Page 249 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Digvijay Pandya, Lovely Professional University Unit 18: Rhythm

Unit 18: Rhythm Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
18.1 Establishment of the Basic Beat
18.2 Rhythm Notation
18.3 Rhythm in Linguistics
18.4 Right Hemisphere Damage
18.5 Defining and Measuring Rhythm
18.6 Relationship of Control Participant's Results to Measures of British English
18.7 Summary
18.8 Key-Words
18.9 Review Questions
18.10 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this Unit students will be able to:
• Understand Rhythm notation
• Discuss Rhythm in linguistics.

Introduction

Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong
and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular
recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena
having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to millions of years.
In the performance arts rhythm is the timing of events on a human scale; of musical sounds and
silences, of the steps of a dance, or the meter of spoken language and poetry. Rhythm may also
refer to visual presentation, as "timed movement through space." and a common language of
pattern unites rhythm with geometry. In recent years, rhythm and meter have become an important
area of research among music scholars. Recent work in these areas includes books by Maury
Yeston, Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, Jonathan Kramer, Christopher Hasty, Godfried Toussaint,
William Rothstein, and Joel Lester.
Rhythm is made up of sounds and silences. These sound and silences are put together to form a
pattern of sounds which are repeated to create a rhythm. A rhythm has a steady beat, but it may
also have different kinds of beats. Some beats may be stronger, longer, shorter or softer than
others. In a single piece of music, a composer can use many different rhythms. Percussion
instruments have clearly defined dynamics that aid the creation and perception of complex rhythms.
In his series How Music Works, Howard Goodall presents theories that human rhythm recalls the
regularity with which we walk and the heartbeat we heard in the womb. Other research suggests
that it does not relate to the hearbeat directly, but rather the speed of emotional affect, which also
influences heartbeat. London writes that musical metre "involves our initial perception as well as
subsequent anticipation of a series of beats that we abstract from the rhythm surface of the music
as it unfolds in time". The "perception" and "abstraction" of rhythmic measure is the foundation of
human instinctive musical participation, as when we divide a series of identical clock-ticks into
"tick-tock-tick-tock".

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