Talk:Rhythm

Pitiful
Ok, this is pitiful. Rhythm is a huge aspect of music and we should have a decent page on it. I'm willing to do the initial writing (not promising any brilliance), but please help generate ideas. What needs to be on this page? I have music specifically in mind here, but other uses should be addressed as well. Of course, if you want to add the material, go for it ;) -- Merphant


 * I've started an expansion, but it's still weak. -- Merphant

Topics that still need to be addressed:

 * basic role in music
 * on beat/down beat up beat/off beat, maybe seperate articles?
 * common rhythms: rock beat, surf beat, clave, etc.
 * mention contemporary electronic music with its driving rhythm
 * Please don't lump all electronic music in with dance music. In some cases it has no percussion at all. If you are going to talk about driving rhythm then please stick to the relevant genres. sugarfish 03:03, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * more stuff that I can't think of right now

Neither musician nor educated in the subject, yet the current first sentence of the Main Page, thusly, I think is a bit incomplete, or not precisely correct (semantically and grammaticly). Current, the sentence challenged reads:

'''Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός – rhythmos, "any measured flow or movement, symmetry") is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events. '''

I inquire that REPETION is not implied nor explicit. I.e., suppose the (or a) "...length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events." went on and on and on and on .... perhaps with a repetition every few days, or months, or hours ... THAT would indeed exemplify a Rhythm, AND thus I think a complete one-liner intro sentence such as this really is missing the notion of repetition, which, in my mind, lacking repetition at some measure [pun coincidental].

Maybe more like this?'' Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός – rhythmos, "any measured flow or movement, symmetry") is the variation of the length and accentuation of a [''repetitive] series of sounds or other events.

Caught my eye as a rocket scientist, not a musician.

Thanks for your consideration, delete me when that's the thing to do.

Edward Jones Lake Tahoe, CA

Meter
Things like the down beat and, it seems, specific rhythms like clave, really belong in meter and not the more general rhythm, since, for instance, clave is always in cut time (2/2), which is a specific meter.Hyacinth

Macedonian, Bulgarian and other Balcanian Rhythms
Can anyone give any information about Macedonian, Bulgarian and other Balcanian Rhythms. They have very unusual rhythms as 7/8 (3 - 2 - 2) and 9/8 (3 - 2 - 2 - 2).

Everything I know about "Rhythm"
d:

In the most basic rock rhythm used in almost all popular music since the 50's: This is the simplest and a basic rhythmic interest and tension used in virtually all contemporary popular music: "boom-chick", and many variations exist, often formed from adding or leaving out, replacing with rests, beats. A variant of this is the familiar "boom-chick boom-boom-chick" of someone beatboxing. Meanwhile:
 * The bass drum plays on the "onbeat", 1 and 3
 * The snare drum plays on the "offbeat", 2 and 4
 * The cymbal plays the "ride", eighth notes, 1&2&3&4&
 * The bass will play supportively rhythmically and harmonically, often playing the root and fifths of chords strongly on the onbeats.
 * The rhythm guitar will play supportively harmonically and rhythmically, while adding some degree of rhythmic interest. Often an additive 12312312, or divisive/metrical 1&2-&3&-4&, rhythm.
 * The lead vocalist and lead guitar will provide more melodic and rhythmic interest, with the lead guitar often supporting the vocals. The drummer, in addition to playing variations of the main beats may augment them with fills and otherwise add rhythmic interest.

When creating variations on the main beats through subtraction or addition of notes the role of a beat in supplying amibguity and resolution relative to other beats may be taken into account. For instance, removing the important first beat drastically alters the feel of the rhythm, and is common in some reggae music.

In bossa nova, there is no offbeat, and syncopation is used in many other ways. In the most basic bossa nova rhythm: This was featured recently in a Nike commercial, in which the tired and slow cross country team being led by cheerleaders chanting, "Nobody runs like [Tommy] runs, Oh Yah!"
 * The bass drum still plays 1 and 3.
 * The clave plays the clave son rhythm, 1&2-&3&-4& 1&-2&-3&-4&.

examples & clave separation
hi.

i think that this article needs to display examples of different types of clave written in western musical notation. this would make the article much more interesting in that different clave patterns can be compared cross-culturally. no?

and i think that if undertaken this would be a significant enough expansion to warrant a separate article. peace &mdash; ishwar  (S PEAK )  16:19, 2005 May 15 (UTC)

Rythm the most important element in music
Would it be correct to say that Rhytm is the most important element in music and why?

