What is Rhythm?

What exactly is rhythm? The answer might seem obvious, but when you try to actually put it into words, it’s not the easiest thing to define. Rhythm is something that’s inherent in all of us, everything from your heartbeat, to your walking pace, and even to sleep cycles (circadian rhythm).

Dictionary Definitions

According to Oxford, rhythm is defined as “a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound.” For the purposes of drumming and music, Oxford’s definition of rhythm is “the systematic arrangement of musical sounds, principally according to duration and periodic stress.” That second definition might be a bit trickier to wrap your head around, but it basically means musical rhythms are combinations of short and long sounds with various stresses as positioned relative to a steady underlying pulse.

The overwhelming majority of rhythms in music are quantified against a consistent unit of time, which is calculated as beats per minute, or bpm (the same way your heart rate is measured). With a steady underlying beat established, it becomes possible to create stronger and weaker pulses relative to said underlying beat. See? It’s not the most easily defined term when you really think about it!

Have you ever heard a song that made you want to get up and dance? If so, you’ve been influenced by an effective use of rhythm in music. Since the human body already makes use of natural rhythms, learning to play the drums is mostly a matter of gaining better control of your body (particularly our arms and legs) to execute rhythms in a musical way. In other words, we need to learn to coordinate bodily movements at regular intervals.

Your First Song

To begin the most basic forms of coordination, we’re going to learn Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” Chances are, you’ve heard this song before and already know the drum part. Well, it’s not REALLY a drum part, but it functions as such. All you need to do is stomp and clap! The song is linked in the video to the right, in case you’re unfamiliar. The rhythm consists of two stomps followed by one clap, where to two stomps occur at twice the rate of the clap. But how is that rhythm described in musical terms?

The overwhelming majority of music we listen to is counted in cycles of 4 beats, where each beat is an equally spaced pulse. Each cycle of beats is known as a measure. Beats can be divided into smaller parts, known as subdivisions, which allow for more expressive and intricate rhythms. Sometimes, a beat can be left blank, which is known as a rest. Rests can encompass a fraction of a beat, multiple beats, an entire measure, or multiple measures. Music requires space, too, of all different sizes!

In Technical Terms

Rhythms are primarily expressed as fractional values as they relate to 4-beat cycles. A rhythm that has the value of one full beat is a quarter note. Each quarter note is essentially one quarter of a measure since there are 4 beats per measure. A beat split into 2 equal parts yields 8th notes. There are eight 8th notes in each measure of 4 beats (4 beats split into 2 parts each). Beats can be further divided into triplets, 16th notes, and beyond, but it’s important to start with the basics!

In the setting of “We Will Rock You,” the entire rhythm is comprised of 8th notes and quarter notes. The two stomps are 8th notes occurring on beats 1 and 3, and the claps are quarter notes occurring on beats 2 and 4. (Pro tip - if you’re clapping along to a song at a concert or some kind of music event, it is almost NEVER appropriate to clap on beats 1 and 3. Trust us.) The claps on beats 2 and 4 are known as backbeats, which are usually played on the snare drum. The stomps occurring on beats 1 and 3 land on the downbeats, which provide a sturdy feel to the music. Musical ideas often begin and resolve on downbeats.

Rhythms can also be expressed using written notation. Quarter notes are written with a solid round note head with a stem extending either upward or downward (for this context, all the note stems will point up). Since 8th notes contain 2 strokes in a beat, they’re expressed as 2 solid round note heads with stems that are held together with a single beam across the top.

We can count most rhythms using a combinations of numbers and short syllables. Quarter notes are counted numerically according to the beat number on which they occur. A measure full of quarter notes would be counted as “1, 2, 3, 4,” where each count is evenly spaced. 8th notes occur directly in the middle of each beat and are typically referred to as the “and” (or “&”) of a beat. A measure full of 8th notes would be counted as “1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &.” 8th notes should be counted at twice the rate of quarter notes, essentially fitting twice as many evenly spaced notes into the same amount of space.

Getting back to the context of “We Will Rock You,” the rhythm would be counted as “1 & 2, 3 & 4.” You won’t play anything on the “&” of beats 2 and 4 so it may feel like there’s a brief pause between beats 2 and 3, and beats 4 and 1. In general, drum set music is arranged so anything you’d play with your feet is notated at the bottom, while anything played by your hands will be written more toward the middle or the top. The stomps are represented by the 8th notes written on the bottom space and the claps are represented by the quarter notes written on the third space from the bottom.

From there, learning to play the drums and other rhythms is a matter of further coordinating your hands and feet. By starting simple and gradually ramping up the complexity, your body will remember what basic repetitive rhythms and motions feel like (known as muscle memory), which makes musical expression more effortless. With enough practice, you’ll be able to play with all four limbs simultaneously!

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How to Practice Drums without a Drum Set

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The Finer Things: Advanced Hand Techniques