltz.


Simple [quadr]duple drum pattern, against which duration is measured in much popular music:  Play (help·info).


Compound triple drum pattern: divides three beats into three.  Play (help·info) Contains repetition on three levels.
Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός—rhythmos, "any regular recurring motion, symmetry"[1]) may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions."[2] This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to millions of years.
In the performance arts rhythm is the timing of events on a human scale; of musical sounds and silences, of the steps of a dance, or the meter of spoken language and poetry. Rhythm may also refer to visual presentation, as "timed movement through space."[3] and a common language of pattern unites rhythm with geometry. In recent years, rhythm and meter have become an important area of research among music scholars. Recent work in these areas includes books by Maury Yeston,[4] Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, Jonathan Kramer, Christopher Hasty,[5] Godfried Toussaint,[6] William Rothstein, and Joel Lester.