Florence

No, that would be a subjective opinion which does not belong in Wikipedia. I could, however, be said to be "one of the most important". 213.238.233.27 (talk) 18:25, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * wouldn't that just be weasel words? Tommy has a great username (talk) 03:14, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Florence and Tommy, I agree with the anonymous commenter. Tony (talk)  03:29, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I wrote a small essay about rhythm
How wonderful it is to listen to an orchestra play, as you unleash yourself to the harmony, melody, and different timbres that characterize each instrument! However try taking out the maestro from the stage, can you imagine the chaos that will happen? Who will tell the guitarist when to stop and the vocalist when to start? Thus I believe that without doubt each element plays a very important role in creating a successful musical experience, yet rhythm is one of the most important elements of music since it is the time element.

Almost everything in our lives follows a certain rhythm, a time cycle. The sun has a time to rise and a time to set. Even the globe rotates on a certain pace. What would happen if there was no pattern for these things? What if the sun would just set in the middle of the day or the globe would just start spinning very fast? We would be lost, confused, puzzled to all these changes. It is like the orchestra without a maestro. The same applies for music, rhythm is essential to organize the time in music. When listening to music I feel the need to nod my head or pat my foot along with the beat. This is due to the organization of rhythm, which marks the character and expression of music.

In contrast the time element, rhythm, may be free. Such as the central Javanese gamelan music, but then again this free rhythm only last for the first 11 seconds, before which rhythm takes its place. The Javanese syakuhati is also an example of free rhythm, where the musician is free to improvise; hence melody plays a more important role in this case. Therefore even if the rhythm is free like in the syakuhati, there is still a time element that drives the musician to stop blowing or to prolong the blow. The strong existence of this element cannot be ignored.

Finally, every element has its own flavor to add to the richness of a certain musical composition. However, although some type of music can have a free rhythm, rhythm does exist in most types of music and plays the role of the maestro in an orchestra!

Florence

Improvement drive
A related topic, Percussion instrument has been nominated to be improved on WP:IDRIVE. Come and support the nomination there or comment on it.--Fenice 06:52, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Rhythm
For my understanding rhythm is tempo, metric and dynamic in appliance. It is not within music, not within sounds, not within melody. It is being or can be being played by itself.

Steve Miller

Steps vs. Beats
Many musical traditions from Europe and Asia have rhythms constructed out of long and short beats (or steps) rather than a regular pulse, a long step being 3/2 times as long as a short step. For instance the Bulgarian kopanitsa, given an 11/16 time signature in classical notation, is actually a five-step dance with a long step in the middle - quick-quick-slow-quick-quick (2-2-3-2-2).

I haven't put this in the main article because I am not sure of the correct terminology.

I think you guys should talk more about rhythm used in writing, ex. Shakespeare sonnets, poetry

Basics
I have revised the article to eliminate the prominence of duration, which is an extremely abstract way of understanding rhythm. It has a sorry history, and is ultimnately based in a convoluted bit of medieval theology. My definition defines rhythm on the regularity of pulse, which opens the door to undertanding rhythm's role both in dance and in song, where the rhythms of beats and the rhythms of syllables cooperate. A modest plea: please consider the practicality of these ideas before reverting to the preconception that rhythm is duration.

MWM


 * Sorry, I reverted you as you removed cited information without citing a contradictory source. Feel free to readd your point of view to the article without removing the cited information and its point of view. Hyacinth 12:34, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I reverted you again. Hyacinth 10:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Sound File Examples
Some of these rhythmic concepts are very hard to understand. Perhaps it would be helpful to put in some sound files to illustrate these terms better. Timothyreal 16:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Which concepts? Hyacinth 21:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Any sort of rhythmic concept. Not just on this page, but any page related to rhythm.  For example, on the Swung Note page, it's a bit tough to read.  Maybe if we put up an example sound file, not just that page, but other rhythm pages, it'll become clearer.Timothyreal 04:17, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

More Organization Needed
A number of comments on ths talk page indicate that a lot of people have trouble understanding this article. I think one of the problems is the seeming lack of organization. We have an introductory paragraph that provides some (conflicting) definitions for rhythm in poetry versus music, etc. Then we have a collection of seemingly random bits of information on other rhythms encountered in various cultures/composers. Then we have a collection of random quotes by various theorists, whose explanations are justifiably incomprehensible to people who have no background in music theory and are just looking to figure out what rhythm is.

