Rhythm and meter

Rhythm (from Greek , rhythmos, "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time can apply to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to several seconds (as with the riff in a rock music song); to several minutes or hours, or, at the most extreme, even over many years.

A metronome () is a device that produces an audible click or other sound at a uniform interval that can be set by the user, typically in beats per minute (BPM). Metronomes may also include synchronized visual motion, such as a swinging pendulum or a blinking light. Musicians—and others including dancers, athletes, and health professionals—often practise with a metronome to improve their timing, especially the ability to maintain a steady tempo with a regular beat or pulse. Composers and conductors often use numerical metronome markings to communicate their preferred tempos to musicians prepari

In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for 'time'; plural 'tempos', or from the Italian plural), measured in beats per minute, is the speed or pace of a given composition, and is often also an indication of the composition's character or atmosphere. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often using conventional Italian terms) and, if a specific metrical pace is desired, is usually measured in beats per minute (bpm or BPM). In modern classical compositions, a "metronome mark" in beats per minute, indicating only measured speed and not any

time unit in rhythmic musical notation

In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "placement of rhythmic stresses or accents where they wouldn't normally occur". It is the correlation of at least two sets of time intervals.

basic unit of time in music and music theory

aspect of music

interval of silence in a piece of music, marked by a rest symbol indicating the length of the pause

thumb|Urlinie in G with fermata on penultimate note. & (compare with penultimate note at )

short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition

In music, an ostinato (; , compare English obstinate) is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch.

unit of musical meter that has a complete musical sense of its own, built from figures, motifs, and cells, and combining to form melodies, periods and larger sections

In poetic and musical meter, and by analogy in publishing, an anacrusis (from , , literally: 'pushing up', plural anacruses) is a brief introduction. In music, it is also known as a pickup beat, or fractional pick-up, i.e. a note or sequence of notes, a motif, which precedes the first downbeat in a bar in a musical phrase.

thumb|right|350px|Polyrhythm: Tuplet|Triplets over duplets in all four beats[[File:Polyrhythm.mid]] thumb|right|2:3 polyrhythm (cross rhythm) as bounce inside oval

guitar technique; part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section

Jazz technique

highlight a musical element by emphasizing its intensity, duration or pitch

type of drum beat

expressive resource consisting of playing with a certain freedom the tempo and the relative values of the notes

2/2 time signature in Western music notation

In music, hemiola (also hemiolia) is the ratio 3:2. The equivalent Latin term is sesquialtera. In rhythm, hemiola refers to three beats of equal value in the time normally occupied by two beats. In pitch, hemiola refers to the interval of a perfect fifth.

thumb|upright=1.4|Transcription in modern notation of the isorhythmic tenor voice from the opening of the Kyrie of [[Guillaume de Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame (c. 1360). A color of 28 pitches is arranged with a talea of four durations which repeats seven times (28 ÷ 4 = 7).]] Isorhythm (from the Greek for "the same rhythm") is a musical technique using a repeating rhythmic pattern, called a talea, in at least one voice part throughout a composition. Taleae are typically applied to one or more melodic patterns of pitches or colores, which may be of the same or a different

In musical notation, tenuto (Italian, past participle of tenere, ), written as a horizontal bar above or below a note, is a direction for the performer to hold or sustain a note for its full length.

time that the vibrations produced by a sound last

style of jazz performance

specific rhythm pattern commonly found in contemporary music

thumb|Siteswap beats shown as relative height

unit of musical meter that has a complete musical sense of its own

rhythmic pattern in Afro-Cuban music

Isochrony is a linguistic analysis or hypothesis assuming that any spoken language's utterances are divisible into equal rhythmic portions of some kind. Under this assumption, languages are proposed to broadly fall into one of two categories based on rhythm or timing: syllable-timed or stress-timed languages (or, in some analyses, a third category: mora-timed languages). However, empirical studies have been unable to directly or fully support the hypothesis, so the concept remains controversial in linguistics. While isochrony may be a useful theoretical framework in some contexts, studies sugg

short musical passage, riff, or rhythmic sound

the standard cymbal in most drum kits

specific 7-note rhythm and melody

shortest idea in music, a short succession of notes

thumb|upright=1.3|alt=Staff notation showing the motorik drum beat|The basic motorik drum beat pattern

musical term

musical rhythm, especially used in Baroque music

musical performance practice

In Ottoman musical theory, aksak () is a rhythmic system in which pieces or sequences, executed in a fast tempo, are based on the uninterrupted reiteration of a matrix, which results from the juxtaposition of rhythmic cells based on the alternation of binary and ternary quantities, as in , , , etc. The name literally means "limping", "stumbling", or "slumping", and has been borrowed by Western ethnomusicologists to refer generally to irregular, or additive meters.

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Baladi ( ''''; relative-adjective 'of town', 'local', comparable to English folk, with a lower-class connotation) can refer to an Egyptian musical style, the folk style of Egyptian belly dance (Raqs Baladi), or the Masmoudi Sogheir rhythm, which is frequently used in baladi music. It is also sometimes spelled in English as 'beledi' or 'baladee'.

measures that contain a combination of measures of different numbers of times or divisions

thumb|right|300px|Blues shuffle or boogie played on guitar in E major (). Boogie is a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm, "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie music. The characteristic rhythm and feel of the boogie was then adapted to guitar, double bass, and other instruments. The earliest recorded boogie-woogie song was in 1916. By the 1930s, swing bands such as Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Louis Jordan all had boogie hits. By the 1950s, boogie became incorporated into the emerging rockabilly and rock and roll styl

manner of setting words to music

Contradanza (also called contradanza criolla, danza, danza criolla, or habanera) is the Spanish and Spanish-American version of the contradanse, which was an internationally popular style of music and dance in the 18th century, derived from the English country dance and adopted at the court of France. Contradanza was brought to America and there took on folkloric forms that still exist in Bolivia, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Panama and Ecuador.