Appendix II: Rhythm and Meter

(TIME)

Music moves through time.  Composers organize this aspect, and listeners hear this aspect as rhythm and meter, where an infinite number of possibilities exist.  Some types of music – like European music – pay scant attention to rhythm and meter and the resulting music uses fairly simple schemes.  Some types of music- like African – focus almost exclusively on rhythm and meter, so these aspects are extremely complex.  Sub-Saharan African music layers different rhythmic patterns simultaneously, while music of India, North Africa,  and Central and Western Asia  spins complex rhythmic and metric groupings sequentially in linear patterns.  American music, being primarily a synthesis of European and sub-Saharan African musics, combine the best of several worlds – wonderful melodies and harmonies with complex, fun, and danceable rhythms.

PULSE is a regular, recurring underlying even, consistent beat in a piece. Because it is predictable, we can clap to it and dance to it.

Not all music has a pulse, and the difference between a work that has a pulse and one that does not have a pulse is easy to hear.  A pulse keeps the music moving, while music with no pulse seems to hover around us rather than move us forward.  For example, Japanese classical court music, called Gagaku, often has no pulse.  In this performance of Gagaku , nothing is predictable, and there is no beat to clap or dance to.    This song feels like it hovers and does not move  because it has no regular, recurring pulse. 

On the other hand, court music in Java, Indonesia, which is played by a Gamelan normally has a clear pulse even if it moves slowly. As you watch this Gamelan piece, you can hear the regular movement, and even predict when you will hear the next note, because of the consistency.  This predictability indicates a regular pulse. 

TEMPO is the speed of the pulse, and we simply use normal relative and comparative language to describe tempo.   The tempo of “And the Money Kept Rolling In” is pretty fast, and the tempo of “Take Five” is fairly moderate: neither extremely fast, nor extremely slow.

In this example of Japanese Taiko music at a festival, the tempo begins a bit on the slow side and then quickly speeds up.

To describe aspects of the pulse, identify the meter and listen carefully to see if it changes throughout.  Also listen to see if the pulse slows down or speeds up, especially at the ends of phrases or end of the entire work, or in connection with the words of the song. If there is no meter, listen to find a pulse, and if there is no pulse, then focus on what the rhythm does.

RHYTHM: the duration of the notes. Some notes are short and some are long. All music has rhythm since without duration we would not hear it.   While the pulse stays constant, even, and predictable, the durations of the notes – the rhythm- is not even or consistent.  In this example, a Native American Powwow song sung by the Black Lodge Singers about Micky Mouse at Disney Land, we hear the pulse in the drum, and the rhythm in the voices (the song begins at :20).  The drum is even and consistent.  The voices sing notes of different durations, which is really easy to hear if you listen to the words.   When they sing “Micky Mouse”  “Micky” uses two short notes, and “Mouse” has a longer note.  Other words and notes that they sing all have their own duration, which may or may not be the same as the other notes, but the drum note always has the same duration.  The voices in “Micky Mouse” carry the rhythm, the drum carries the pulse.

Often rhythms fall into patterns that repeat frequently throughout the piece. We call these patterns rhythmic motives. Motives are small patterns that repeat often.    The Taiko piece from Japan (above) has several motives – patterns – that repeat frequently throughout.   In this section of it, the drums repeat an extended motive of  short-long, short-long, short-long, short-short-long (ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-dum-bum) that then morphs into short-short-long (ba-ba-bum) instead of short long .  By the end of it we have heard the really short motive of ‘ba-DUM’  a lot.

One of the most recognizable motives in Europe and the United States is from Beethoven’s fifth symphony.  This four-note motive of three short notes followed by a long note forms the foundation of the entire first movement.

In this example we hear the motive twice; the second time it starts on a lower note than the first time.

Listen to the opening of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. You can hear that almost all of this opening  contains this short-short-long motive, which is spun out and repeated over and over again.

A rhythmic accent is a note that is louder than the rest of the notes surrounding it, or one that feels like it has more emphasis than other notes.   Sometimes different rhythms that are all playing at the same time in the different layers of the texture all have accents at the same time, and sometimes they don’t.  Music has syncopation when the accents in the different layers sound at different times, and when the accents in the rhythm occur at different times than the accents in the meter (remember, meter is the regular grouping of pulses, and we hear that grouping by regularly recurring accents). 

