Our next dimension is Rhythm. Note that as with Pitch, we will devote whole chapters to the details of this dimension in Part II of the book, and you’ll find a lot more guidance there on how to tune your ear in. Here, we will provide some simple explanations to help you start incorporating Rhythm questions into your Active Listening.
There are several different inter-related aspects of Rhythm that you can be listening for, together and separately. The first thing to listen for is the pulse.
The pulse is made up of a steady series of beats, like a heartbeat. The word “beat” can be used in different ways in music. For example the whole percussion and backing section is often called the “beat” in rap or hip-hop music. We’ll be using the word to refer to the steady ticking of the pulse, in the sense of “there are four beats per measure” or “this note lasts for two beats”.
Pulse
The pulse is steady, and underlies everything. You can think of it like a yardstick that measures out the music. This is the first thing to listen for with the dimension of Rhythm, because when you can hear the pulse, you can use it to measure the other rhythmic qualities.
One great way to find the pulse is to clap along with the music. Clap along with music which has a stable, consistent beat (most music does, most of the time) and see if you can find that steady pulse with the music in your body.
Once you’ve found the pulse, you’ll have a baseline for measuring all the other rhythmic aspects.
Difficulties with the Pulse
As we noted in Chapter 1: Musicality when discussing the various skills that contribute to your musicality, this ability to find the beat and clap along sounds like it should be easy and basic—but it’s not always so! Often rhythms can be accented or notes can fall at times not matching up with the pulse which can throw you off. This is called “syncopation” and we’ll talk a little bit more about it later in the chapter.
In certain kinds of music the pulse is less obvious. If you can imagine a slow classical piece, in which there’s a beautiful melody, you might not readily determine the pulse, because it’s not being played explicitly by any specific instrument. But it’s still there.
The pulse is underneath everything, and it’s what helps musicians to be able to know how long or short to play their notes.
In other kinds of music, the pulse is actually being played beat-by-beat by an instrument such as a drum or other percussion instrument, so you can more easily hear the pulse clearly, throughout the piece.
Meter
In most musical styles the pulse has a regular pattern of “accented” (meaning louder) and “unaccented” (meaning softer) beats. This is referred to as the meter.
A tremendous percentage of popular music uses a “quadruple” (meaning four-beat) meter, where there is a strong accent on the first beat of those four beats: 1, 2, 3, 4. Often the third beat also has a softer accent:
Even sticking with a four-beat meter the beats can be accented in different ways though. For example, in some blues styles and early rock-and-roll, and popular styles, you might hear an accent on the second beat and the fourth beat, rather than the first and the third beats which are the stronger accents in classical music.
This turns things around a little bit, and plays up against the melodies, which are likely still accenting on the first beats.
Measuring Music with Our Ears
Hearing the meter helps us to measure the music in time. The meter divides the beat into regular groupings called “bars” or “measures”. You can actually count the number of measures of a piece of music while you’re listening, and then you’ll know how long each section is.
A common practice to help you keep track is to replace the first “one” of each measure with the number of the measure. For example let’s say you were counting a piece of music in quadruple time, instead of counting “1, 2, 3, 4 / 1, 2, 3, 4 / 1, 2, 3, 4 / 1, 2, 3, 4” and trying to separately count the measures too, you would count “1, 2, 3, 4 / 2, 2, 3, 4 / 3, 2, 3, 4 / 4, 2, 3, 4” and so on. In this way, you are able to easily keep track of the measures while also counting how long a particular section of the music is.
More Meters
There are, of course, many other metrical possibilities besides the one described above. Another very common one in western music is “triple meter” which organises the pulse in groups of three (or six). It’s not nearly as common as quadruple meter in popular music, but it is very common in classical, older styles of dance music, and folk music.
Triple meter is counted:
Many times, we think of this as a waltz rhythm. This brings up something else interesting about music and rhythm: a lot of music is intended to be danced to, or is brought from that kind of dance music into other genres. So rhythmic patterns often have origins in the way we like to move our bodies.
If there are heavy pulses which make the music easy to dance to, that’s another thing that we can be looking for in the Rhythm of the music that we’re listening to.
