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 music of the Middle East spins complex rhythmic and metric patterns sequentially in a 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 of 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.
This example from Japanese classical court music, called Gagaku, has no pulse. The flute sounds like it is hovering, and you can’t predict when the drum will enter.
On the other hand, this other Gagaku example starts with a regular, recurring, and predictable bell beat that sets a pulse so even tho its a bit slow, it is easy to tell when the next beat will be.
Music that has a pulse or a beat usually also has a meter. Meter is the grouping of the pulses. As it moves through time, the pulse in music is often organized into recurring patterns. In this piece from Indonesia, we hear a steady pulse played by the metal gongs, and we can easily count “1-2-1-2” throughout the example. The next one, a song from Mexico, counts easily in threes: “1-2-3; 1-2-3.” The first one is duple, and the second one is triple. A meter that is grouped in twos is called duple meter; a meter that is grouped in threes is called triple meter.
Indonesian Gamelan (duple):
Mexican Song, “Tu, solo tu” (triple):
What is the meter of Jay Z’s song “Hard Knock Life“?
What is the meter of John Denver’s “Annie’s Song“?
To make it easier to determine what the meter of these two are, trying counting along in duple (1-2, 1-2) or triple (1-2-3) and see which one fits best. Then check here to see if you are right.
While duple and triple meter are the most common that we normally hear in The United States, they are not the only possible meters, for pulses can be grouped in any number. For example, “Take Five” is grouped in a meter of five and the song “And the Money Kept Rolling In” is grouped in a meter of Seven.
Groupings other than duple and triple are much more common outside of The United States and Europe, while duple and triple are more common here and in Europe. This Turkish Song called “Bu Dunya Bir Pencere” is in seven. You can hear the fast seven grouped in 2-2-3 best after the rhythm sections joins the initial guitar.
This Turkish song “Asik Oldur” is also in seven, but its group 3-2-2 rather than the other grouping of the previous song. It is much easier to hear this grouping in the instruments than in the voice.
This Kanjira solo (Kanjira is a hand drum from India) is in five. The first thing you hear is the five beats played on a muted cymbal, then the drum comes in. If you find the five count with the first cymbals, you can keep it going as the drum grows increasingly complex.
TEMPO is the speed of the pulse, and we simply use normal relative and comparative language to describe temp. 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 about Micky Mouse at Disney Land, we hear the pulse in the drum, and the rhythm in the voices. 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. They voices in this song carry the rhythm, the drum carries the pulse.
Frequently 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-short-long (ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-dum-bum) that then morphs into short-short-long instead of short long (ba-ba-bum). By the end of if 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 starts lower than the first.
This is the beginning of the first movement. Notice that all of the phrases are made up of the motive in one shape or another.
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 this 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 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.
AKE (A Yoruba Work Song)
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 the openings of two different versions of the same piece, Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.” in the first example, we hear that the pulses are clearly divided into equal 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2 groupings. In the second one, however, the rhythm is swung, meaning that the pulse is divided into ‘long-short long-short long-short’ instead.
In this example, pianist William Bolcom plays Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” without swing. Notice that all of the fast subdivisions are even: 1-2-1-2- 1-2-1-2. So while there is continual syncopation between the main steady beat in the lower notes and they shifting accents in the higher notes, there is no swing.
This performance of the same tune, Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” is played by Jelly Roll Morton, who really swings the rhythms. You can here clearly in this that all of the subdivisions are long-short-long-short-long-short-long-short-long. This performance has both swing and syncopation.
We can tell that this is part of our African inheritance when we listen to African pieces, like this one, in which the beats are also swung. In this piece from Ghana, the flutes on top are even, and the drums underneath are swung.
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 also highly syncopated and swung.
The Uptown String Quartet was an American group that – with their violins, viola, and cello, played jazz, R&B, and sometimes even Latin American music. This piece, with lots of syncopation is a Brazilian Samba.
Here is Aretha Franklin asking 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.
Here are two blues songs sung by Bessie Smith. One of these is swung, and one of these is straight. Listen to both of them to determine which is which.
“Frankie’s Blues”
“St. Louis Blues”
is Frankie’s Blues swung? or is it St. Louis Blues that is swung? check your answer HERE.
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 piece of Japanese theater music. As in much Japanese music, the music does not always have a meter – but as in all music- there is always rhythm.
The first section of this piece, from the beginning until 1:10, is unmetered. From the middle of the section until its end, there are occasionally drumbeats that become steady and sound as if they are trying to set a pulse, but they inevitably end up being changed in terms of tempo and their relation to the other layers around them that they can’t establish any kind of meter. The drum beats, woodblock, flute, and vocal layers all occus at unpredictable times throughout the section, without any seeming pattern or pulse to guide them. The interaction of the woodblock, voice, and flute with the underlying drum layer helps to prevent the establishment of a pulse, because even when the lower drums seem to be trying to establish a meter, the random interjections made by the other layers manage to throw it off.
In the next section, a chorus of voices enters as well as a string instrument, and finally a pulse is established for a brief while in duple meter, with the pulse mainly being kept by the string instrument shamisen. The voices also help to establish the pulse, but they move at a faster speed and with more variation in the duration of their notes. The shamisen plays almost exclusively in quarter notes and eight notes, which provide the background that the singers need in order to find the pulse of the section. Near the end of the section, both the shamisen and the voices slow down, and the slower tempo for each layer, combined with the two layers not being perfectly in sync, throws the meter off balance and seems to take the piece back to an unmetered pulse.
In the next section, the vocal part does not seem to be metered, and there are no other layers underneath it to establish a pulse, until the shamisen enters shortly after. However, neither the shamisen, drum, nor flute layers that enter seem to establish any kind of pulse or meter, even though the shamisen is playing at a similar speed and style as in the previous section. The juxtaposition of the shamisen and drums is the one that helps most to define the section as unmetered, as the shamisen and voice move closely together but their pulse is undermined by unpredictable drumbeats. As the vocal part continues with fewer interjections from the instruments underneath them, it becomes more obvious that the section is unmetered, as even a single layer without any interference from other instruments cannot find a pulse or steady tempo.
ELEMENTS OF MUSIC 