In the Beatles’ tune “Here Comes the Sun” the chorus has a regular and even set of accents coinciding with the meter, but then after the words ‘its all right’ the accents change in the instrumental break and for this bit, do not sync with the meter, resulting in syncopation.  This shift is easiest to hear if you clap along with the beat from the beginning; once you get to the shift, you’ll hear that the accents in the instruments do not coincide with the beat that you are clapping.

Much West African Music is made up of many different rhythmic motives sounding in different layers all at the same time. All of these different motives usually have different accents at different times.  While the continent of Africa is very large and vast, with many different cultures, language, and countries, much of the music shares this singular trait of being highly syncopated.

In the  “Kpanda Dance” from the Republic of the Ivory Coast, you can hear different sounding instruments (and voices) come in, each with a different rhythm.  Because the different rhythms have different accents at different times,  this song is filled with syncopation between the instruments.

Another important rhythmic trait that has come into the United States from Africa is the quality of swing.  While in much European music the pulses in the meter are divided into equal measures, in much modern American music, the pulses are divided into unequal ‘long – short’ patterns instead.   For example, here are two versions of the same song, “Maple Leaf Rag” composed by Scott Joplin.   When William Bolcom plays Maple Leaf Rag all of the notes are even, and every beat is subdivided equally: 1-2-1-2- 1-2-1-2.  So while there is continual syncopation between the main steady beat in the lower notes and the shifting accents in the higher notes, there is no swing.  When Jelly Roll Morton plays Maple Leaf Rag,  however, the rhythm is swung, meaning that the pulse is divided into ‘long-short long-short long-short’ instead of into equal notes. This performance, then,  has both swing and syncopation.

Bessie Smith  was one of the greatest  blues singers of all time.  Since blues was heavily influenced by African music, it often contains swing or syncopation or both swing and syncopation.  Bessie Smith’s performance of Frankie’s Blues has a lot of syncopation but no swing.   Her performance of St Louis Blues, on the other hand, hand has both swing and syncopation.

Because music and culture in North and South America has been greatly influenced by African cultures, much of the music in The United States and many Latin American countries is highly syncopated and swung.   A string quartet is a European-style ensemble that has two violins, a viola, and a cello.   Here is The Vision String Quartet playing a Brazilian Samba  with lots of syncopation.  In this next song, Aretha Franklin asks for a little bit of “Respect.”  The different layers of the voices and instruments contain different accents at different times, and the voices especially also swing hard.  This song has both swing and syncopation.

To describe the rhythm of the music, listen for motives and describe the motives you hear: how long are the motives, and what are the durational values (longs and short, and in what order).  listen throughout the piece to determine how the motives change, and when the appear and when they drop out in which layers. If no rhythmic motives are heard, describe the durations and relative speeds of the different layers.   Does the top layer move slower or faster than the bottom layer? Does the melody use mostly short notes or mostly long notes? Are the durations fairly equal and even, or unequal and uneven? How does this change throughout the work?

Here is a description of the time element of a short segment of a piece of Japanese court music.  The work “Embu”  has no meter,  but as in all music- there is always rhythm.

“Embu” starts with two long notes played by a flute. During the second note, the percussion enters first with a low drum followed quickly by a high metal clang; both percussion notes are much shorter than the flute, so the flute continues on alone after the percussion.    There is no discernible meter, so these sounds are all unpredictable. The flute continues playing long, unmetered notes.   During the third and fourth flute note, the low drum and high metal clang play again quickly in the same manner as before.  After the fourth long flute note, the flute plays a quick descending note followed by another long note during which we hear the same drum and metal note pattern.    At :20 the flute, drum and metal repeat their pattern, after which the flute alone jumps up to hold a higher long note without the percussion before moving down for another long note still higher than the original note.  The percussion quickly repeats their pattern after this flute note.  The flute then returns to the original long note but then moves more quickly before jumping up again.  When the flute hits the top note,  we hear the percussion pattern again, followed by high pitched quick flute notes.  The flute begins to move more quickly, but still not regularly enough to create a sense of meter.  As the flute continues to move in moderately quick notes, the percussion pattern repeats with long pauses in between.  Because none of the notes we hear have any regular beat to them, the music is still unmetered.