I think we need a few subheadings, perhaps a basic definition followed by a short section on "rhythm in poetry" and perhaps dance or whatever else, and then detailed subheadings on rhythm in music: perhaps a "basics of rhythm in music" section with examples of various basic rhythms, then perhaps a section of a greater variety of rhythms in different kinds of music, and then perhaps a section with broader speculations by theorists -- but organized and contextualized to make it sound like more than a bunch of random quotes.

Finally, I think one important distinction needs to be made which I think is the reason behind a lot of confusion on this talk page (and in the article). The term "rhythm" is used in two different senses in music. The first is extremely general, and is the one that has the most in common with rhythm in poetry, etc. This definition is something like "the pattern of movement in time," which encompasses notions of meter, tempo, duration, accent, etc. This is basically the definition of the opening sentence of the article. Using it broadly, we can speak of such things as a "Latin rhythm" or even a "waltz rhythm" (which is more than duration -- it necessarily includes patterns of accent and meter, and usually a range of tempos), or the "rhythm of speech" (which includes accent and perhaps other features).

The second meaning of the term "rhythm" in music is closer to London's definition of patterns of duration created by interonset intervals that is given in the second sentence of the article. In this sense, rhythm is related to ideas of meter, tempo, and accent, but it is not founded on any of them. Meter is created by patterns of accent, some of which are caused by patterns of duration in agogic (durational) accents, i.e., "rhythm," while meter is also created by dynamic accents (strong versus weak) as well as melodic and harmonic components. Tempo is created by a sense of underlying pulse, which is created by patterns of duration, i.e., rhythm -- but this pulse is usually only generated by a sense of regularity. We can have rhythm in this more specific sense without a strict sense of metric organization, and, depending on how irregular the rhythm is, we may not have a sense of underlying tempo. But we cannot have meter and tempo without rhythm, because rhythm is generated any time we have events happening at different times (effectively creating duration). Whenever we have one event following another, we get rhythm. In this second sense, it doesn't make sense to speak of a "waltz rhythm," since without accents created somehow, you simply can't feel a waltz through a steady stream of quarter notes -- you need the "BOOM" to contrast with the "chick-chick." Somehow you have to group it into threes, and that only happens through accent (whether dynamic, agogic, harmonic, etc.).

Anyhow, my point is that some people who have written stuff in the article and on the talk page obviously think of rhythm in only the broad sense, which is the most common use of the word by most people (thus we speak of the "rhythm section" in a jazz band, which does more than create simple patterns of duration). But when music theorists use the term "rhythm" in a specific sense, it is often in contrast to "meter" or "pulse," even though the latter are (mostly) generated by the rhythm along with other kinds of accents. Without meter and pulse, we end up with raw patterns of duration, which is the thought behind the definitions and theories of London, Narmour, etc. One of the reasons this article comes across as so confusing is that it seems like a collection of thoughts from both categories of people, but without a differentiation between the practical use of the term and the way music theorists talk about it. To make the article more comprehensible, these two different concepts need to be made more explicit, and the various quotes and ideas need to be sorted out.

If what I've said makes any sense to people, but no one else wants to undertake this reorganization, I could take a stab at it myself. I don't think anything needs to be deleted, but merely reorganized with some further explanation added. Jzmckay 01:23, 27 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me


 * Please sign your posts on talk pages per Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks! Hyacinth 22:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Body Rhythm
Im beginig to do some research for Uni about rythm in the body and wether it is habitual or learnt, can anyone direct me to soem resources regarding this?


