RHYTHM

Rhythm is concerned with the organization

of music as it occurs in time. including the
duration of notes and rest, the periodic
recurrence of strong and weak accents or
beats, and in a larger sense, the form or
shape of the musical work as a whole.
Tempo refers to the rate of the beat or pulse
in a piece of music.

The bar line is a vertical line which

divides a staff into measures.
Example 7-a

The notes and rests used in the music

from the sixteenth century to the present
are arranged on the staffs below in
decreasing order of value.
Example 7-b (notes)

Example 7-c (rests)

The whole-rest is used to indicate a whole

measure of rest in any meter, although
sometimes the breve rest is used 4/2.
A dot following a note increases the note's
value by half. Two dots following a note
increase the value of the note by threefourths. Observe in Example 7-d, that if a
note on a line is dotted, the dot is placed in
the space above the line.
Rest may also be dotted and doubly dotted.

A tie placed between two notes of the

same pitch extends the sound of the first
note to include the value of both notes.
Example 7-d

The unit is that note or its equivalent

value which occupies the time of one
actual beat. The division is the note into
which the unit regularly divides.
The unit ay regularly divide into two
equal parts (simple meter) or into three
equal parts (compound meter). The
subdivision is the note into which the
division regularly divides. The division
regularly divides into two equal parts in
both simple and compund meters.

Example 7-e

Example 7-m

Time signature and meter are which are

often
used
interchangeably.
Time
signature are the two numbers, one
above the other, which are found at the
beginning of a piece of music and which
indicate the meter. The time signature
indicates the number of note values
possible in a measure of the music, and
the probable arrangement of the
divisions of the beat.
Example 7-f

Meter results from recurring patterns of

primary accents (strong), secondary
accents (weak), and unaccented beats.
All measures in meter will regularly
contain like patterns of accents, the first
beat generally having the strongest
accents.
Example 7-g

Meter classification is necessary for

proper performance of any meter. Meter
classification is determined by the
number of divisions of the unit (whether
it is simple or compound)and number of
units present in each measure.
Some common meter classifications are
shown in example 7-h.

Example 7-h

In duple meter there are two real beats in each

measure. In triple meter, there are three, and in
quadruple meter there are four and in quintuple
there are five.

In simple meter, the unit regularly divides (or is

divisible) into two divisions. Simple time
signatures will use 2,3,4 or possibly 5 as their
upper numbers, and a number representing a
type of note as their lower number. In simple
meters, for tempos between Andante and
Allegro, the number of beats in the measure is
given by the upper number and the type of note
which receives the duration of one beat is shown
by the lower number. Example 7-i includes
several simple time signatures.

The following unit, division and subdivision, patterns are those which occur
in any simple meter which uses the
quarter-note as the unit (2/4 , 3/4 , 4/4).
Example 7-k

Example 7-