How to Start Listening for Meter
The easiest way to listen for meter is to find the pulse (e.g. by clapping along or tapping your foot in time with the music) and then count either “1, 2, 3” or “1, 2, 3, 4” along with the music. One of them is going to fit better and feel more comfortable and natural to you, indicating whether the meter is triple or quadruple.
You can go further than this, into subdivision of beats and compound meters, which we’ll explore more in Part II. But simply tuning in to the beat and identifying the type of meter is a great start.
Rhythm
Beat and meter are both aspects that form a background structure for the Rhythm itself.
Remember that “rhythm” refers to how long and short the notes are, and the spaces between them. So the rhythm of the notes is played against the beat and meter established. When you’re listening, is the rhythm going right along with that steady beat or are there a lot of rapid notes squeezed into a certain time period, or slower notes, longer notes, shorter notes? What about the silences in between them?
One thing to listen for is how the rhythms change from one section to another. So, for example, if you are listening to popular music in “song form”, then during the verse you may have more rapid shorter notes. Then, when it comes to the chorus, you may have longer notes. Very typically, in effective songwriting, the rhythm of each section contrasts with the other sections. There’s also a place for having mixed long and short rhythms, which gives its own effect.
The notes themselves may fall right on the beat, or they may fall off of the beat—often on what is called the “and”s of the beat (because we count a beat subdivided in two like this: “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and”).
When notes fall “off the beat” and they are accented, we have what’s called syncopation. In some forms and styles syncopation is typical, while in others syncopation is something unusual.
For example, in ragtime music you have very frequent syncopation throughout the piece. It’s very clearly demonstrated in ragtime piano pieces, because the left hand plays a straight-ahead march rhythm, while the right hand plays off-beat rhythms.
In ragtime, syncopation is expected, so when the rhythm does go “straight” (falling on the beat) it’s a sharp contrast. On the other hand in classical music, syncopation is saved for special moments, so when it happens it’s more of a surprise.
So listening to whether the notes are falling “on the beat” or “off the beat” is another clue as to the genre and how the particular piece follows or defies the expectations of that genre.
Tempo
One final aspect of rhythm to consider is how fast or slow the beat is moving. This is called the tempo.
When we talk about music being fast or slow, we’re typically talking about the tempo: how fast the underlying beat is moving. Tempo can stay constant throughout a piece or it can change over time.
In classical music, changes in tempo are widely used for expressive effects, to mark a passage coming to its end.
In most popular music, the tempos are very steady throughout. If they do change, they typically change all of a sudden. For example in indie rock music, it’s common to start with somebody strumming on acoustic guitar, then all of a sudden the full band comes in at double the tempo.
When there is a change in tempo in popular music, it’s usually halved or doubled in some way, in a direct ratio to the previous tempo. In classical music and some other styles, more gradual or nuanced changes in tempo are more common. In certain genres of Greek music, for example, you find a very slow and steady increase in tempo, called “accelerando”. If you can imagine dancing to this and you’re dancing in a circle with other people, this can be very exciting as it gets faster, and faster. Again we see that connection between musical rhythm and the corresponding dance activities for which it was originally written.
Questions in Mind
Here are some questions you can use to explore Rhythm.
Keep in mind that almost all questions can be asked for the whole piece of music overall, as well as for a particular instrument, a particular section, etc.
- How fast is the music overall? Does that change over time? If so, are those changes sudden or gradual?
- Can I clap or tap along with the beat (even just in your head) and divide it into measures? Can I hear which beats in each measure are accented, for example just each “1”, or is it every “2” and “4”?
- Are one or more instruments clearly expressing that steady beat?
- Does each beat subdivide in half or into three? Can I identify the meter e.g. 4/4 or 3/4?
- How does the rhythm sit on top of that beat? Is it simple and tightly-bound, mostly placing notes right on the beat or evenly in between beats? Or is there more unusual and unpredictable note timing?
- Is the beat straight (steady and consistent) or swung (a pattern of long-short, long-short)?
- How does the tempo and rhythm compare to what’s normal for this style of music?
- How does the use of rhythm differ across instruments or musical roles?
- How important is rhythm to the musical impact of this piece? How creative and innovative has the songwriter or composer been? Is rhythm a distinctive part of this piece—or is it tackled simply in order to showcase other aspects e.g. the melody or lyrics.