 * Please sign your posts on talk pages per Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks! Hyacinth 22:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

DEFINITION OF RHYTHM
As a painter, poet and philosopher my attempt to define rhythm resulted in following definition: Rhythm is the interval (disconnection) which allows creative force to implement a new element to the contents of the given work. Without this (rhythm - interval) there would be no movement, no flow, only dead matter. This is the combination of basic laws of mechanics and thermodynamics. The intervention of force is instantenous, this means that it does not consume time, time is created by reflecting on the percieved, therefore the repeatance of the force intervention is perceived as rhythm, and of course, we can adjust this repeatance to various meters, simple or complicated, and thus get various rhythms. Artists do not simply manipulate the existing matter, they create. This is what distinguishes art from other activities. (Creative work is, of course, possible in any domain of human activity, which not usually called art.) Rhythm allows distribution of matter/energy in space (painting, sculpture, dance etc.) and/or in time (thinking/speech/literature, music, motion pictures etc.) Of course, more can be said, but I think this properly addresses the problem. --Skerovic Slobodan 04:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Rhythm Only Important to Percussionists?!
"The study of rhythm, stress, and pitch in speech is called prosody; it is a topic in linguistics. All musicians, instrumentalists and vocalists, work with rhythm, but it is often considered the primary domain of drummers and percussionists[citations needed]."

This is completely incorrect. All music requires knowledge of rhythm in order to play/sing pieces of music correctly. While percussionists are stereotypically considered to be more concerned with rhythms than other things (for example: snare drum doesn't require tones, but focuses upon rhythms; however, mallets and timpani require just as much knowledge of tones and rhythms than other musicians). Therefore, this seems to me biased.

Change of wording
The paragraph currently ends off challenging readers to "Try playing Music with only melody or harmony, or both (without rhythm), it can't be done." While this may be true, it's not very good wording for an encyclopedia. I'll leave it the way it is for now, and let everyone decide whether or not this needs to be changed. Sandwiches99 06:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree; it's poor wording. It's also slightly inaccurate.  Arguably, psychological studies show that once the interonset interval between sound events becomes long enough, we can no longer create meaningful rhythmic groups.  If you held a chord for a minute, then changed the chord for a minute, then had silence for two minutes, and then had a third chord and a fourth chord coming at equally long intervals, would we be able to hear anything like "rhythm" in such a sequence of sound events?  Or what about spectral music that sometimes consists of sounds whose timbres or pitches are gradually changed or morphed without ever stopping?  There's nothing like rhythm in such sounds, and many composers refer to such an organization of sounds as music.  Such things rarely occur in folk musics or indigenous musics, although sustained chants or music consisting of rather continuous humming for religious purposes may approach this ideal of melody or harmony that moves so slowly that it might be considered arrhythmic.  So, yes, the wording should be changed, both because it is unencyclopedic and because it is (in some rare cases) wrong. 76.118.181.158 03:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Rhythm in relation to human life
Someone with good rhythm is likely to be a better athelete and a better lover. Rhythm is an important part of good sex. Thats why people go to discos and 'dance.. to show off their rhythm' to a potential mate. Someone with poor rhythm is likely to be clumsy and uncoordinated. Rhythm is also very important in speech. Someone with good rhythm puts you in a trance when they talk whereas someone with poor rhythm will be all over the place. People with no rhythm are usually non threatening and dont enjoy music as much as someone with good rhythm. James Prtenjacarhythm is the beat of music

Doubts about edit
I have some doubts about this edit. Others have already reworked the heading, commented on portions of it inappropriately, and deleted material they deemed to be "nonsense". --Atavi (talk) 17:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree, and changed the opening section back to how it used to be. The concise and clear definition is much better. Liffey (talk) 08:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

WhatTheRhythm
Maybe some of you know the site "whatthefont": You can submit any font as graphic and will get the name of the font used. Isn't there such recognition service or at least catalogue that helps to specify the name for a known ryhtm? Like: is it a tango or a mambo? This time I'd like to know the origin of a rhythm like: |....- - |- - P P | where any dot is a eighth, any hyphen a quarter beat, P is a quarter pause, 120bps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.60.5.122 (talk) 13:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The origin of rhythm
The section "Rhythm in Music" ends thus: "Another piece of evidence suggesting that rhythm is the most fundamental aspect of music is that percussion instruments were likely in use long before stringed instruments. Tribal groups dancing to music made only with percussion instruments is an ancient human practice, which reportedly continues today. The three fundamental elements of music are rhythm, melody, and harmony."

There is no citation for this claim. This "evidence" seems to overlook the primordial presence of the Human voice, which makes the ability to create melodies innate. Most tribal dances I've ever run across seem to include singing or chanting. Moreover, any audible sound has a tone, and so it doesn't make any real sense to me to try and establish the primordiality of rhythm over melody. They seem inextricably bound up and "equiprimordial".

