4. What is it??
• A beat is the basic time unit within much Western music;
for example, each tick sounded by a metronome would
correspond to a beat. More technically, "the beat is the
pulse of the mensural level"[1], also known as the beat
level[2], the metric level at which pulses are heard as the
basic unit–"the denominator of the meter signature,"
admitting compound meters. Depending on the context,
beat may denote: the onset of the corresponding time unit,
a point in time, the very moment when the metronome
ticks; the complete time interval between two consecutive
taps, so to say; in popular music, the whole sequence of
individual beats (in the sense of meter, rhythm, groove, or
riddim); in hip hop music, the entire instrumental, non-
vocal portion of the song.
6. What Is It?
• RHYTHM: “The movement of music in time;
the pulse formed by the recurrence of strong
and weak beats. Rhythm is the
mostimportantelement in the immediate
recognition of musical types, styles, and forms
and the dominant element in jazz.”
Glossary. 2009. www.smithsonian.org
