| Rhythm is an integral part of modern popular music in genres ranging from Baroque to Bossa Nova. |
| This is not surprising; it is widely believed that music first arose in the form of percussive patterns beaten out with the aid of sticks, logs, and gourds. |
| Rhythm is often described in terms of beats, meter, accents, and syncopation. |
| However, for our purposes we will reserve the word "pulse" to mean the underlying and non-notated (not written in the score) flow of rhythm that can be perceived at different levels of periodicity in the same passage of music. |
| The simultaneous and subjective nature of rhythmic pulse is easily witnessed at a popular music performance when the audience claps in time to the music. |
| Some people clap at a frequency corresponding to every quarter note, while others, a bit more deliberate perhaps, clap at half that frequency; they feel a longer pulse and mark each passing half note. |
Return to Pulse Trains.
© 2004 Harlan Brothers