In any case, the ever present human voice should not be forgotten: music doesn't equal sound made by instruments.

--Adynatoniac (talk) 21:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I also don't think that rhythm needs POV pushing. Hyacinth (talk) 00:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * And what does this mean: Rhythm is equivalent to "beached is brew". Sounds like gibberish to me. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 17:33, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

African music
- This simple system is now used worldwide particularly by Djembe players such as Chuck Berry and Jelly Roll Morton.

i dont think they were djembe players! or anyway they werent know for it if they were.


 * Please sign your posts on talk pages per Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks! Hyacinth (talk) 17:39, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Exact?
I have asked BeatlesSpong about the wording that keeps appearing in top section, defining rhythm as "is a series of events which occur in time in an exact relation to pulse and meter."

Web search for those words only turns up Wikipedia and its derivatives. I believe that rhythm, embodied as a human activity, gets interesting when it is not exact, much as a live drummer is often preferable over a drum machine. Pretty sure I can find a source to cite that says much of the "value" of music depends as much on some unpredictable bits, as it depends on any familiarity or exactitude.

Rather than continue what looks like a slow edit war, I'm asking for help here. Any ideas? __ Just plain Bill (talk) 22:42, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I see what may be happening here. Reading between the lines of this diff, it seems a "music theory instructor" told someone, somewhere, that the "correct" definition of rhythm is that "series of events which occur in time in an exact relation to pulse and meter" thing. That is very well, when the aim is to get musical beginners to consolidate their rhythm and avoid the rhythmic sloppiness that some unpractised musicians sometimes show.
 * It is not, however, a reliably sourced definition, and does not apply to the wider world of accomplished musicians, who may be quite precise in their inexactness. If that sounds like a contradiction, don't worry&mdash; the subject here is artistic. Often a musical piece becomes more interesting the more ambiguities and contradictions can be worked into it. Of course, it takes skill and practice to do that well. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 15:08, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you realize what you are saying. Let me make an analogy. Your girlfriend breaks up with you and you are heartbroken, you think about her all the time, it rules your life the fact that she left you after doing everything for her, your life was dictated by her wants and wishes. So you decided you won't let it be that way anymore. You purposefully go out and do everything you know she would have hated; you are finally free.....not. Everything you do is still in response to her. So your "inexactness" is merely the other side of the spectrum. You are still actively interacting with pulse and meter exactly. Music sets up expectations and the best music finds clever ways to fool you by not meeting your expectations. like being "inexact" with your "rhythms" (using a word in the definition also poor choice). SO if you are really playing in a group in something without a pulse or meter then all you are really doing is playing by yourself, you are not making music, you are just doing something that feels good to you with no consideration for anyone else; masturbating...and that's not something you do in front of people now is it?

Is there a more formal way to get onto this discussion, I will glady clean up my argument if you think that is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.119.133.250 (talk) 21:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Among everything else you just said, "Music sets up expectations and the best music finds clever ways to fool you by not meeting your expectations." stands out as a pearl of wisdom. A better "argument" would be a reliable source for the assertion that rhythm "is a series of events which occur in time in an exact relation to pulse and meter."
 * For a counterexample, see Tempo rubato. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 21:50, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

