In a recent article, we highlighted the topic of Rhythm and discussed a couple of elements that help us to understand what rhythm is about in music. These elements cut across different aspects of music theory, and help give an overall meaning to the concept of rhythm and its undeniable importance in music. Some of the elements discussed included tempo, time signature, accents, and meter, just to name a few.
Even though we already know that rhythm is a vital element in music, we have not been able to pinpoint some of its importance in a clear understandable manner. We can’t just say something is important without being able to list its usefulness. So this brings forth the question, Why is Rhythm important in music?
In music, rhythm serves as the driving force that propels a piece forward and provides a composition structure. The members of an ensemble would not be able to keep time without the underlying beat, time signature, and tempo. The rhythm section of most musical ensembles is responsible for providing the group's overall rhythmic framework. So having a good sense of rhythm as a musician, and having the ability to feel and maintain a steady tempo puts you halfway through the journey of becoming a great musician.
Types of Rhythm
Musicians create rhythm in the spacing between notes, effectively making these “silent” gaps play off the notes, and there are several ways this can be achieved. Here are the types of rhythm.
1. Random Rhythm: In a random rhythm, the elements or components of a piece are arranged and repeated with no specified regular intervals. The elements that make up the song may just seem misplaced or disorganized, but effectively still covey a nice sound if the composer knows what they are doing. When listening to a short part of the song or sound, the notes and rests pattern may appear random, till it is listened to in its entirety.
2. Regular Rhythm: A song with a regular rhythm basically follows the same pattern or intervals over and over again. It is usually very common in hip-hop instrumentals for ciphers and the likes. The entire piece is usually just the same loop repeating for the entire length of the track, as desired by the producer. Regular rhythms may begin to sound monotonous, but there are great songs that have been written and recorded with this kind of rhythm.
3. Alternating Rhythm: When a song has a regular rhythmic pattern and there seems to be a need to break it off the monotonous sound spectrum it possesses, creating alternating rhythms may well be a solution. Just as the name implies, alternating rhythm occurs when a song has two or regular rhythms alternating sequentially. Depending on the composer, there are different elements of rhythm that can be used to achieve this, from the most simple alternating pattern between two melody lines to a more complicated pattern switching between different rhythms.
4. Flowing Rhythm: Flowing rhythm is one that can sometimes be described as spiritual. Think of the sounds that originate from a flowing river, or from the pattern of rain falling. There are no exact depictions of notes and rests durations in this kind of rhythm, just a continually flowing piece that comes to a halt when the music stops.
5. Progressive Rhythm: A progressive rhythm is made by simply changing one element of a progression at a time as it repeats. As the progression transcends, different little elements or characters are changed or added to give the entire piece a progressive feel, building excitement right from the start of the track continually till it gets to its peak.
Rhythm in general is just a pattern in space and time. For music, it is the pattern of musical events, elements, notes, and rests, in time. A lot of rhythm types are based on a cyclic or periodic pattern or repetition of events. These are generally classified as Metric Rhythms and the period of repetition is called the measure or bar. Metric rhythm involves the subdivision of the bar into equal units marked by a pulse, called the beat. Non-metric rhythm doesn’t put these specific divisions and fixed intervals into play. They just occur additively.
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