It is unfortunate but there is not a published work with this definition because our professor isn't going to write a book about it. You can trust us when we say that our professor knows what he's talking about, due to the multiple degrees in performance and conducting he has, as well as his two plus decades of post-graduate-studies work in the professional field. He has a profound understanding of the English language, as is required to truly communicate the complex studies of Theory and Conducting, which is, in turn, required of the students in order to fully grasp each concept. The end result is the fullest understanding of music in all aspects, which is EXPECTED of professionals who make a living as musicians. For any trumpet player who needs the definition explained (inside joke), I'll first restate the definition. Rhythm is a series of events which occur in time in an Exact relation to Pulse and Meter. The series of events is the actual notes, and understanding their values, i.e. Two eighth notes are equivalent to a quarter note, two quarter notes are equivalent to a half note, etc.. Occurring in time refers to the tempo of the piece, or the tempo that the performer or conductor deems appropriate after studying the music. The pulse refers to the placement of the beat and the appropriate sub-divisions, and meter obviously refers to 4/4 time or cut time and the various other time signatures standardly found in music. So, putting all this information together, we assume you have an understanding of note values, and you have a meter (let us say 4/4 time) and a decided tempo (let us say 120). The pulse happens on beats 1, 2, 3, and 4, while the participants are sub-dividing, let us say they are sub-dividing eighth notes. Now that we have a Pulse, a Meter, and the Sub-division, we can take the notes that are on the page and accurately interpret how they were intended to be played. As for the "playing with inexactness", that is completely false. No musician plays errors, and anything that might sound like an "artistic inexactness" was 100% intended and it can be written on paper to a pulse, meter, and sub-division in mind so it can be reproduced, and I guarantee that. If something isn't played with exactness, as in you played in the wrong spot and messed up a rhythm... we have a word for that. Fired. And thats the friendly definition of messing up the standards professional musicians devote their lives to. I hope this clears up a little bit, and I hope you find wisdom in these words... I could blow your mind (I hope) with the knowledge I have gained from my "Music Theory Instructor" in my time at the institution I'm attending. I'll leave him unnamed for the sake of common courtesy, but we have this page linked to his fansite on facebook, so everyone who views this page again will probably get a kick out of this...

I'll take my leave saying this. If you mess up the rhythm, it doesn't matter how beautiful your tone is, no one cares that you can play the dynamics and articulations perfectly, it doesn't matter that you spent hours practice that one difficult lick. You are playing it in the wrong place, and it has become invalid.

What are the three most important things in Music? 1. Rhythm 2. 3.

I'll send ten dollars to your address if you can guess numbers 2 and 3 Bill.

Zhpercussion (talk) 06:32, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have no doubt that Mister W (if I have read this history right) is a stellar instructor, who has inspired a lot of kids to get real with their music, and to play it right, which means playing it tight. Still, this is an encyclopedia aimed at a global audience. Are you familiar with Indian talas? Are you aware that Japanese gagaku orchestras use a free "breath rhythm" to keep themselves rhythmically together?
 * The square subdivision (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 ... with some triplets thrown in) of formal Western music cannot cover all the bases of rhythm, as it is practised and performed by accomplished musicians all over the world. Check out notes inégales for an example of rhythm written one way, and played another way, at the players' discretion.
 * Like it or not, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." Without a reliable source, the whole "in exact relation" business looks more like something used to whip junior players into shape, and less like a widely accepted definition. The lead paragraph of this encyclopedia article is for widely accepted information that applies everywhere, or at least just about everywhere. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 15:23, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Idiometric
Has anyone heard about idiometric playing of music? Has this anything to do with rhythm? --Jidu Boite (talk) 09:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Old vandalism
I've found these two very old deletions, never reverted: Do you all think it is worth recovering them? --Jotamar (talk) 19:01, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rhythm&diff=229534248&oldid=228714027
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rhythm&diff=238487435&oldid=237597649
 * The first one looks like original research in essay form. Not worth restoring, IMO. The second one had mostly been restored, with the exception of the "External links" section. I just put back what bits weren't already here. Most of the deleted external links are either dead, commercial, irrelevant, or not in English, leaving the one that I did put back. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 20:17, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. Jotamar (talk) 17:30, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Addition by 203.153.223.98
To 203.153.223.98: I have nothing against you adding to the definition of Rhythm. It's just that you changed a quote - and quoted segments should not be tampered with. If you can find an appropriate place to put your modification, please do so. --Tim Sabin (talk) 17:16, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Parrots, cockatoos, and elephants
I removed the above from the article as the paragraph didn't mention an ability. Hyacinth (talk) 22:48, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
 * However, recent evidence shows that certain parrots, cockatoos and elephants share this ability.

Commented out nonsense about hominids
I have commented out quite a bit of content that is patent nonsense. As Hyacinth noted above, science has many examples of non-human species employing rhythm. Birds are just one; there are many others (whales and rattlesnakes come to mind). We need to talk about whether any of these ideas belong in the article as this particular author is famous mostly for being wrong. Dusty |&#x1f4ac;|You can help! 19:41, 12 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, years later, there is still a bunch of weird 18th-century style crap about animals not being able to detect rhythm. My advice to whoever is pushing this crap, take a walk in the woods one time and you'll be changing your tune. ;) Certainly for an encyclopedia to be repeating this crap as if it is the current state of scientific belief is a pretty awful attack on science. Disgusting. I'm gonna take some out, but judging from the fact that the crap is even still in here, somebody will likely revert. If you're reading this in the future... please help. 76.105.216.34 (talk) 18:42, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Musical parameters in infobox
I'm not sure of the best place to ask this, but I've started a discussion over at Template_talk:Infobox_song, which essentially asks whether tempo and key should have their own parameters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.175.220.114 (talk) 19:35, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Reference formats
Sooner of later, somebody is going to want to know about this. This morning, I noticed what appeared to be a lone nonconforming reference format in parenthetical referencing style (also known as Harvard referencing style). Then I noticed another, and another, and another. Upon examining the edit history, I found that this format was established in this edit, on 5 December 2004, and has remained in place down to the present. Nearly three years later, on 5 November 2007, User:Atavi added a reference in a different style (footnoted) with this edit. There was no effort made to change the existing parenthetical references, either at that time or subsequently, as further references were added in both formats, perhaps because the discrepancy was simply overlooked (just as I did not at first notice there was more than one reference in parenthetical format). Following the procedure outlined in WP:CITEVAR, I have therefore begun changing the nonconforming footnote formats into parenthetical ones. At the same time, I have begun adding reference links between the inline references and the alphabetical list of Sources. There is a further, though smaller problem, which is that according to WP:CITESTYLE, it is not just a matter of having the inline citations in either footnote or parenthetical style, but rather one of using a consistent style within each of these global formats. At the moment, there are at least five different styles used here, jumbled together in the list of Sources, Further reading, and footnotes. It is for this reason that I am using Template:Wikicite, rather than the more frequent Template:cite book, Template:cite web, etc., or Template:citation, since wikicite permits retaining all of the diverse current formats while sorting out which one deserves to be regarded as the established one—or the one for which consensus can be obtained.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:27, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Meter vs metre
Inconsistent spelling of 'meter' vs 'metre'. 150.229.102.73 (talk) 05:21, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Unreferenced claim
"As well as perceiving rhythm we must be able to anticipate it."

Really? It's not referring to metric cycles that are entrained, but to rhythm. Tony (talk)  06:54, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Referenced claim at the top
I have major problems with the indented quote from Cooper and Meyer (1960) at the top:


 * Rhythm may be defined as the way in which one or more unaccented beats are grouped in relation to an accented one. ... A rhythmic group can be apprehended only when its elements are distinguished from one another, rhythm...always involves an interrelationship between a single, accented (strong) beat and either one or two unaccented (weak) beats.

First, there's a comma splice after "another", presumably caused by the use of the ellipsis points (which should be spaced, anyway).

Second, there are logical problems in the definition—a particular problem when only one source is relied on. Why are "beats" the focus, rather than notes? What is beaty about an 8th–16th–8th note succession? Is that not rhythm? "Are grouped" ... what, grouped to the right or to the left in a score, or either? Does "accented" refer to a phenomenological accent (Lerhahl and Jackendoff, 1983)?

Tricky subject, weird article. Pinging Tony  (talk)  08:06, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The definition obviously confuses rhythm with meter. Perhaps the operative phrase is "may be defined". Either that, or we are to understand that "beat" does not necessarily entail periodicity, but even then, are defined points in time necessary for rhythm to exist? Does a wailing siren have rhythm? What about radio static? The sounds of passing traffic on a busy highway?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:26, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes. So what to do? I think we'd be better off without that quote. Tony (talk)  04:44, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I think that quotation could be lost without doing any damage to the article. However, I have just been reviewing the content, which does nothing to contradict the quotation directly. It should not be difficult to find reliable sources that describe things like "free rhythm", "asymmetrical rhythm", or "unmeasured rhythm". I shall have a look around, and see what I can come up with. Ironically, the article Metre (music) does a better job covering these things.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:56, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
 * for ditching the quote, prominence in lead like that is also problematic stylistically, but on the whole it's just really lazy when someone could probably paraphrase a better source. Acousmana (talk) 15:53, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

pulse
Early in the article, we read "Rhythm is related to and distinguished from pulse, meter, and beats: "(note the colon). Then there is an indented text that does not include the word 'pulse' at all. This makes for poor text and should be changed. As some-one who does not exactly understand what rhythm is (despite this article), I am loath to make a change. Kdammers (talk) 14:35, 20 August 2022 (UTC)